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REVUE DE LA CÉRAMIQUE ET DU VERRE - Septembre/Octobre 2004 - N° 138
Sylvian Meschia
Sylvian
Meschia was born in Algeria in 1952, but was to leave its
sunbaked landscape and memories when he was 13. It was as a schoolboy
in the Toulouse region that he discovered modern art, thanks to philosophy
teacher and painter Bentajou, who introduced him notably to abstract painters
of the Paris School, such as Soulages, Tapiès or Hartung. These
were some of the artists who brought to the public eye a form of spacial
dynamics and expression through “ a new, different morphology
”, as the critc Michel Tapié wrote in 1960.
He met the master crafstman glassmaker Henri Guérin, who guided
him towards pottery and sent him to learn his trade in the workshop at
the Benedictine Abbey of Tournay, where he learnt to throw with Brother
Jean-Baptiste.
The early 70s meant a return to his roots for Sylvian Meschia, who went
back to Tunisia in North Africa, travelling far and wide on a moped and
stopping to take an intensive course in throwing whenever he came across
a potter’s workshop. From there to England, the homeland of Leach,
to complete his apprenticeship before returning to France and becoming
a stage manager for the Avignon theatre festival for the next seven years.
He finally settled in Rieux-Volvestre, near Toulouse in 1981, setting
up his studio in a converted farmhouse.
Berber-Asian Fusion
These voyages of discovery of the world and of ceramics are reflected
in Sylvian’s work today, where Asia is just round the corner from
the Berber country. It is a journey which now seems an obvious one to
make for anybody wishing to penetrate the spirit of ceramics. No-one can
choose to ignore what was done in the past any more than what is happening
in the present if they hope to contribute their own small brick of innovation
to the edifice of art. One might say Who cares about innovation, but this
would be wrong as we can only appreciate old, traditional forms by comparing
them to something else and that means innovation.
For ceramists, speaking of this raises the age-old problem of the opposition
between art and craft. It will no doubt reassure some people if I say
that for myself, what one currently sees produced as “ art which
counts for nothing ” is no more than crafstmanship, that is,
reproducing worn-out forms and concepts that have been around these 30
or 40 years, all of it the product of dominant thinking . As for the idea
that “ art is a matter of dates ”, one can say that
since 1985, with the end of “ figurations ”, “
Movidas ”, “ Transvanguardia ” and
all that, there has been nothing to signal a renewal in ideas and forms.
Malraux said that “ The 21st Century will be spiritual or will
not be at all ” , though for the moment it is Dali who is right,
for he said “ The 21st Century will be soft and hairy ”.
Let us hope that this soft and hairy humus will be the one in which new
plants will flower… which is a way of saying what a tangled and
hirsute situation sloppy thinking creates.
In all cases, modesty must be our watchword, knowing that we are but tiny,
Buddha-like particles of clay in the face of immensity and of time and
Sylvian is, like every potter, brought back down to earth, to the clay
which is humility itself.
Centring, concentrating...
What is new about the work of Sylvian Meschia, is the way he manages to
synthesise some of the great pictorial and literary moments of our time,
as though it were no longer a matter of inventing, but of organising and
arranging the heritage left by those who deciphered the early 20th century,
as if to set in train both technically and materially the fusion between
cultures, mingling and enhancing each other, in a kind of loving chemistry
that brings them together, whilst preserving their original differences.
His principle point of reference is the girating centre of gravity of
the potter’s wheel; it is his chant, his voice, his way. Just as
singers talk of the famous “ column of air ” which
rises, propelling the voice in a powerful bodily expression, so it is
with the the force of the thrower, making pots as they have been made
over the ages. “ I make only thrown pieces. With time working
at the wheel has become a daily exercise, a ritual, a way of making contact
with my inner centre, after the initial warming up session that kneading
the clay provides… ”
Meditation thus begins first thing in the morning, centring the clay,
concentrating, becoming Zen, just as one might walk round a cloister,
mow a meadow, watch the rain trickling down a misty window or doze off
on a camel’s back… Ceramics seems to encourage meditation,
the clay a source of inspiration, and if the whole thing is to work to
perfection the pot must not be a crackpot, but full of intelligence, reflecting
the soul of its creator. It bears the trace, at once dynamic and fixed
by the firing, of its handler, humble though masterly, putting the pot’s
usefukness before his own egocentricity. In this way the pot becomes fleetingly
the centre of the earth, moving totally into the foregound, oblivious
to any other existence, thinking only of that moment of elevation (this
is my body!), as its sides are raised around a hollow cavity in a highly
controlled spinning movement.
