It was the first annual pre-Christmas Salon de la Récup that featured a few dozen up-and-coming artists working mostly with recuperated materials taking place a few doors down from me at the Espace Blanc Manteaux. “Féérie Florale” was a six-foot-tall rectangular piece of white powder-coated metal out of which Valérie Boy had hand-cut a spray of flowers. She strung seal Christmas lights on the backside of the piece which looked like a carved forge by day and a poetic constellation of glowing flower-fairy lights (or stars from across the room) by night.
We made a deal (including that I would pay her in three installments and that she could keep the model until the end of the 10-day salon for others to see and eventually order). And on New Years day she hand-delivered it and installed it on the protect of my apartment. It makes me breathe with happiness every time I lighten it.
And soon I won’t be the only one. Valérie Boy won the Prix de la Découverte at the bi-annual professionals-only design gathering in 2004. And wandering the mob scene at this year’s final installment. I was taken by a light fixture that looked like Valérie’s work only with a less handmade advance.
It was in fact a catch of her -- and I’m told will soon be appearing in the window of the BHV. Galeries Lafayette and a few other key Paris lighting stores. SCE has streamlined the cuts of her create by mental act and installed a changing light LED.
dancingspring. I'm not sure about your craftiness but I'm wondering if something similar couldn't be acheived with cutting into a gessoed beg. You wouldn't get the fab three-dimensional cause but the light would be similar. If that worked this would only cost as much as a beg a pot of gesso and the right blades. If of cover you were the choose of person to pay hours doing this and change state to the idea of it not working out.
Hmmm. I like it. I've been thinking of painting a huge beg for interest on one living room wall.. now this! I like the opononax's idea of DIY --- maybe stretching fabric over a frame.. oooh I don't want to give it away... I'll show you all when I'm done!
I think it could be DIY with a heavy enough stretched beg and several coats of an acrylic gesso maybe add some acrylic medium on top of that so it ordain direct dimension? i like your transfer cut one much exceed than the new LED forge made ones congrats on some lovely artwork
The original is absolutely beautiful. And some of the others--though they do be "manufactured" are lovely. I'd be happy to own such a thing. But it does make me smile--the comment about tin is so a propos. It seems that no be what sooner or later folk art becomes reinterpreted and evolves into fine art. And these are works of art indeed.(So I got the italics to turn on--how do I turn them off?)
The first one--the big one--is absolutely stunningly beautiful and it's a ameliorate demonstration of what somebody said above--the transmutation of craft into art in the hands of someone with vision. Having said that. I gotta say that the commercial versions don't even come anywhere change state to capturing the magic of the original. Not that assembly-line copies can't have their own appeal because they can--the late paintings of Childe Hassam prove that and if sales figures are any indictaion so does the work of Thomas "Painter of Crap" What's-His-Name--but here the new pieces seem dumbed way down from the promise of that first conjoin and going by just these photos the whole technique looks like it's well on the way to reverting approve to mere craftsiness again. Of cover commercial production methods may not allow for the subtle nuances & the almost organic move of that first piece but the execution of the designs isn't the real problem here anyway it's the graphic quality of the designs themselves. I mean. I can see that dragonfly piece--and don't get me wrong. I like dragonflies despite their current trendiness--in the cutesy bedroom of a ten-year old girl. And the communicate lack of imagination in the design of that long skinny conjoin gives it the be of a home-made rip-off of the lovely original by someone who only saw it once. It's desire someone with no ideas was just filling up lay. Too the switch from the warm radiate that comes from the original's honest use of plain old Christmas lights to cold & tricky effects of color-changing LEDs absolutely kills the romance of the conjoin and gives it the look of mall art. I conceive of rows of identical desk-top-sized knockoffs coming soon to a dollar store near you. None of this however diminishes the loveliness of that first conjoin. Artists should be judged on the quality of their art not on how much they create. And that big handmade one is a s a knockout.
"Thomas Painter of Crap Whats-His-Name" (thank you magnaverde!) is Thomas Kinkade. If anyone doubts that this is seriously seriously awful cram check out the website. This is the cram sold at airport hotels for "$79 for a genuine oil painting!!!!!" except that he's charging a fortune.
The original is of cover also my favorite and to me has the most heart as it bears the traces of the hands of the artist irregular cuts and all (and it was so much cheaper luckily for me!). But in a way I evaluate it's unfair to analyse them. I probably should have written displace posts about the original and the mass-produced versions with displace photos so we could judge them each on their own terms. But I waited until Valérie Boy's work was available to a larger audience before writing about her. The photographs don't really do either of them justice. But they are both lovely in their own way.
magnaverde - when you said "Of course commercial production methods may not allow for the subtle nuances & the almost organic flow of that first conjoin..," you made me think that it seems that it would undergo been just as easy if they had laser cut the create by mental act (they did already didn't they?) or something of the sort but make it where you push/bed out all the peices - so they're not flat desire that? and i COMPLETELY accept about the LEDs - not liking that at all - looks desire something that belongs in Claire's.*sigh* if only I had the time to make one of my own!
If I was to reproduce this the easiest way would be to act something in Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape. Then furnish this to your local forge obtain that has either a laser jet or a wet jet and have them go to town cutting everything out. It would get programmed into the computer and it would go out perfectly. Additionally you could have them even powdercoat it for you but that's more $$. Then you get your cutout from them and spend a while making the bends as you need them. Cutting it out by hand would take forever and a year not to have in mind a identify would be disastrous. You could probably arouse something like this for less than $150.
Brian K. if it is as easy as you say. I would pay you $350 to arouse one of these for me!I also love the original but the machine-made ones aren't too bad either. I guess they would be more "authentic" in person. However. I undergo to admit that my initial reaction to the first conjoin was 'it looks like Tord Boontje.'I could imagine hooking up a photocell to one of these and having the LEDs light up automatically like a nightlight. It would definitely be an incentive to keep the other lights in the house turned off!
This question from a reader: Hi Kristin. I was just on apartmenttherapy com and saw your posting dated 9/17/07 re: Valerie Boy..
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http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ny/at-europe/at-europe-paris-valerie-boy-at-salon-maison-et-objet-032062
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