PROFESSIONAL CAREER - BEFORE 2003
I regularly practised pottery and ceramics during about thirty years (since 1981), before doing it professionally and rocking resolutely in an approach dedicated to ceramic sculpture.
In 1981, I was initiated with ceramics by Jean-Pierre Chollet. At the time, he was not yet the professional of the ceramics which he already intended to become, and he took care of the little “club” of pottery at the place where I carried out my scientific military service (at the CEA of Bruyère le Châtel France). Jean Pierre carried then out his ambition, against winds and baited tides, and this example is obviously linked with my decision to follow his path, about twenty years after him.
Hooked by this first contact and fascinated by high temperature firings, I quickly (1983) installed a workshop of pottery at my home, built a foot-wheel and an electric kiln, and begun a personal work. My production was merely around ash-enamels on sandstone-bowls. I practised very regularly this activity, in parallel of a career of engineer in industry, finding a balance which satisfied me between the rigour of my professional occupation and relative imagination and freedom in the search of ceramic forms and new enamels.
A family drama shook my life in 1992, probably sowing the seed of my future professional metamorphosis.
I became concious that I "did" my engineer's task in the technical field, but i was not "living" it.
Even if I did the job well enough, that the social satisaction was enjoyable, and that I could hope for a gratifying future, I had to admit that I "was" not an engineer, or at least not enough to fill up my life enough...
Consequently, my objective was to prepare this radical evolution aiming at a trade which would allow me of get back my own self and to let live an artistic sensitivity choked up to then.
An activity in connection with the terra cotta is then considered as an obviousness (what is probably not without relationship with the fact that my “Master” and friendly Jean-Pierre Chollet, tracing the way, had carried out this same transformation 20 years earlier). For me, gestation was done very slowly, gradually, but resolutely.
Since end of the Nineties, the way towards what will lead to my trade of sculptor is imagined; It remains necessary for me to live old dreams of professional expatriation, while preparing the cocoon in which I would have to transform myself thereafter.
In 1981, I was initiated with ceramics by Jean-Pierre Chollet. At the time, he was not yet the professional of the ceramics which he already intended to become, and he took care of the little “club” of pottery at the place where I carried out my scientific military service (at the CEA of Bruyère le Châtel France). Jean Pierre carried then out his ambition, against winds and baited tides, and this example is obviously linked with my decision to follow his path, about twenty years after him.
Hooked by this first contact and fascinated by high temperature firings, I quickly (1983) installed a workshop of pottery at my home, built a foot-wheel and an electric kiln, and begun a personal work. My production was merely around ash-enamels on sandstone-bowls. I practised very regularly this activity, in parallel of a career of engineer in industry, finding a balance which satisfied me between the rigour of my professional occupation and relative imagination and freedom in the search of ceramic forms and new enamels.
A family drama shook my life in 1992, probably sowing the seed of my future professional metamorphosis.
I became concious that I "did" my engineer's task in the technical field, but i was not "living" it.
Even if I did the job well enough, that the social satisaction was enjoyable, and that I could hope for a gratifying future, I had to admit that I "was" not an engineer, or at least not enough to fill up my life enough...
Consequently, my objective was to prepare this radical evolution aiming at a trade which would allow me of get back my own self and to let live an artistic sensitivity choked up to then.
An activity in connection with the terra cotta is then considered as an obviousness (what is probably not without relationship with the fact that my “Master” and friendly Jean-Pierre Chollet, tracing the way, had carried out this same transformation 20 years earlier). For me, gestation was done very slowly, gradually, but resolutely.
Since end of the Nineties, the way towards what will lead to my trade of sculptor is imagined; It remains necessary for me to live old dreams of professional expatriation, while preparing the cocoon in which I would have to transform myself thereafter.
Une activité en rapport avec la terre cuite est rapidement envisagée comme une évidence. Mais en moi, la gestation s’est faite très lentement, progressivement, mais résolument.
Dès la fin des années 90, la voie vers ce qui aboutira à mon métier actuel de sculpteur est imaginée ; il me reste d’abord à réaliser de vieux rêves d'expatriation professionnelle, tout en préparant le cocon dans lequel j’aurais à me transformer par la suite.