Work by Québécois ceramicist Pascale Girardin can be found in a variety of high-profile spots all over North America, but for this month only a themed selection will be available in a pop-up shop in Old Montreal.

There is a focus on retro Quebec, as attested to by these old license plates. Girardin explained, "There's a big revival of everything québécois right now and a nostalgia for a particular period of our history which involved big old cars, travelling to the countryside, fishing and hunting." Indeed, Girardin developed new glazes such as a forest green and a retro brown as part of this taste of the "terroir."

The pieces tin the pop-up shop fall into the themes of letters, numbers, telecommunications and street art, each of which is featured during a different week throughout the month of July. These tiles depict the symbols for the city of Montreal (left) and the Québécois fleur-de-lys (right).

Says Girardin, "The premise for the Pop Up was to make as many designs as possible in limited edition and present them to the public for a brief period of time. Originally, I wanted to do this for 3 days, however I found this beautiful location in Old Montreal and Claire, the owner of the shop À Table Tout le Monde on the ground floor, was interested in renting out the basement space on a monthly basis."

Girardin has worked on a lot of larger scaled installations of late, so it is exciting to see work that is accessible to all her fans. Varied textures are incorporated into the numbers and letters, playing on the tactility that makes work by Pascale Girardin so appealing.

Girardin worked with Nancy Pavan, a freelance creative director, to help develop the series of themes, as well as her son, Wolfe Girardin, who designed the poster for the shop along with a limited edition t-shirt.

We were surprised to see that the Pop-Up even features jewellery and expressed as much to Girardin. "I did make a necklace design a few years ago and had a lot of requests for it but it was too costly to make so I dropped it. We developed a much simpler design for the pop up shop playing with the 'non-negociable' stamp..." Simple, and highly desirable.

+ pascalegirardin.com
+ pascalegirardinstudio.com