Talbert Pipes Life in France Adventures Marché de Potiers A lively day at the pottery market Marché de Potiers Warning - LOTS of pictures, LONG download! Note: All pictures shown were taken with the express permission of the artisans whose work is displayed. Each year the town of Herbignac hosts the Marché de Potiers, a weekend-long exposition on the grounds of the Château de Ranrouët. This is our local castle ruin and specific pictures of it can be seen elsewhere on our site at Château de Ranrouët. We took the afternoon off and drove out to visit the show, and found it to be not at all what we had expected. First, it was huge - much larger than we'd been expecting from the size of this small town. Potters had come from all over - Brittany, England, Ile-de-France, Midi-Pyrénées, Normandy, Provence, and the Rhone-Alpes plus many other areas. Secondly, the quality of work on display was very impressive. In the US, events of this sort have a tendency to be mostly country-craft-kitsch, filled with bored elderly ladies selling tables full of black velvet paintings of Jesus framed in lacquered macaroni. This was altogether different - there was excellent artwork on display and the show was made up of full-time professional potters whose work spoke for itself. Having a genuine 900 year old castle in the background added loads of atmosphere and the whole thing came off like some sort of medieval fair and carnival market, with fascinating stuff everywhere and lots of bizarre pottery musical instruments in use - many strange ceramic horns and flutes. Children were running everywhere playing their wang-dooglers and flam-flimmers. This isn't going to be an "adventure" per se, since it's mercifully free of the sort of death-defying escapes and harrowing drama that used to accompany things as simple as a trip to the post office. What follows is mostly just a pictorial story of the show with a few comments here and there. At the entry we were greeted by an area filled with "play them yourself" musical instruments of various exotic functions. There was a wall of ceramic fish heads, each of which had an airpipe out the back of it, all of which went out to a pile of squeeze-air-bellows things - you squeezed the various rubber bellows parts and the different fish would hoot and whistle according to their individual notes. There were chimes, horns, drums, and more. Above, you see Emily playing a set of strange reed-drums - each pot had a thin reed sticking up from the center. When one moistened one's fingers and rubbed the reed, the pot would emit deep sustained booming sounds that varied. A view of the entry courtyard, surrounded by the ancient stone outbuildings of the castle just beyond. Prominently seen here is the booth of potter Pierre Terquem, about whom more will be said below. The courtyard area was filled with potters' booths and displays, among them... The pottery work of England's Sean Miller. This was his first time at the show and he'd stopped by our shop earlier to buy himself a corncob pipe as a souvenir... a lucky stop, as it rained all day Saturday and he hadn't brought an umbrella, so we loaned him ours so he wouldn't end up a drowned potter by the end of his first day. Excellent glazing work from Pierrette and Jean-Paul Soulet, who had a beautiful booth full of all sorts of colorfully glazed ceramic birds and ocean scenes. The stunning work of Pierre Leroy Terquem. We boggled over his creations for a long time and wished we had the money to buy most of it - the work was incredible, and ranged from detailed tabletops and chairs to wall masks and dishes. See the detail picture below for an up-close example of the sort of imaginative motifs he employed on his glazed works of art. I wasn't expecting music at a pottery show but there were trumpet sounds and flute tunes coming from every direction. The variety of musical instruments made from simple clay was wonderful I can't even imagine how the makers transported these giant pots out into the middle of the rough field, but they made quite an impressive display. I tried to convince Emily to belly-dance out of one but had no luck... Last but certainly not least is Richard Dewar and his wife whose name I unfortunately cannot remember, so we will call her Lady Dewar. Richard is English also and lives not too far from here, where he has his pottery workshop and apparently a musician's studio as well - Richard is a bluegrass singer! He plays in a bluegrass band made up of several Englishmen, a French Breton, and a fellow from New Jersey (for "authentic American bluegrass flavor"?). This was completely bizarre and startling to me, being from bluegrass-happy North Carolina (where Richard has traveled widely, and plays regular concerts). It was sort of like discovering a Japanese band playing traditional Irish folk music! He and his wife were bouncy and great fun, and we hope to see them again someday, especially since I want to hear one of his English/French bluegrass CDs now... Besides, now I finally know someone who can make me a proper-sized beer mug!