1001 Pots in Val David

I went last Tuesday with my friend and mentor Mr. Cheong to visit the annual 1001 Pots exhibition in Val David. It was the first time in many weeks that the sun finally made an appearance, so the ride was relatively pleasant.

We visited the exhibition but, except for a few pieces (photos below), the vast majority were banal, uninspired and sometimes plain ugly, at least for my taste. There was nothing that jumped out at me and made me think: "I've got to have that, damn the costs!" And yet, there were many visitors and most of them were eagerly buying, it seemed. It reminded me of Bat Trang, the "famous" ceramic village near Hanoi in Vietnam, a must-go destination for all tourists. It was the same parade of tired, boring, repetitive, same-same pots and vases and plates.

This year, it looked like every potter at 1001 Pots was making square sushi plates and Belgian butter pots. I didn't go last year, but they were probably all making candlesticks-in-the-shape-of-a-cat or raku piggybanks. I wanted to buy a couple of ikebana dishes, but found out by lifting them that they were not water-proof, for crissake! So I took very few pictures of pots and more pictures of flowers at the restaurant near the river, where we ended having lunch. This will probably be the last year where I will be going to 1001 Pots, especially now that I found from the programme that many of the potters are from Montreal.