It was a small cubic vase with a unique textured black and white crackle finish that first drew me into Pierre Bounaud’s ceramic work. I met him on the San Diego Potters’ Guild website during the group’s biannual virtual sale in November 2020. I went to the rabbit hole on his website, pierrebounaud.com, and I found this intriguing vase, which I bought for my mother for her birthday. When I went to his house in Talmadge at the height of the pandemic to pick him up, Bounaud had a few tables set up in front of his open garage to display more vases, as well as cups, bowls and beautiful sets of square tableware. , many also ended up in this eye-catching glaze.

It is no coincidence that Bounaud explored new solutions to transform his abstract concepts into visual reality. The San Diego-based ceramic artist – born and raised in Provence, about an hour north of Marseille – has had a long career as a research chemist with a doctorate. in chemistry from SUNY Stonybrook in New York. He moved to San Diego to work at the Scripps Research Institute, then at a biotechnology company.

“But I was exhausted doing research and needed an outlet,” Bounaud said. “I needed something else to take the pressure off. My mother recently retired from teaching and started pottery and told me about it. I had a chance meeting at the Hillcrest Farmers Market with a pottery teacher who had a stall there. She taught at the Center du Complexe Éducatif. I picked up his flyer and thought, “Why don’t you try it? I did and got hooked right away.

From there, Bounaud joined a class at Clay Associates on Adams Avenue and in 2010 established his own home studio, which overlooks Mission Valley. There he has a potter’s wheel, two kilns, a slab roller for evenly spreading strips of clay, and exhibition shelves. While working, he wears a clay-splashed cream and white striped apron, made by his mother, with a slit in the center of the bottom half to make it easier to sit at the wheel.

Bounaud presses his logo stamp on the clay which will become one of his small food plates.

(Eduardo Contreras / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

“I started to get the tools I wanted to develop my own voice,” he said. “When you share a studio you have to use all the tools they have, so you are very dependent on what they have to create. I wasn’t really me until I had my own studio.

For example, Bounaud pointed out, without his own oven, he had no control over cooking and cooking speed. He was limited in the types of glaze and colors he could use. With his own tools he could run his own show, he said, experiment and develop his own processes.

“I’m very process-oriented,” said Bounaud, who also works part-time at AcKnowledge Regulatory Strategies, a consulting firm for the medical device industry. “I focus a lot on technique.

Bounaud mixes a glaze in his workshop. The chemist in him found it infinitely attractive to experiment with mixtures and layers of glaze on his ceramic pieces.

(Eduardo Contreras / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

Among his experiences was the white on black textured finish which appealed to me. Bounaud explained that it was a white “creeping frosting” – although he doesn’t like the name and calls it crackle frosting or, depending on what he makes, a “snowflake”. . The glaze naturally cracks and melts during firing to create the patterns. Bounaud saw it in a book and went looking for the recipe online – yes there are frosting recipes out there, even a searchable database at glazy.org for the frosting recipes that people post. For the pharmacist from Bounaud, it was infinitely attractive. He could try out a recipe to see what would happen and then see if he could change it.

Bounaud shapes rolled clay in one of his small, food-grade ceramic plates.

(Eduardo Contreras / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

A variety of square plates in Bounaud’s studio are edged with cracked white glaze on a black background, an experimental combination that appealed to him.

(Eduardo Contreras / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

“At first, I was interested in this glaze because of the texture aspect. I thought, ‘Oh, that’s cool the fact that it creates this pattern.’ I could play with that. This is something that you don’t see very often. Many enamels have a pattern, but they are flat. But this one has a texture on the top and I thought it was fascinating. It got me thinking, “What if I could find a way to really highlight this?” This is how I found the black below.

He continued to try different colors on the porcelain-like clay, but the black base against the white glaze created the most dramatic contrast. It was perfect for the vases he made as the blueprints of the objects broke the distinctive finish.

For dinner plates and other small plates and bowls, however, he’s limited in how he uses this creepy frosting concept. Placed along the edge of each piece, it serves as a frame around another visual he developed for the body.

A cheese plate by Bounaud shows artwork derived from a laser printer using toner with iron and special paper that is transferred to the glaze and then fired.

(Eduardo Contreras / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

“When I started playing with this glaze, it was everywhere. It was beautiful, but I realized it was overwhelming, ”said Bounaud. “So my thought process was: what if I use less? In the end, that’s what catches the eye, and I wanted to move towards something more functional like the plates. It wasn’t so much about being food safe – as long as there’s no lead, that’s fine – but it has to be utilitarian. When I create something that touches the food, it will usually be a shiny glaze, something flat, easy to clean, that won’t trap the food or damage a knife. But I work hard to make it interesting.

Again, proceed. The bodies of some of his bowls and plates use a smooth multi-colored glaze – perhaps black and blue, perhaps orange and black – which Bounaud developed by layering four different glazes in stages to create visual depth. The first coat is a variation of “temmoku,” a Japanese name for iron-rich glazes that were developed by the Chinese and Japanese. He adds two more coats of glaze that add little touches of shading and color before applying the last coat, which is the actual color he wants. Each layer should air dry so that the water from the glaze is absorbed into the clay before the next one passes and the piece is finally fired.

A chance meeting with a pottery teacher at a farmers market sparked Bounaud’s interest in ceramics.

(Eduardo Contreras / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

In other bowls and plates delimited by the crackling glaze rim, Bounaud features patterns of different colors or even images. These actually come from photos that are transferred into the glaze. Bounaud explained that this is a process in which a laser printer using toner containing iron is used to print on special papers. The printed image is cut out and placed in the water, where the top layer of the paper slides and is placed on the glazed object. During the cooking process, everything except this image of iron burns. And while the glaze provides color, the end result has a sepia quality.

“Because it’s iron, you’re limited by the colors the iron can give you,” Bounaud said.

Bounaud sold these plates to customers who use them for eating, as well as serving pieces. He also made large round porcelain cheese plates that feature lots of cheese labels printed on the clay along with stamped words. There are assorted appetizer plates that also feature these decorative techniques. And he showed me a large container full of cheese name stamps that he uses to create little porcelain cheese labels. The creeping frosting appears in small cups that can be placed in a matching square tray, as well as in teapots. Bounaud’s cups – some in matte glazes, others in colorful royal and indigo blues, turquoise, yellow and red – feature even more unique frosting techniques he created.

“There are so many different ways of expressing a surface,” he said. “I never get bored with pottery. There is always something around the corner. That’s why my style keeps evolving, changing, because there are so many different paths that I want to explore.

Golden is a freelance writer and blogger from San Diego.

Bounaud ceramic coffee cups in several tint lines shelves in his home studio.

(Eduardo Contreras / The San Diego Union-Tribune)