Take your pick: adrenaline packed or slow and contemplative?
Published on Feb 24, 2023
In her workshop, adjoining a historic house in the heart of Waterloo, Coralie Huckel shapes and explores different clays and techniques to create highly delicate pieces, both aesthetic and useful, in her quest to find the purity of each form.
By Natalie Sicard
Coralie has always been surrounded by art. The joy she feels when working with clay is intimately linked to her childhood, and to the small objects she and her sisters would create with clay they “pinched” from a tile-making factory, a few steps away from her childhood home, in Alsace. Numerous visits to the nearby sandstone potters’ village of Betschdorf and the discovery of Hannong earthenware in Strasbourg also contributed to her passion for ceramics.
She nevertheless began an academic career as a linguist, which took her to Kansas, where she met her future husband, with whom she moved to Québec in 1995. When she finished her specialization studies, she became a professor and language teacher at UQAM. But “a deep desire to learn how to throw clay” stirred within her. She took evening classes with Montréal potter Jacques Benoit. Discovering she was quite skilled with her hands, and was happy she caught on right away! The following year, she decided to buy a potter’s wheel, and continued her apprenticeship with different ceramists. She developed a passion for the work of such great masters as Austrian Lucie Rie, Daniel de Montmolin, a Swiss artist, but also for Chinese celadons and Japanese rakus. Asian art is a great source of inspiration for her, and in many ways, it matches her aesthetic sensitivity. She’s also fascinated by architecture, especially the Moorish style in Southern Spain, with its arches, geometric motifs and finely sculpted arabesques. In fact, these influences are clearly present in her work.
Offering a very versatile production, she designs, develops and refines limited edition collections, thrown and shaped pieces, including tea sets, bowls, dishes, plates, vases as well as small cups and jewellery, meticulously detailed, delicate, geometric. She loves to work on miniature pieces and to bring out the finest details through the effect of her glazes, the fruit of years of exploration.
She knows how to perfectly bring out the contrasts between enamels, ochres, blues, emeralds, turquoise, blacks and whites, on straightforward shapes and simple lines. Because purity of form is also very important for the artist. “There has to be an aesthetic. Sometimes, as I’m throwing a piece of clay, I say to myself, I’ve got something here. The form carries her first impulse,” the one she tries to channel while she turns a piece on the wheel, like a meditation in motion, with the aim of “creating objects with beautiful proportions, with elegant, pure forms.” And she achieves this with great dexterity, also enjoying talking about her approach, her constantly evolving, multifaceted artistic world.
Among other venues, her pieces are presented at the Galerie Les Trois Bouleaux in Magog and at the Galerie Mavia in Granby. Her porcelain and stoneware creations can also be found in France, in Alsace and in the Vosges.
She regularly holds open house events in her beautiful boutique space inside her home, the Robinson House, the home of one of the founders of the town of Waterloo, which she and her husband bought in 2019. We discover a charming decor, with plenty of flowers and tall trees, where the ceramist can finally devote herself entirely to her work.
If you’re a visitor to the region, you can also sleep here, right above her workshop! It’s where she has set up her Alcôve des Céramistes, a cozy little nest for visiting tourists, and where she herself offers a very warm welcome.
To learn more about her work and to find out when she’ll be holding her open house days, visit her website : www.coraliehuckel.com
Marie-Julie Boutique, on Main St. in Waterloo : a fashion boutique offering trendy men’s and women’s clothing, and where you can also find beautiful pieces of jewellery.
Yannick Déry's Photography Gallery and Sissi Buvette : The old bank on Foster Street has been transformed into an art gallery and café/wine bar. On one side, you can discover the works of photographer Yanick Déry and on the other, you can enjoy a drink and a bite to eat in a festive space beautifully decorated by choreographer Anne Séguin Poirier.
La Bouchère : Mélanie, a passionate butcher, offers fresh or marinated meats, prepared meals, fine local products and “Everything’s in the bag” ready-to-simmer or to eat meals.
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