This is how Sylvian Meschia’s pitchers come into existence. They
are tall and slender, plump and curved: handsome, mature women, water-keepers,
enemies of the sun. They bear pseudoscripts, which counterfeit speech
and discourse. Here they are freed of their power of transmission to become
simply assembled forms which filter the object described through a graphic
grid. For clearly the speech is about the pitcher and the pitcher itself
speaks of life. Here, the pleasure of writing outweighs the enjoyment
of the text, making its mark on the cherished body as the script swarms
across the clay form and the colours mingle. A kind of duality, or tension
is set up between the meditative, painstaking, learned alchimy of the
work and this gesture which is rapid, abrupt, violent; something which
comes close to the gestural lyricism of action painting or to free jazz,
taking the risk of random, yet definitive brush strokes, or leading the
dance, bamboo in hand, with the same intensity, over smaller pieces. Bearing
in mind that the prelude to all this is long hours of work on paper or
fabric, preparing the designs by perfecting the gestures, rhythms and
handling of the the paintbrush which, like katana or takouba (the names
for Japonese or Tuareg sabres) cut firmly into the freshly-glazed pots.
The Latin and Muslim worlds come together here, the former addressing
the Pope, the latter God directly, which is what gives such extraordinary
perfection to the work of this artist, as he gathers momentum, moving
over the surfaces, cutting relentlessly into the clay, drunk on his own
writing, as though in the darkness the cries of the Muezzin were vyeing
with the ringing of churh bells. The Orient is reinvented as Arabesque,
Romanesque and Gothic styles blend.
Forms which belong to the collective
memory
“ I like forms which belong to people’s memory ”,
explains Sylvian. He throws pots every day, always producing his own clay,
made up of three different ones: a white clay from Limoges, an unctuous
one from Salernes in Provence, a pliable one from La Bisbal in Catalonia.
This obscure, but essential job takes place in his spacious workshop,
lit up alternately by warm, yellow and cold, white light. “ My
equipment and matrials are reduced to the very bare minimum, not so much
to be economical as in a gesture of brotherhood with the travelling workshops
of North Africa, where I learnt my craft and where I hope to return. It’s
a necessity born of the need to travel light ”.
We have mentioned the pitchers, but there are also the tiles, so many
precious paintings, like illuminated texts, there are the lidded caskets
waiting to be filled with jewels, exotic perfumes or secret letters, dishes
where lyrical, black brushstrokes unfold against a background of Mediterranean
ochres and blues. The bold colours are intensely present and the textures
follow subtly behind, rough or granular, translucent or smoothly shining.
Sylvian Meschia was already well known for his superb collection of marbled
designs. This technique, which was originally a Mediterranean one, has
retained all its decorative magic and is as captivating to the eye today
as it must have been for our forefathers. In pursuing this tradition and
going as far as it is possible to do within this traditional framework,
he is performing a work of renovation by adding his own virtuoso skills
and just a hint of mystery to these “ simples ” just
as he does with his more learned forms.
Michel Batlle
TECHNICAL NOTES
The thrown pieces are coated with a white engobe, then fired
a first time at 1000° after drying out. They are then covered successively
with several more coats of engobe (usually five) coloured with different
oxydes, which are then engraved while still fresh with a sharpened bamboo,
revealing the white underneath, before a second firing. Finally, the pieces
receive a transparent glaze containing silica and kaolin before a third
firing at 1050°. The matt finish on certain surfaces is obtained by
using a hot wax reserve before glazing.