Mathilde Jonquière is a mosaicist. In her Parisian workshop, she assembles small pieces of all types of rocks. In order to practice her trade, she uses much more than the basic materials of her specialty. She creates mosaics on different supports with dreamy and poetic representations and colored and delicate compositions, always with a touch a modernity. Mathilde Jonquière is passionate and aware of her cultural and artistic heritage.
The trade
At first, Mathilde Jonquière was an interior designer. But this trade created a distance between her and the technique and the drawing. So, she needed to get close to the substance. Mosaic was evidence, a vocation with the delicacy of the drawing and the sturdiness of the rock. Molten glass, golden rocks, stoneware, but also marble and cement, have given her an infinite liberty of creation. The colour has been by her side since then. With elegance, she has brought her know-how and her creations beyond traditional mosaic.
The technique
Each craftsman realises the technique of a trade with his personality. Those techniques keep the knwo-how alive.
The body is the fundamental tool of Mathilde Jonquière. The mosaicist needs it entirely to get close to the substance. She manipulates it, cuts it, gives her the appropriate form for the composition: “the movement will have an impact on the mosaic. It is a corporal and a choreographic trade”. The senses intervene in the processes of creation: the touching, the sight but also the listening. In fact, Mathilde Jonquière recognizes by the sound if a tessera is well cut up.
The handover
The handover is an assembling of expertise survived through time, such as an infinite mosaic where each tessera is a piece of knowledge. Mathilde Jonquière spreads this mosaic with her colleague and her apprentice.
Mathilde Jonquière has wished to bring a new inspiration to her creations by the choice of materials. So, she has had the project to put in her compositions hardstones as agates. The Fondation Rémy Cointreau has helped her to attend a class with a stone cutter and to buy the material she has needed.
Eric Leblanc is a plasterer, staffer, stucco mason. After his studies with Compagnons du Devoir, he wishes to make live the tradition of his trade through his workshop, Les Métiers du Plâtre. Created in 1997, it received the French label EPV, Entreprise du Patrimoine Vivant.
The restoration and the creation are both parts of his trade. For this know-how, Eric Leblanc was awarded by Bettencourt Schueller Foundation, The Club of the companies Placo/Saint Gobin and the Placo Trophees in 2019.
The trade
After being a plasterer apprentice, his mentor encouraged him to continue his studies with Compagnons du Devoir. He did this training and travelled in France an abroad to learn his trade and to master the different techniques of it and of his material.
His favourite part of his trade is the liberty of creation and the possibility to think about ambitious and major projects.
The technique
His know-how is about plaster. As a real craftsman, he plays with the material and transforms it in order to make it real. His biggest dream would be moulding plaster in weightlessness!
The craftsmanship is about the spirit and the hand. In fact, the spirit will conceptualize the projects and the hand will make them real.
The handover
Eric Leblanc doesn’t consider the craftsmanship without transmission. For him, every craftsman takes the risk to disappear with all their knowledge. Forget to transmit will lead to the loss of the invaluable savoir-faire. That is why, today, Eric Leblanc teaches regularly to apprentices.
Fondation Rémy Cointreau has helped Eric Leblanc with the acquisition of a plaster engraving machine. He doesn’t use it only for his know-how, but he gives the opportunity to other colleagues to use it on different materials such as metal or stone. He wishes to show the evolution and the innovation of his know-how through this device.
After a ten-year training at Compagnons du Devoir, he founded his workshop in 2008 to experiment different metals and alloys, and to create utilitarian or decorative objects, furniture or forged works. The particularity of the Compagnons du Devoir is the affection to the transmission value. Joël Guillaume has been following this value by teaching his know-how to students and apprentices in his workshop for two years.
Fondation Rémy Cointreau is pleased to support him !
For more information about Joël Guillaume, click here.
In this eighth episode, we take you into the world of wood to meet Bernard Mauffret.
Bernard Mauffret created the Atelier du Meuble Contemporain in 2002. His design and geometric creations respond to the orders of collectors and decorators looking for original furniture. His world is based on geometry in space by crossing architecture, framework and creation. His gesture is as precise as for an athlete, it is extremely repeated.
Transmission is a prerequisite and it takes time. Bernard has always had apprentices and employees and currently trains 3 craftsmen.
For more information on Bernard Mauffret, click here.
Episode 7 of our video-portraits series on the Fondation’s artisans leads us at 68 rue de Rome in Paris, inside Sandrine Raffin’s bow studio.
Sandrine started at the age of 15 at the Ecole Nationale de Lutherie in Mirecourt. She joined her father in the family-owned bow company where she worked during 17 years with him. She created her own company 14 years ago.
