Blog
We had a fun day as we left Paris. We had a couple stops along the way on our way to Angers. We stopped in Chateaudun but were unable to see the tapestries we went to see. We also stopped on the way into Angers at the studio of Anne Zerna. She is a tapestry weaver who also makes large felt pieces. She is also a printmaker. her studio was delightful.
The video blog has more details!
The tapestry tour has been such a fantastic experience. The attached video blog is about our visit to the Gobelins while still in Paris. I have a lot of thoughts about this visit, but will wait until I get home and have time to digest it a little more. For now, here is the basic structure of these workshops.
There are three state-supported weaving workshops.
They are the Manufactures Nationales
Gobelin
Beauvais
Savonnerie
Savonnerie makes pile rugs and we did not visit this workshop.
The mission of the Mobelier Nationale which runs these workshops as well as a conservation studio for tapestries, rugs, and furniture and a lace-making studio is first to furnish official buildings in France. So most of the work the tapestry workshops are doing go into a catalog and ministers of France can choose them for their offices or embassys. Occasionally they do commissions as well.
We took a bus about 100 km from Paris to Beauvais to see the National Tapestry Workshop there. It was an incredible day. There are three workshops supported by the state (Manufactures Nationales): Beauvais, Gobelin, and Savonnerie.
Beauvais is divided between the town of Beauvais and another site in Paris. This is because Beauvais was heavily bombed in WWII. When a new building was built decades later, weavers were able to volunteer to relocate to Beauvais so about half of them are at the workshop there and the other half are at the Gobelin in Paris.
I am currently on a tapestry tour of France with Cresside Collette of Australia. Cresside has run similar tours of France and the UK over the last decade. She is the perfect person to guide us in our enjoyment of tapestries made from about the 15th century to today. She was a weaver at the Victorian Tapestry Workshop (now Australian Tapestry Workshop) for 15 years and has had a successful career as an independent artist. Take a look at her website for more information and her portfolio.
We are leaving Paris tomorrow for Angers. While in Paris we have seen The Lady and the Unicorn, had a trip to Beauvais to see the tapestry manufactory there and today we went to the Gobelin and saw both the Beauvais workshop and Gobelin workshop in Paris. I will talk more about these workshops and the trip to the Cluny in future posts.
I thought I might try my had at video blogging. In the hiking world this is called vlogging. I’m actually not that good at taking video on the run, so this is a mash-up of still photos, video, and narration. It is done quickly because there is much to see and do here! But I hope you enjoy a little look at my trip to France. I’ll be doing more of these though I can’t guarantee how soon I’ll finish the videos.
The first time I went to Europe it was 1997. I was young and my partner at the time was busy at some herpetological conference all day for a week. So I explored Prague for a few days with the wife of another conference attendee. She was a friend of sorts back home but after what I’m about to tell you, wasn’t so keen about my company any more. I suppose I can’t blame her.
I knew nothing about travel in Europe. But once I figured out the subway, I thought I was pretty invincible. I convinced my friend to visit Prague Castle with me. After marveling at the guards and the size of the thing, we wandered down a small alley. I thought the stone walls and cobblestones were wonderful and definitely there would have been a gate or something if we were going the wrong way, right? There was the most adorable iron door in one of the walls, just taller than me with a round top to it. And it was standing ajar. I peeked through and there was a huge, somewhat overgrown garden on the other side. What the heck. I convinced my friend somehow to follow me through the gate though in her defense I still remember her protests twenty-two years later. We wandered uphill through the trees and overgrown paths and not one time did it occur to me that we shouldn’t be there.
With some encouragement from the smart people in my life, I have almost everything ready for my tapestry tour in France next week. That actually feels like a minor miracle. Not only are all the paperwork, insurance, credit card notifications, bills at home, and travel arrangements made, but my suitcase is also packed. This is going to be the new normal for me because it feels great not to be rushing around worrying about what I forgot at the very last minute.
But there is one last thing. Does anyone else have a problem deciding what fiber projects to bring on a trip that will be two weeks long? There is some weird little voice in my head that thinks it is the end of the world if I run out of fiber. Even though I know they have yarn in France!
. . . The same thing has to go for tapestry weaving. It might be that I weave something and then weave it again another way and then again and again… and the good thing about that is then I have something that art people call “a body of work.” How cool is that? I thought I was just correcting mistakes! I find myself looking at weavings my online students make and recommending they try that idea again. I mean this in the sense of, “That is a great idea! Run with it!” and I hope they take it that way.
