Virginie Crête
- ab-lambert
- May 25, 2023
- 2 min read
Updated: Mar 23
Fragility has its reasons.
As a ceramist for the past ten years, I shape clay as one tames the unpredictable. This deeply living medium draws me into an intimate dialogue where textures and contrasts intertwine to reveal that elusive thing we call unpredictability. From this exploration of possibilities emerge forms guided by an almost organic intuition. Under my drypoint, lines and motifs reveal themselves, sometimes engraved on the raw material, sometimes through the delicate layer of colored terra sigillata that envelops my pieces.
My creations are part of what I like to call Laurentian Pottery: pottery nourished by flora, landscapes and my daily life in Sainte-Adèle. Inspired by the natural world around me, I carve imprints on clay, borrowing from botany and fragments immortalized in macro photography. Each piece is an encounter between the memory of the gesture and the force of the moment, a story told by the material itself through small, sensitive narratives.
My work with clay has been deeply nourished by learning from and exchanging invaluable experience with Lyse Fleury, a renowned potter and mentor whose influence goes far beyond the technical aspects of the medium to touch the very essence of my practice. It was with her that I learned to feel deeply the living, unpredictable nature of this medium. Together, we shared this humility in the face of a fundamental truth: the masterpiece is never the one we shape, but the clay itself. Thus, my practice revolves around a quest for balance between nature and matter, between the predictable and the unpredictable. Through intuition and exploration, I pay homage to this intimate relationship where clay, the medium of slowness, always has the last word.
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