Hello, I’m Michel Roux, the potter at Trecarne. Yes, I’m French and I can cook too… I trained as a chef at the École Hôtelière de Toulouse, but that was before I knew I was really a Potter at heart. The training has been useful. As a chef my speciality was the sauces and I use the same subtle blending techniques now with my glazes to produce the palette of colours that are around me in the Cornish seas and skies. Also, as a chef, I make sure all my pottery is fully functional. My teapots and jugs pour properly and a lot of thought goes into the simple shapes of my designs. My customers tell me that food tastes better on my plates and that they can’t drink tea from another mug since buying one of mine... My aim is for spontaneity in making and pleasure in using. My influences, apart from the chef’s training, come from time spent with my father, an artist in Provence. With him I developed an eye for colour and design and a love of Picasso’s simple style of drawing. This is often the inspiration behind drawings that are on some of my work.