One vacation leads to another. It took a lot of doing to get us to Toronto in June. But then, on the train back to Montréal, we read an article about 1001 Pots in the Via Rail magazine and since we were feeling pretty brazen after pulling off a week away together that we thought – How hard could a day trip up to Val-David be? So we decided we’d find a way to go check it out and finally we did.
1001 Pots is a huge outdoor ceramics festival/exhibition/sale – the largest in North America according to the brochure. It’s in its 19th year now. It costs all of two bucks to get in and it lasts a whole month. And Val David is only a little over an hour out of the city. So really, the odds of getting up to check it out are pretty good.
By the time we got to 1001 Pots we’d already visited two fromageries and had a picnic beside a river. It was hot and sunny and we were a little out of it. 1001 Pots is all outdoors, which is lovely in the shade. The first thing we figured out was that there were many more that 1001 pots. We wandered around in a daze trying not to break anything. The second thing we figured out was that everything was extremely expensive and the third, that a lot of it looked the same. No harm done, we thought. It got us out of the city, we thought.
And then we came upon this one table that totally blew our minds. Thankfully I took pictures; otherwise I’d be hard pressed to describe these amazing oddball over-the-top eccentric bright chunky wonky wonderful totally unique pieces. We soon discovered that they were the creations of special-needs kids from Maison Emmanuel, a community centre in Val-Morin. We went to sit in the shade and have a little think.
What we decided was, we were in need of cake plates and who better to buy them from than the kids of Maison Emmanuel. We ventured out into the sun again to make some tough decisions. Each plate was a work of art. How to choose? None of them matched. Not that any of our dishes match. None of them were the least bit practical. But all of them would look awesome on our yellow Formica table. Finally a lady came over to where we were clutching teetering stacks of highly irregular plates and asked if we needed any help. Do you have any more of these hidden away somewhere? We wanted to know. The woman beamed: Do you know who made these plates? Yes, the kids from Maison Emmanuel – we pointed to the prominently displayed sign over the table. And do you know that I’m their ceramic teacher? Well! We all got really excited. She went off to find us more plates while we contemplate possible uses for the ones we had already fallen in love with and in the end we wound up with quite a discount on two of the world’s most impractical cake plates and a cheese plate that doesn’t wobble at all if you put a folded tea towel under it.
All three are works of art. We can’t stop looking at them. This picture doesn’t do them justice at all. They do indeed look awesome on our yellow kitchen table. None are likely to see the inside of a cupboard anytime soon.
In a postscript: We realized when we got home and consulted the catalogue that the only other stuff we admired at 1001 Pots was made by the kids’ ceramic instructor, Maggie Roddan. Thanks Maggie Roddan, thanks 1001 Pots, thanks Maison Emmanuel.
More information: Maison Emmanuel
More information: 1001 Pots
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