More than 40 years ago, I knocked on the door of a ceramist in Lille, who welcomed me and taught me the construction of electric kilns, the mastery of kilning large pieces, the knowledge of clay and glazes... Since then, this passion has never left me.My work as a ceramist focuses on two major themes: sculpture and decorative pieces, particularly vases.Stoneware has become my preferred raw material, offering a wide range of natural hues and textures.In my work as a ceramist, I use almost no glaze, just occasional glazes tinted with natural oxides.My aim is to exploit and enhance the natural beauty of stoneware.To do this, I work a lot with texture, imparting relief to thin slabs of clay; I work in single-kilning (economical and ecological) and have developed cold finishing techniques, after kilning; for these, I use very basic materials: polish and wood varnish; I already used these techniques over twenty years ago, and pieces I made back then show that this type of finish stands the test of time very well..My sculptures are based on this process; I work them thematically, with travel and women as the main themes; my main themes to date are: Nomad, Fantasy, Femina, Mother and child, totems.I work purely on instinct, want and intuition, I don't try to analyze my work, I just express my feelings.Clay is a wonderful material for me because it allows me to model it (unlike wood or stone); when I start a sculpture, I only have a general idea of what I want to do: the theme, the size, the general movement... Then, I tend to say that I do half the work and the clay guides me through the other half.My inspiration is just a figment of my imagination; it doesn't come from other artists, or else unconsciously, as I scour Instagram a lot where I discover drawings, paintings, photographs, sculptures... that call out to me.In addition to the artistic work involved in creating my sculptures, I need to master a number of techniques related to the material: holding the piece in place during production, drying and kilning; for these two stages, the difficulty lies in the juxtaposition, on my pieces, of both very thin and very thick parts.Bernard Maille - Ceramic artist+33 (0)7 86 79 36 57ceramiquebm@gmail.comAtelier : near Saint-Quentin - Hauts-de-FranceSiren: 408 591 949 Artist-Author
