Gisele Buthod-Garcon
Montagne
2005
65 cm high
‘The black square is for me the first monochrome, because the white which surrounds it acts as a frame.’
Jean -Claude Marcade on Malevitch
(Le Monde, Nov 1st, 98)
And what is at the back, the background itself, becomes the frame. For this is the desired effect. The background is untouchable when the motifs stand out dangerously through the alchemy of fire, a burning white which cracks when it is suddenly plunged into the kiln.
Motifs which are revealed include stains (I could say mildew as if the white were somehow biologically alive), small cracks and discolouring.
A frame when the motifs are drawn by the paintbrush dipped in oxide. A voluntary gesture which follows the continuously broken line and which fills the tiny, almost invisible gap. Suddenly this becomes the motif, mastering and controlling the drawing.
‘White is the dissolution of the world in eternal rest, a state close to Zen, a colour of conciliation of the contradictions of nature and culture’.
J.C. Marcade op.cit
On Terra Viva Gisele Buthod-Garcon surprised her world by forgetting the gilt and the black at the back of her studio and only presenting white, nearly white or entirely white.
‘More feminine’ said some (talking of course of ceramics). ‘Unexpected’, muttered others - somewhat disappointed at not noticing the vivid colours at first sight. I do not see what a piece of pottery can have which can be termed masculine or feminine. It is in vain that I have turned the pot round in all directions: I see angels. As far as the unexpected is concerned, it is in more cases the pot rather than the pottery.
To conceive as to how a creation will turn out is to ask the artist not to live, not to travel, not to love. (Above all be good and do us some gilt - you know the secret of it).
For Gisele, white is perhaps the colour of reconciliation and of peace, quite simply expressed in the earth, in it’s language. Is ceramics itself not the art of conciliation of contradictions between nature and culture? The earth is worked and trod down to b cultivated. It is turned and burnt to serve a culture. Is there not already a contradiction/ conciliation in these words? So, earth covered in white.
‘Their unfinished appearance, which the imagination of the viewer will complete, generates beauty. Furthermore, their use in everyday life heightens their refinement and reveals their high artistic value.’
Suzuki Osamu
I remember an evening with Gisele Buthod-Garcon and Jean-Paul. Each had received a bowl as a present. By chance. They both received a bowl which suited them. They were going to complete the bowl by living with it. I therefore had this amazing sense of justice. It was some weeks later that I discovered the work of Suzuki Osamu (on the advice of Gisele Buthod-Garcon, by the way).
To compare the two creations would be absurd; but there is a wire between them, a white wire.
Centuries of traditions and experiences, dozens of workers in the studio of a master who perpetrates the soul of his country - here, again, an obvious justice.
From the other side of the world; a woman with her own experience and her own tradition (one single worker her most fervent admirer) and occasionally the same incompleteness, the same evidence of form and of colour.
I really think that white is the colour of perfection. For all the imperfections it reveals there are occasionally the most beautiful signs one can read. Printed in the clay are some of the most wonderful sins one can experience.
‘Most of the time, hardly the pieces gone than I say to myself: ‘It’s not there yet, it won’t do.’ Confronted with reality, I have to reassure myself by promising myself that the next firing will be the right one.’
This is not a quotation from a letter by Gisele Buthod-Garcon, it is the introduction by Shimizu Uichi to the catalogue of his works. But it is also a saying of Gisele’s. It is the saying of a potter who refuses to go where others expect him to go. This is because their work is ahead of time.
No clay put to the flame, plunged burning under the kiln will ever be completely white and this is so much the better. If this were not the case, poetry would be an angel, to the great detriment of its only worker, its more reliable creator.
And so we look forward to the next firing.
Arnaud Maurieres