12. A RADIO INTERVIEW (3)

Here's the last part of an interview done in June 2002 by Radio France Bleu Berry. They kindly broadcasted it a number of times and then again a year later.

"HOW MANY STUDENTS CAN YOU HAVE AT THE SAME TIME?

Six at the most. I've planned it for 6. There's room for 3 wheels. At the moment I only have 2. You can see, in front of each wheel are 3 shelves. When you are ready to take a piece out of the wheel, you don't have to go far, you just place it in front of you on the shelf. There's one light for each potters wheel.

On the other side there's a 3m long concrete table, 1m per person, to beat and work the clay, if you want to do hand building. We're well set up.There's a 128 litre electric kiln. There's a set of shelves on wheels to be able to move them. There're here, they don't move much. They can take a lot of pots with shelves on each side.

YOU ARE WELL SET UP. IT WAS A FARM HERE FORMERLY.

Yes, that's right. As a kid I knew it as a farm.

THE VILLAGE OF ST CIVRAN WELCOMES PEOPLE TRAVELLING THROUGH IT.

yes, I'm lucky for that. All around here you find accommodation in farm stays (called 'gites') of all kinds. There's one 3km away in Chassingrimont. It used to be called 'the castle'. It is a very big mansion that belonged once to the lord of Chazelet. It has been transformed, I think they've been opened for the last 2 years, I'm not sure. It is now a 12 room accommodation unit. It is very pretty and above all quite affordable. It is a friendly place only 3km away. (...)

There are others places... in Sacierges. Plenty. You find bed-and-breakfast places too direcly with local families. And of course a 3 star hotel in Argenton which is splendid and that I recommend. That is top notch, lets say. There's also Luzeret...

TO FINISH OFF, FRANKIE, A WORD ABOUT YOUR WEBSITE.

Yes, the address is: stcivran-poterie.com
You will find several pages. The home page, a page for 'courses', one for 'accommodation', 'village' - under 'village' you will find how to get here from Paris for instance, and also details and four photos of the village. Then I don't remember, 'mail' where you can send me an e-mail, and a 'gallery'.

There's a virtual gallery. I'd like to make an appeal to the potters likely to listen to this, if they would allow me to take a photo of one of their pieces in order to put it in this virtual gallery together with their addresses. People tuning into the website from anywhere in France would say: I see, this is what local potters make in that area... I have one piece by Mr Ortega so far. I have the equipment and I put the photos on the net myself.

On my website there's also a page 'open house day'. I had a successful one on 24 March. It was on Palm Sunday, the weather was cold but sunny and we had a picnic outside. A folk dance group came to warm people up. It was very nice. Between 3 and 6pm a lot of people came to visit the studio and potters who had pieces on exhibition in the village hall sold their works. I'd like to have 2 in the year. The next one is planned for the 27, the last Sunday of October, on 27 Ocotber. That's it."


A few people told me they had heard me on the radio but strangely no one ever came to the studio because they had heard the interview.

Comments

Thanks Michael R.
Travel tips for seniors??? such as: don't forget your nappies and your hot water bottles!
I do have senior potter students in my workshop but they do not behave different from the junior ones... why make such a big deal about seniors?

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