Opozit builds custom steel bicycles inside Atelier OPN, a former farmstead in the Breton country, and opens its workshop for the Semaines du Tourisme Economique et des Savoir-Faire. Pierre, once a research engineer, chose the workbench over the design office. A frame is followed from the first digital sketch to the final weld, through bending, cutting and brazing. Computer-aided design sets its geometry to the millimetre for one rider’s build.
Tag: craft-demonstrations
Le Brut de l’Avette reed workshop, Québriac
Nolwenn Zaour and Simon Froger make anches at Le Brut de l’Avette, the cane reeds that give the bombarde and the veuze their voice. The visit follows one through every stage, from choosing the cane to the adjustments that settle its sound. Wind instruments also come here for repair, so a bench is usually in mid-job. The atelier opens inside the Semaines du Tourisme Économique et des Savoir-Faire, the Breton fortnight of company visits.
Armorique Vitrail, stained glass at Ploubezre
Armorique Vitrail stands opposite the church of Ploubezre, near Lannion, and normally opens only by appointment. For these two periods the glass artisan Pauline Le Goïc opens the atelier and the showroom together. Visitors watch her at the bench, hear what the craft asks of her, and see pieces that rarely leave museums, galleries or the salons dédiés aux métiers d’art. Her trade serves new commissions and the restoration du patrimoine alike.
Atelier 33: lapidary and glass crafts, Landerneau
Atelier 33 opens its benches in Landerneau, where glass blowing and glass spinning, micro-soldering, laser engraving and lapidary work are practised. The session then turns practical with an initiation to the lapidary craft: each person learns how a rough stone is polished, works at it, and keeps the stone. Steven guides every step. The group is held to four people, and the bench is open from eighteen years up.
Agnès Pormenté opens her pastel gallery, Paimpol
Agnès Pormenté works in dry pastel, and she opens the gallery where she shows nothing but her own work. Its four exhibition rooms hold about sixty paintings, nearly all of them landscapes of the country around Paimpol, taken in every season. A trained musician, she carries piano technique across into the pastel, and she lets callers watch how she works. Children from six are admitted, and the visit goes ahead only if two people come.
Cépi Ébénisterie: Straw Marquetry in Moncontour
Cépi Ébénisterie opens its workshop on Rue Charbonnerie at Moncontour, one of 27 taking part across Lamballe Terre et Mer. The cabinetmaker works in two registers: furniture and objects made to measure, and the restoration of older pieces. The rarer trade shown is marqueterie de paille, straw marquetry, which the workshop also teaches as an initiation. Each opening is a short presentation of the craft with a demonstration, six people at a time.
Visite de l’atelier Maïma Couture, à Pont-Croix
Maïma Couture keeps a craft workshop in Pont-Croix, a Petite Cité de Caractère of the Cap Sizun. From its bench come clothes and accessories made of material that is 99,99% upcyclés. The tour goes behind the scenes of a sewing workshop brimming with life and fabrics. It belongs to the savoir-faire weeks of the Federation of Brittany Tourist Offices, and part of the takings goes to the Fondation du Patrimoine de Bretagne.
Rozen Création, the workwear ateliers of Lamballe
CRÉATIONS CANTIN – ROZEN has cut professional apparel in Lamballe for half a century, and opens its ateliers for the Semaines du Tourisme Économique et des Savoir-Faire. The route starts in the design studio and reaches the floor where seamstresses train in the ROZEN savoir-faire. Embroidery and screen printing follow, the benches that personalise each garment. A turn through the shop closes the hour, with the range cut for nurses and cooks.
Planc’h: a Workshop Visit to Breton Cutting Boards
Planc’h is a Saint-Briac-sur-Mer workshop where cutting boards and butcher’s blocks are shaped by hand from Breton timber. The visit follows that work at the bench, and the makers explain how they pick a plank and how each species behaves. Their wood comes from a family sawmill at Plouër-sur-Rance. The visit belongs to Les Semaines du Tourisme Économique des Savoir-Faire, the Breton fortnight that opens working businesses to the public.
Poterie des Anges Open Studio
Angèle demonstrates wheel throwing during the Poterie des Anges open studio in Andance. Her ceramics are made on the wheel or built from slabs, then decorated by hand with natural oxide colours. Cats, birds, poppies and the tree of life appear among her motifs, drawing on nature and naïve art. Admission to the demonstrations is free.