A bow maker is a very precise craft and its creation involved strict methodology. Sandrine likes to be a crossing point: bows have a long history and will continue in the future. Enriched by her experience, she restores beautiful bows and innovates with the creation of new models.
The Fondation Rémy Cointreau helped Sandrine Raffin to acquire a new machine to increase her production, while minimizing the waste of wood, resulting in one day of work gained per week.
For more information on Sandrine Raffin, click here.
Episode 6 of our video-portraits series on the foundation’s artisans leads us to ARCA cabinetworking inside Steven Leprizé’s studio.
As grandson of a carpenter wheelwright, Steven grew up in craftmanship and his connection to materials is visceral. After a DMA at the Ecole Boulle in cabinetworking, Steven Leprizé founds in 2009 the Atelier ARCA (which stands for “Atelier de Recherche et Création en Ameublement”, an atelier of research and creation in furnishing) in cabinetmaking and carpentry.
ARCA goes beyond the traditional field of cabinetmaking by imagining artisanal or industrial solutions for companies of many different sectors and is oriented toward experimentation in contemporary furniture. ARCA has invented “AirWood” or inflatable wood. The technic consists in affixing inlay on a flexible material, allowing to distort the wood through air injection. Another concept then followed, the “WooWood”, a storage system with elastic pockets covered in wood inlay, just as if it was textile. Steven also invented a concept of wood chequered by an accumulation of grids and set up a technic of thermosettable wood using heated plastic.
The Fondation Rémy Cointreau helps Steven Leprizé to acquire a planer, in replacement of the faulty one currently used at the Atelier.
For more information on Steven Leprizé, click here.
In this fifth episode, we take you into the world of wax to meet Mona Oren.
Wax is her « first love », her favorite material for more than twenty years.
Since 2020, she is been working at her studio in Paris. She produces three-dimensional pieces, which then are subject to a situation scenario: spatialization, transcription, photographic or video series.
Her craft occurs when the wax is between liquid and dry. In a short time, the material is stiffening immediately. Her specialty is to make thin wax leaves of 1 to 2 mm to obtain delicacy. Over the months, her delicate wax tulip began to take shape. She continued to improve the quality of the material; allowing for the flexibility of its stem and petals to become unbreakable. White, black, and speckled each flower can be manipulated in many ways.
The Fondation Rémy Cointreau supports Mona in order to acquire a stock of raw materials and provides her workshop with the necessary equipment.
This is in the 10th Arrondissement of Paris, Villa du Lavoir, that Anaïs Jarnoux, a furniture upholstery with a leatherwork specialty, introduces us to her world in Episode 4 of our video-portrait series on the Foundation’s artisans.
Anaïs became interested in furniture upholstery from a very young age.
Following her professional studies, she has been trained at “Maison Brazet” in sewing, furniture restoration and leatherwork.
Anaïs has been self-employed for more than three years and works in collaboration with designers to update the savoir-faire as a contemporary craft.
The Fondation Rémy Cointreau supports Anaïs in order to acquire a stock of raw materials and tools for leatherwork.
For more information on Anaïs Jarnoux, click here.
Episode 3 of our video-portraits series on the Foundation’s artisans leads us to the Viaduc des Arts inside Philippe Atienza’s bespoke shoemaking workshop.
Philippe’s passion for bootmaking comes from his experience of horse riding when he was younger. He then trained with the “Compagnons du Devoir” crafts guild for 8 years touring France in order to master his craft.
Today, he runs his workshop, opened in 2016, where he is just as much dedicated to the creation and fabrication of all types of tailored shoes as he is to the transmission of his savoir-faire. Transmission is the essence of the artisan’s work for Philippe Atienza who regularly teaches apprentices the savoir-faire he inherited.
The Foundation Rémy Cointreau supports Philippe in his efforts through the acquisition of new equipment allowing him to save time on production, time he can now devote to formation.
For more information on Philippe Atienza, click here.
The Fondation Rémy Cointreau introduced last month the series of video-portraits on the exceptional artisans we support. In this second episode, we take you into the world of books to meet Laurel Parker.
Laurel is an American designer specialized in manual and artisanal bookbinding. In the workshop she founded in 2008, she collaborates with artists and publishers to create objects, casings and other designs for different publications.
Laurel’s trade is not well-known, which is why she is really attached to transmit and teach what goes into the confectioning of books, from beginning to end. Her work is unique in her approach of using both traditional and innovating techniques, a vision the Foundation Rémy Cointreau is proud to support by enabling the acquisition of new equipment.
For more information on Laurel Parker, click here.
