Greg-Ceramics, Pot pour Bonsai

I studied arts and communication to become Graphic Designer, a profession I worked in an agency from 1996 to 2004, and as a freelancer from 2004 to 2015. Since I was 3, I have always wanted to be a "draftsman", and I have never had any doubt about my future. Creation in all forms has always been a necessity and a vital need. And naturally, since my earliest childhood, I have tried all forms of art including bonsai.

Passionate about small trees since adolescence, it was inevitable that one day my need to create goes beyond the simple plant, and one day that I find myself with a block of clay in the hands.

Although I had the opportunity to do some modeling in art school, I didn't have potter training, I am a self-taught who landed in the clay by chance …

In summer 2011, my daughter had a potter's wheel as a present, with a piece of clay and she had the misfortune to leave me a piece.. Bing! 2 weeks later, I bought a little more clay and I was making my first pots, and I thought I was not doing it too badly. Re-Bing !! 1 month later (after much thought) I ordered a first small kiln and read everything I could find on the pottery.

With the investment in this first kiln, there was no way now to give up. After the enthusiasm of the first pots that seem easy, followed by months of learning, alone in my corner, the nose in the clay and the few books that I could find… Difficult learning, because pottery is a difficult art, as technical as artistic. MBut with perseverance and after many failures, I ended up mastering a little gestures. Work and learn alone is longer, I made all the possible mistakes, but all those mistakes make me progress. Today when I make a gesture, a technique, I don't do it because someone told me to do it this way, but I know the consequences of doing otherwise ...…

For months I made pots twisted, broken, deformed, and I had to cling to not give up.

January 2012, I do my "Coming-out" and show my first work. The returns are encouraging and push me to continue.

In the course of 2012, my technique improves, my style begins to become clearer, and friends ask me for first pots… I had a goal to learn ceramics quietly during 2 or 3 years, but everything accelerates and in May 2012 I become officially a professional potter-ceramist.
Faced with the growing demand, I finally made the choice in 2015 to stop my activity as illustrator and to make pottery my only activity.

Since then I continue to learn, to evolve, and the further I go, the more I realize that I do not know anything, and that the universe of ceramic has no limit other than that which we have imposed themself.

I search, and sometimes I find…
I am disappointed, often…
I am surprised and enthusiastic, sometimes…
Today, I look with amusement (and also with a little fright!) the pots of my debut, and I can not wait to see my current pots with this same look.…

Gregory Delattre