Simon Manoha was born in Ardèche in 1987. After studying improvised music, he moved to Paris to study contemporary philosophy at the Sorbonne. He then returns to one of his first passions: photography. His uncle being a potter, he ends up from his childhood memories, being recalled by the earth. Simon Manoha spends days looking for clays in nature. He collects them, experiments with them in his works and in fire. He set up his workshop in Ardèche, built his Anagama oven (wood oven) around sources of clay and countless minerals used for his enamels.
A chawan is a bowl used for the preparation and consumption of tea.
MATERIALS : Mix of different wild clays harvested in Ardèche and Drôme. Mixed with degreasers: river sand, crushed minerals (granite, feldspar in particular). The main soil he uses is quite rich in iron and manganese.
TECHNIQUE : All his pieces are made in kurinuki, sometimes called tama-zukuri. It is a traditional Japanese technique, used in particular by raku potters. But also used in clay sculpture for a long time by artists. It is a question of working a solid mass that is then hollowed out in several passes, as the piece dries.
COOKING : It cooks with wood and electric. Always in two firings, a biscuit in an electric oven and a firing in a wood-burning enamel oven at 1280°C. His wood-fired oven is a phoenix, he generally cooks with local essences, dead wood that he collects in the surroundings: chestnut and resinous spruce pine mainly and alder, oak, acacia, ash, sometimes beech. The cooking lasts 48 hours in general. He likes to work in oxidation as much as in reduction, in wood firing included.
ENAMEL : The enamels are all made from locally harvested minerals, low and high temperature clays, ash. The list is very long: schist, limestone, dolomite sandstone, basalt, fern ash, broom, hay etc...
COLOUR : Greens, browns and touches of blue
DIMENSIONS : Ø 11.2cm approximately, height 11.8cm, 330ml
USES AND MAINTENANCE:
Microwave: No
Dishwasher: Yes
Oven: No
Food: Yes
