Book arts-related shops in Paris

I have such a lot to share with you, but I am trying to keep information in categories that will make the information easier to find in the future. In this post I’ll focus on places I’ve found where you might buy book arts-related “stuff” in Paris. I am also planning to talk in future about artists books I’ve seen (and bought!), art/artists I’ve seen and in particular, one printmaker and book artist, who we met and got to know a little.

At “Les Puces” or “the Fleas”

Paris has a large number of markets which often run for 3 days of the week, like the St Ouen flea market (Sat, Sun, Mon) which I visited. I read that Les Puces are the original flea markets in Europe, and the term comes from the fact that the area where they are (St Ouen, just beyond the boundary of the Parisian arrondissements) was, in fact, heavily infested with fleas! Fortunately not the case now.

Les Puces are HUGE, covering numerous blocks. The first part is devoted to clothes, but more than half is vintage items. I had a tip to look for a particular shop which specializes in ephemera, pens and other items of interest to calligraphers.

I rarely use ephemera in my work, but I have been doing some ink drawings these past few months. There were literally hundreds of nibs, for calligraphy and drawing, from numerous countries. These are the ones I eventually chose, and the ones on yellow were a gift from Veronique, the store owner.

From: Boulevard des Ecritures, Marche Vernaison, Allee 7, – Stand 128 bis

Just around the corner, down the winding alleys of the market, we bought these wonderful wooden printing blocks. I have longed for some of these since I first became aware of them. We spent a dusty half hour, picking through boxes sorted by letter, until we came up with this configuration. We had to include the large “E” with the circumflex. A few others have french and german script features too.

From: tombees du camion.com, Marche Vernaison, Allee 5, – Stand 92

 

Rue du Pont Louis Philippe

When you wander from the Marais towards the Seine, one lovely street that is lined with interesting shops is Rue du Veille Temple (Old Temple Street). Once you cross Rue de Rivoli, the street name changes to Rue du Pont Louis Philippe. Clustered near the top of this street are a number of “paperies”. My favourite was Calligrane (6 Rue du Pont Louis Philippe) where I bought 6 beautiful sheets of handmade paper. Ahhhh! if only money and luggage allowances were more plentiful. Large sheets of paper are not easy to travel with!

Kimonoya, on the corner at 11 rue du Pont Louis Philippe, sells beautiful items from Japan. They include traditional tea cups, teapots, kimonos, scarves and gorgeous calligraphy brushes on stands. Then if you continue down the lane beside Kimonoya, you’ll come to this gorgeous building. It’s a rare example of what I would have described as Tudor architecture, but my husband pointed out that it’s unlikely to be the term used by the French!

 

Back in rue du Pont, Melodies Graphique is at number 10. It is a paper and calligraphy shop too, but was unfortunately closed when I tried to visit. The sign on the door read “fermee exceptionelle” (exceptional closure) which sounds serious to me. I can’t tell you much more about it but here are some lovely photos of the interior of the shop here.

One last place that I still hope to visit is Relma, (3 rue des Poitevins, in the 6th arrondissement). It’s a bookbinders shop with a history that dates back to the 1920s. Sounds like heaven!

A bloggy-book arts meet-up

I’ll finish off this post with the best of all! After my last post, former BookGirl, Clara Boza, checked in on Facebook and noticed I was in Paris. So was SHE! Clara got in touch and voila! Here we are enjoying “une express” and the odd macaroon (yes, I know I mentioned them in the last post too!).

Clara is lovely and I was absolutely delighted to meet her. So good to chat about common interests (and in English).  Clara lives in North Carolina, not far from Penland. Hmmm. She has a new blog now but unfortunately I have lost the link. I’ll add it here when I can.

And to really finish off, a few more photos of this wonderful city.

 

 

 

Paris: First Impressions

It been such a long time my dear bloggy friends, and I am sorry to have ignored you.

Preparing and making this journey has been more of a challenge than I was expecting. My energy is rather low, and as is my usual pattern, at such times I feel a preference to withdraw from social contact as it is especially tiring.

Nevertheless, here I am in the beautiful city of Paris. The weather is divinely sunny (around 22 deg C during the day, with crisp cool nights down to the low teens). I am surrounded by (even staying in) buildings older than any in Australia.

The Marais (the area where we are staying) is renowned as the home of art galleries and studios for fashion designers and all manner of artists. Not to mention the best creperie in Paris! (Well, ok, I did mention it!)

