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Poetic tools and handicraft museum
Our manifesto.
A collection of handmade tools from the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries.
Of course a tool is useful!
A tool is said to become a part of the person who uses it. What more can we add? Well, we have two hands. Should we keep one hand in our pocket while the other one works? It would be better if we could grasp the tool with both hands and use it properly. If not, why not just admire them, let them speak and sing!
“Let them sweat the blood of the man who created them, used them and passed them on” wrote Paul Feller in his book l'Outil (Tools).
The aim of the association Outil Poésie Ouvrière is to exhibit a collection put together over thirty years by Raymond Huard and his son Pierre ( a sculptor and blacksmith, who works with iron and anvils). The only tools displayed are those that “represent unity”(Paul Feller), that are made either by the worker himself or by somebody else especially for him. For example, a carpenter can't make the iron in his axe, explains Feller, the blacksmith does. The wood worker must join the metal worker. And vice versa, the metal worker needs the wood worker. The tools don't come to life in the drawings of a designer, but in the workshop of the craftsman who encounters a problem in his work and needs a way of overcoming this problem so that he can finish his work.
This is how the collection of tools for working with wood, stone and metal will be displayed, on and around fifty old anvils dating from the XIVth century to 1820. From this date, one tool replaced another too easily, factories, markets and hardware stores took over and we aren't interested in this kind of production.
Why not try to understand how Man managed to live, build and dream from the iron age up until the industrial revolution? In museums you see more weapons than you do tools!
Yet, since 1974 in Troyes-en-Champagne a unique museum has appeared number 7, rue de la Trinité called La Maison de l'Outil et de la Poésie Ouvrière . Not only can you find a library of over 35 000 books on the different trades there, but it also holds the many handmade tools used in every sort of work, using L'Encyclopédie written by Diderot and d'Alembert. The founder of the museum, Feller donated it all to l'Association Ouvrière des Compagnons du Devoir , they have been exhibiting the collections since 1966.
Our project is a more modest one. The project had Paul Fellers support from the very beginning and follows in his footsteps. Together with the foundation we will be asking the following question: “How does man, through manual work, become a man?”
A group of friends got together and founded the association “Outil Poésie Ouvrière” in order to show the public the collection donated by Raymond Huard. It would be a real shame for this collection to be hidden away or worse still scattered around different museums. A final request: let these witnesses of a time long gone sing!
“The Spirit wanted us to sing in our workplaces.
Why are they now so quiet?
Will we ever sing in them again?”
(Paul Feller)
Let me explain the name of our association to you...
What has poetry got to do with tools? A workers poetry (poésir ouvrière)? Poetry is suposed to be all about words and writers.
Let's take a look at what the dictionary has to say. Le Petit Robert tells us that poetry is “the art of literary fiction”, and further still, it comes from the latin word poesis and the greek word poiesis meaning “creation”, “to make”... so, for all this time the word “poésie” has been held hostage by writers, by pen and paper.
Further still we read that poésie is “what makes certain things or people arouse a poetic state in others”. So, here we are. We see in the tools that our association decides to exhibit the capacity of arousing a poetic state in the vistors. Every man can be a poet if he gives himself the chance to become one.
The winegrower who plants and looks after his vineyards on the hillsides of Bourgueil is a poet, the baker who kneads his dough, cooks it at the right temperature, watches over its shape is a poet, the blacksmith who in a few blows of his hammer and the heat of the fire can bend and mould the shape of the metal to make it smoother, is a poet.
Every man who can create, who can make beautiful objects, is a poet.
The president of the association,
Raymond Huard.
(1) Paul Feller, from 1953 to his death in 1979, he dedicated his life to learning trades, and gathered over 35 000 books on different skills and handicraft and a fabulous collection of tools. Raymond Huard met him in September 1962 on his way back from Algeria. They became friends. Raymond Huard is a founding member of l'Association des Mais de Paul Feller , an association established after Paul Feller requested that one be created after his death to manage and protect his work of a lifetime.
Jules Desbois Museum
More informations, click there
Artistic handicraft
GREGOIRE Sculptor, painter
«likes to put himself into his work with his partners in order to make his work as human as possible»
- Personal orders
- Busts, portraits
- Works for architectes, for public and privates companies
> Material used :
- wood, ceramic,stone, broze, iron, glass, resin and cement
> Works include :
- bronze 3.2m statue, Laboratoires Wéléna, in Huningue (68)
- designed lamps for the N.M.B. in Banck, Germany.
- fountain sculpture for Roels hi.fi in Gent.
- Fountain made out of glass, iron and marble for the Mairie in St. Epain (37)
There are permanent exhibitions in their workshop, you can visit by appointment. There are also temporary exhibitions and summer classes and courses.
Poetic tools and handicraft museum
Contact : M. Huard
Auberge de la Croix verte
49390 Parçay-les-Pins
Tel. / fax : 02 41 82 61 74
Artistic handicraft
Workshop :
2, rue Eugène Beunier
49390 Parçay-les-Pins
Tél. /fax : 02 47 96 94 10
Portable : 06 18 66 82 85