27/01/2014
Our potteries Souleo Provence, are from the south of France, where the history of this craft is long and cross-cultural, absorbing influences from throughout the Mediterranean. The region's earliest inhabitants made primitive vessels for storing, cooking, and serving food. The Greeks introduced more sophisticated techniques when they founded Marseille as a trading port, circa 600 b.c. (They also introduced wine, an instant hit.) Trade with Italy and Spain brought new shapes and colored glazes. When the popes settled in Avignon, in the early 1300's, they promulgated both religion and luxurious dining.
Pottery making seems especially suited to the Gallic temperament. Like cheese and wine production, it's a blend of chemistry, artistry, geography, luck, and sweat. Southern France's terroir is ideal—clay-rich soil, hot sun for baking, wood for firing. Today, it has become inseparable from what we think of as the southern French style. Provençal cuisine conjures up the mortar and pestle, terra-cotta cookware, and brightly colored olive-oil jugs and kitchen tiles. And the dishes and plates: even on the gloomiest winter day, the warm glazes and familiar rusticity evoke herb-scented Mediterranean sunshine.
Our ceramic is fired twice’'(in an eletrical knil). We first fire the biscuit ware(dried piece of white clay) at about 1100° Centigrade. We then proceed with the glazing and fire it a second time at 1000° Centigrades. These firing temperatures are below the ones for porcelain(1400°) and thus give much more shaded, richer and deeper colors, therefore more lively than the porcelain colors. But the inconvenient is that the enamel stays softer. This is mosly noticed in the blue and green shades but less in the yellow shades...
It has always been so and the more rapid aging of ceramic sometimes leading to crackling(very fine cracks) is what makes it so attractive. In order to give you more explanations, we coud say that the pieces are made of an enamel composition together with a clay composition. Under firing the coefficients of expansion of both compositions must be compatible at 100%.
We employ natural pastes and there might be a slight difference in the clay composition as well as the enamel one. You must know that a difference of some 10 degrees in firing also changes the parameters of expansion of these compositions. There is not then a perfect osmosis anymore and thus it leads to the slight cracking phenomenon which will be noticed only on sme pieces.
The art of firing is a difficult science : it is valuable for you to know that certain producers make use of the art of crackling and it then becomes a technique which is called “ RAKU”.We hope this informations about our product and ceramic in general will make you appreciate the quality of our products which are still manufactured using the old-style craftsman’s methods and in the pure tradition of provencal pottery.
An expression of a way of life, pottery is both useful and decorative
The clay used for each pottery comes from Entraigue sur Sorgue, a small village near Avignon, the former city of the Popes.
A well-irrigated region, very fertile, at the confluence of the Rhone and the Durance rivers, where the Mistral wind blows…The forms date from the 19th century ; they are obtained through three techniques : turning,pressing and casting.
They are called the "shards".After slow and natural drying, a first firing in the kiln gives resistance to the clay, the "biscuit" is ready.
It's time for the "decoration", the flowers and the motifs are delicately painted by freehand, inspired by the colourful cottons and printed calicos of Provence.
Then begins the "enamelling", and the second firing of the pottery : the decorated "biscuits" aredipped one by one in enamel baths.The art of the fire will bring out the colours… Finally, taking them out of the kiln.This is always a moment for emotion !
The SOULEO PROVENCE collection is presented all year round in Aix en Provence to the rhythm of the seasons and festivities.
To end our explanations, you have to know that all of our products can go in the dishwasher, the microwave, and the oven(avoid thermal schocks). Our brand name is Souleo Provence which means “Sunny Provence”. Our family start to produce pottery in the early beginning of the past century, almost one hundred years ago, in the north of Provence. This is the fourth generation. And as all our shapes and colors are traditional from Provence, you understand that we never change our collections, so customers can always complete their sets.