It seems so long ago that I was last in France. I remember with pleasure and a tinge of sadness walking on the beach at low tide in La Tranche-sur-Mer two summers ago. I followed the estran, the foreshore, wherever it wanted to take me, circling around freshly made sand castles and avoiding large beached jelly fish, resisting the urge to touch them with my big toe and make them wiggle like a Jell-O pudding. I watched the soft morning light play with round puddles and I watched with delight the small organic ripples carved in the wet sand by water that seemed to surface out of nowhere and then travel down the gentle slope toward the ocean. The water meandered lazily pushing grains of sand, one at a time, effortlessly but stubbornly with only the mysterious and random intention of creating a masterpiece, not unlike an expert Japanese gardener making patterns in the sand with a wooden rake in a rock garden. There was something magical in these spontaneous patterns. They were simple and complex at the same time and offered for the pleasure of my eyes a piece of art crafted by a skilful anonymous designer.
A year later, while I was working in my pottery studio, experiencing my very first summer ever on Bowen Island (I usually spend all my summers in France but obviously not this year), my mind took me back to that morning on a beach in France and the playful wet sand ripples. I threw a flat piece of light buff-coloured clay on my potter’s wheel, took my homemade coiled butter wire and cut the slab of clay horizontally with it. I added a rim. I stopped the wheel and studied the small clay Zen garden I had just created, which looked just like the lovely patterns on the beach in France.
My Christmas pottery sale this year will be held safely outside in my garden (a special 2020 edition!) and under cover outside if it rains.
Sunday Dec. 6; 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 234 David Rd (Miller’s Landing)
Hand sanitizer will be provided. Bring your mask and your good social distancing manners. Bring your own shopping bag and newspaper to wrap your purchases.
Salad bowls, soap dishes (inspired by low tide in France), fruit juicers, milk & sugar, cereal bowls, vases, Christmas lanterns, decorative objects and a lot more!
Contact me if you wish: bpdeggan63@gmail. com or 604-947-9221