The clothes in the shop windows are…beautiful. Gorgeous, natural fabrics like silk, linen, cotton woven more thinly than we ever see in Australia – how do the French get away with that crushed linen look so successfully? I can’t understand why the clothes in Australian shops turn to synthetic fibres. Hot in summer, cold in winter, what is their use? I know, its the no-iron thing, but I recommend we just get over that!

So far we have wandered (quite far) without any particular aim, except perhaps to locate a patisserie or fromagerie (that’s an entire shop devoted to cheese!). I know there is no such thing in Brisbane, although there is one in Maleny and one in Melbourne, both being much smaller affairs, and a part of other foodie businesses.

About a two or three minute walk away is the amazing artists book shop Librairie Florence Loewy. I visited this shop when I was in Paris in 2008, but I confess to being rather overwhelmed then. This time I settled in for a long stay and scoured the shelves until my legs were aching. No purchases – yet! (but the shop is close by!)

When we booked our apartment here in Rue de Saintonge, I knew how close we would be to Florence Loewy. But I did not know that there would be a bookbinder’s studio in my street (how quickly I’ve claimed ownership!).

On one of my first days here, I was stepping carefully along the narrow footpath when my eye fell on a wall of boxes, covered in beautiful fabrics. Along the entire length of the opposite wall, stretched a work bench and five or six men and women bent over papers and board. I looked through the window at the studio, a workshop obviously in progress. There was a book press close by the glass of the window, and another press further back. The entire space seemed to be less than 2 metres by 4 metres, such a hive of activity. I longed to go in!! But I could see that the middle of a workshop was not the best time for an approach with my faltering, limited French.

Back at the apartment I found the website for the studio – and yes, I was right. Celia Malouvier is a bookbinder with wonderful credentials, nearly 30 years experience, who runs workshops, speaks English, in my street – what to do?

So far, I haven’t plucked up the courage to go into speak to Mme Malouvier, mostly because I’m not sure what I want. But you can be sure, at the very least I will go in and say hello.

E-BOOK

Before I say “au revoir” and hit the cobbled streets again I wanted to tell you about the ebook I mentioned before I left home. I had planned to post this pretty-much live from whatever I recorded on location, whether photo, audio or video. Unfortunately, I don’t really have the energy to devote to the project. I still think it is a great concept and I am gathering a lot of information towards a book (in fact, maybe a few). I just feel that to do the concept justice would mean devoting all my energy to it and I am enjoying visiting the art galleries, book and clothes shops, flea markets… well, you get the idea.

Instead, I’ll just be posting about the art, especially artists books that I am seeing, and I hope you will enjoy that!

There’s good news and there’s bad news

 

But fortunately, a lot more good than bad!

First the bad news

If you’ve been visiting me here for a while, you may have guessed that my recent bloggy silence denotes a period of low energy.

The first few months of this year have been pretty productive for me but about three weeks ago I began to feel that I was over-doing it.

I’ve actually been pleasantly surprised by the start to the year. Both my energy levels and my ability to make plans and follow through have been good. I started the year setting a few goals and things were coming together well.

Unfortunately it all came unstuck when I disregarded my priorities hoping I’d manage to “do it all”, and then I really pushed the limits to help out a friend. I knew it was foolish, but I hoped that the price would only be a bad week. That was around the time of my last post.

I hope you will forgive my disappearance without a word of explanation. I was hoping that quick action might lead to a quick recovery, but CFS doesn’t really work that way.

And the good news…

Apart from just being good sense, there is another reason that I have been trying to recover quickly, and that is because in just over 3 weeks I will be heading off to Paris for a month. Sacre bleu!

The trip is a holiday, but I have a number of arty ideas and plans.

The first to come to fruition is an e-book that I will publish while I am there. I am still ironing out the details of how this will work, but of course you will be the first to know.

In the meantime, I’ve decided to continue my holiday from blogging to give myself the chance of  the best possible recovery. I hope you can bear with me a few more weeks while I rest up and get ready for the trip.

If you think the e-book idea is interesting, and you aren’t already following the blog, it might be an idea to join up so you’ll hear when my next post goes up. You can see a number of different options for following in the column to the left.

When I’m back

After the trip I’ll be diving in to producing my contribution for the next round of Book*Art*Object.

By the way, in case you don’t follow the BAO blog, there was some wonderful news recently from the State Library of Queensland, which has acquired the entire first round (that includes “Judy and the Jacaranda”). This shows great support for our collaborative project and has given the concept a wonderful sense of legitimacy.

When I get home I’ll definitely be posting about writing artists statements and I also have some more information about different venues for selling artists books. But first, some rest.