Chantal Auger - From function comes beauty

Chantal Auger had a passion for ceramics from a very early age: "I wanted a job that required as much mental effort as manual labor. When I walked into a pottery workshop at the age of 17, I knew that this is what I would do with my life." She did her training at the School of Fine Arts in Aix-en-Provence and at the Cégep in Old Montreal. For four decades she has refined her art.

Her passion for the craft has not wavered and she still appreciates, as she says "the full and sole responsibility for the creation, from clay to finished product." "The education that gives the material its requirements, constraints ... This craft requires the conscious presence of the whole being, body and soul, "she says.

She uses both stoneware and porcelain to create utilitarian pieces in relation to food. Her glazes are made from a clay base which the kiln, with its alchemical power, reveals as simple and rustic character.

She has a great respect for Eastern philosophies, particularly the aesthetics of the tea ceremony. In her work the function creates the form and usefulness creates beauty "... as I'm working on a tea bowl or a coffee cup, my preoccupations concern the function of this object, how it is held, how it adapts to the lips to drink, how it rests, elegance, fluidity of form." Tea and infusions guide the design and manufacture of her teapots, in order to arrive at a finished object she will be proud of: balanced and perfectly meeting its function.

From the book by the potter Bernard Leach, she quotes this phrase (from the Song of Hindu potters) which found a place in her studio and in her heart at the beginning of her career and has never left it since, "Oh! My heart! Be not like the wheel, but be as the center of the wheel which stands at rest. Though the wheel turns so actively, it is because the center is stationary. "

LOCAL POTTERS

Meet the Quebec artisans who are passionate about the objets and art of tea. Every two months, pieces by a different designer will be presented in this unique showcase, giving you the chance to enjoy the great quality and diversity of the work of some of our local potters.