In the green glass of Lucile Viaud, there is life

About the opening of Lucile Viaud's new workshop in Rennes.

Her studio is nestled in the "ferme des galets", in Rennes, but she was born in 1993 in Pont-à-Mousson (54), in Lorraine. So one might think that this young artist specialised in glass has no doubt passed through the famous Cerfav, this European centre for research and training in glass arts which has become an international reference in the field since it was created in 1991 in Vannes-le-Châtel (54). But no. After studying applied arts inspired by a grandfather who was a carpenter and a grandmother who was a painter and woodcarver, Lucile Viaud graduated in 2015 from the Ecole Boulle in Paris. And developed Glaz glass. From the old Breton Glas, meaning a shade between green and blue, used to describe the different shades of the sea in Brittany. Because glass attracted her very early on, but not just any glass: the kind she makes from shells, fish bones, seaweed, shells...

When she created her brand "Ostraco" in 2016, it was with the idea of making works of art by recycling waste from the fishing and aquaculture industry in Brittany. Naturally coloured and micro-bubbled, malleable, Glaz marine glass is the first to be developed by the Atelier Lucile Viaud, and can be worked using traditional glassmaking techniques. It took 18 months to develop a quality formulation. The proof is in its first collection, "Pots", which ranges from bottle green to viridian, a bluish green close to emerald. We love the concept! Seven pieces of different volumes designed to be home basics can be combined and stacked for various uses. And the mould blowing that calibrates each of them does not prevent them from being unique, as the glass with which they are produced gives them a singular character: thicknesses, strings, micro-bubbles... even the circularity can vary, in memory of the original environments of the raw materials used!

Lucile Viaud was not in danger of stopping there: in a logic of research archive, she became a "geoverrider". And we love this concept too! Because the simplest ideas are the best: each region has its own raw materials in its landscapes, and the artist uses them to make a glass that is full of the memory of a territory. After the waste from oysters, mussels and periwinkles that speak of the sea, the beach and the iodine air, Lucile Viaud approached Saint-Gobain Pont-à-Mousson to begin work in 2018 on the composition of a glass from Lorraine. This time, she combines a return to her origins and the ancestral processes of glass making, to question the value of certain local materials.

An amber-coloured glass from Rouergue was also created from materials rescued from the Aveyron landscape, made from snail shells, sand from the banks of the Lot and ashes from firewood. Under each piece, a small sandblasted or hand-engraved inscription indicates the glass used and makes it possible to find the place, the date of fusion and the specificity of the glass. The artist's pieces that make up this fascinating geoverry are currently on display until 3 July in Fourmies (59), at the Avesnois Ecomuseum, as part of "L'envers du verre". But these are first and foremost works of art for sale. By inviting the landscape into the private home, by developing her research in a way that is as pragmatic as it is poetic, Lucile Viaud offers each interior the chance to become both a contemporary art gallery and a travel agency...

Illustration: Ostraco Pots Collection, 2017, Glaz sea glass, 7 pieces: H.from 9 cm to 27cm ©Germain Herriau