BARBOTINE TRANSFORMS CLAY IN AUBAGNE IN PROVENCE
handmade, «made in France»
We have the pleasure to welcome our customers in our Atelier-Boutique and to discover an exciting profession that transforms the clay of Provence.
During your visit you will be guided among our ceramic creations and you will discover their destinations (cooking, meals every day, exceptional dishes or festive table, etc.)
We will tell you the story of the millenary forms and uses of these “potteries of yesteryear”… and we will deliver you cooking secrets that only clay can keep to magnify the «flavors of today». Visits to the workshop are organized by the association «Argile Vivante» Organized groups can also make an appointment.
«Cultivate objects, preserve their deep meaning anchored in local culture and transmit know-how»
BARBOTINE, THE CULTURAL OBJECT
and gastronomy
The cultural object combines daily in the form of pottery enriched with the know-how of the territory of Aubagne, country of clay for more than 22 centuries where the techniques were transmitted from worker to worker.
These potteries live today as yesterday in the kitchen, pass from the oven on the table and contribute to the tryptique: France, Gastronomy, Pottery.
Thus, the recipes of small cooked dishes accompany daubières, mortars, cassoles and gratin dishes.
Moving from authenticity to the object, this is our objective to perpetuate this ancestral know-how since its workshop of Aubagne.
A WORKSHOP OF 200M²
dedicated to artisanal manufacturing
From the shop, you can see the potter and his team working, turning, decorating, calibrating…
During the guided tour you can discover our know-how and our tools.
THE INSPIRATION
Our creation come from several sources: documentary research, visits to exhibitions and museums (heritage, archaeology, ceramics), conversations with the elders but also diaogues with researchers from INRAP or the Laboratory of Medieval Mediterranean Archaeology.
Always in search of new works, I regularly complete my library of rare books where we travel in France, Italy, Germany and elsewhere, from the Phoenician oil lamp in terracotta to today’s design through the classification of amphorae and pottery of the sixteenth. I am also inspired by the ethnology of Mediterranean and Provençal cultures, of course collects books of ceramic techniques without forgetting my range of cookbooks, my homemade recipe sheets complete with some grimoires on the history and uses of spices.
«Barbotine cookware, tableware and kitchenware are turned manually.»
All our handles are shaped or turned by hand, all our plates stamped. We handcraft all our pottery here in transparency. Indeed, the production is visible daily by the vistors of the workshop, it is a guarantee Made in France.
The manufacture of our Provencal and Mediterranean pottery mobilizes rare gestures, ancient know-how, a recognized experience and craftsmanship of excellence that are worth to Barbotine the State label Enterprise of Living Heritage.
All our ceramic creations are adapted to contemporary appliances (dishwasher, microwave, etc.)