23Aug

Jarlov with love for Vietnamese pottery

TT - The more he learned, the more his love for Vietnamese pottery grew in François Jarlov's heart, and one day he decided to choose his wife's hometown, Tien Giang, as the place to start his creations.

The garden of Go Cong (Tien Giang) will have a pottery kiln made from local alum soil? A few years ago, no local elders believed it. But now everyone is amazed when they see with their own eyes the teapots, cups, plates, vases and many other smooth, shiny and eye-catching table decorations. They are even more surprised to know that these products were created by the hands of the son-in-law François Jarlov from Provence, on the distant Mediterranean coast of France...

The fateful handshake

In 2000, through the French Language and Civilization Center in Hanoi, painter and ceramic artist François Jarlov (born in 1959) came to Vietnam for the first time to teach traditional Japanese Raku pottery making techniques to lecturers of the sculpture department at the Hanoi University of Fine Arts. After that reunion, the two words VN "captivated" François, urging him to make a journey across the S-shaped strip of land, and then four years later people saw him appear at the Institute for Cultural Exchange with France (HCMC), then the HCM City Museum of History as a presenter for his own fine art works.

"I am happy to do something miraculous: using the alum soil of my wife's hometown Tien Giang to make high-class ceramic products according to the Provence technique of my hometown"
Also in this year, he published a book about Vietnamese culture and history through the perspective of young people living in Hanoi, Hue, Da Nang, and HCMC. With his beautiful fairy-tale-like photos and watercolor paintings, François brings readers genuine emotions and real stories about the places he has visited. Following François' activities, Phan Thi Thuy Mai, a girl from Go Cong, working in the field of publishing and art exhibitions in Saigon, could not help but be surprised and admire the talent and heart of the foreign artist. Unable to contain her admiration, Thuy Mai, using the French she learned as a student at the Foreign Trade University, boldly praised François's works.

The friendship between the two gradually grew. Then they joined a trip to the land of pagodas. The first trip abroad for the girl from the West would not have been worth mentioning if there had not been an unexpected situation: when going through a steep road, Thuy Mai almost slipped. While she was struggling, at that moment François reached out his hand. "At that moment, my body felt like an electric current ran through it, and I knew that from now on, on the rest of my life, I would hold her hand tightly" - François likened.

After the wedding, François and his wife sometimes worked hard at their family pottery workshop in Provence (France), sometimes traveled from Europe to Asia, busy with teaching activities, ceramic and painting exhibitions.

Traveling a lot, meeting a lot, François and Thuy Mai asked themselves the question: Why not create a separate brand for Vietnamese pottery so that the world knows more about Vietnam? In search of an answer to this seemingly simple but difficult question, François and his wife spent nearly two years traveling to famous pottery villages across the country to learn how to make products, from choosing soil, molding pottery, glazing to the process of firing the kiln and cooling the product. The two also spent a lot of time going to art museums, ancient temples and pagodas to see with their own eyes and touch the ancient ceramic products that Vietnamese artisans created hundreds, even thousands of years ago. The more he learned, the more his love for Vietnamese ceramics grew in François's heart, and one day he decided to choose his wife's hometown, Tien Giang, as the place to start his creations. "He told me that he wanted to use ceramics to recreate life in Vietnam and the Vietnamese people, then bring those artistic products to exhibitions and introduce them to international friends. Of course, I agreed with both hands," Thuy Mai said.

Patient to the end

The house at 342B Thien Chi, Vinh Binh town, Go Cong Tay (Tien Giang) is very cozy, with the sound of children, designed as a showroom for ceramic products. Next to it is a laboratory with countless types of glazes, raw materials, turntables and even mini kilns for modeling and coloring. "Some books are written about my ceramics, but I want the ceramic products to speak for themselves. It will be a very long story, because to have a satisfactory work requires a very high level of precision in every stage and above all, patience, extreme patience" - François Jarlov begins the story.

Ceramics are like women!

"Beautiful ceramics are like women, they must meet two criteria: first is shape, second is skin. "Shape" is the design, shaped by the ceramic bone (soil); and "skin" is the color created by the glaze. I have to make a teacup five or seven times. How can your eyes not be lost when you glance at it, forcing you to think of something very meaningful. That is the vitality of the product. Vitality combined with convenience, for example, the ceramic bone must be thick enough so that when you pour tea, you can hold the cup in your hand without it being

FRANCOIS JARLOV