The birth of the Vezanne project
Malicorne and its slumbering earthenware
Malicorne-sur-Sarthe. A village, stories, a faience heritage.
Our stronghold
My family and I live in a house in the heart of the village, in the faïence city, on the banks of the Vézanne, a small stream that flows into the Sarthe.
The art of faience
Since 1747, a large number of master potters have worked in Malicorne, including Jean Loiseau, Léon Pouplard, Émile Tessier, and Roger François. Thousands of works of art and craftsmanship have emerged from the kilns. Some pieces still exist, passed down from generation to generation, others are found awaiting a new life in flea markets, and still others return to a fragmented state, destroyed.
In the past, a large number of chipped or broken ceramics were thrown by the potters into the gardens and into the stream, the Vézanne, which runs alongside the earthenware factories and village houses. The elders of Malicorne tell us that these pieces of earthenware, these shards, were very useful and served as backfill and allowed the garden soil to be aerated. That is why, even today, it is not uncommon to find shards buried underground for many years.
During the long period of the first lockdown in spring 2020, Garance, my 7-year-old daughter, enjoyed digging in the garden soil. She searched for hours, turning over the vegetable patch with her tools, like an archaeologist looking for vestiges buried for so many years.
It was a game for Garance and her little brother Grégoire. They put the shards in their bucket. Then they washed them delicately with a brush. Before our amazed eyes appeared different colors, fragments of decorations...
They collected them and sorted them by decoration and color.
Why Vezanne?
At the bottom of our garden flows the Vézanne, where we found shards from Léon Pouplard.
These ceramic fragments have remained in a very good state of preservation. While the enamel has certainly suffered the effects of time and is patinated, the Breton-themed motifs dear to Léon Pouplard remain splendid and finely crafted.
THE creation
From this treasure, dormant and buried underground, came a strong desire to give it new life and a new aesthetic.
Upcycled ceramics.
It was an obvious choice.
It was a turning point, a sign. The time had come for me to tell the story of earthenware in a new way and to sublimate it.
Thus, the concept was born.
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