Saturday Art Saves: La Belle Brocante

 

 

 

Photo Source: La Belle Brocante. Alwen Rambo's original artwork.

 

Each Saturday I focus on a different artist that I admire. From potters to painters, chefs to collectors, seamstress to songwriters, lifestyle to lovers... anyone who set the paintbrush, pastry brush, hands and heart on fire to create.

Those who inspire art to flow where it may.

 

 

 

 Photo Source: La Belle Brocante.

 

Today I would like to intoduce Belle Brocante, Alwen Rambo, a collector of French ephemera.

 

Above shadow box: Alwen describes it, "Custom open-front shadow boxes. Reproduction and original vintage imagery. 1800s medicine vials and corkscrews. Finished with turned wooden feet (not shown)."

 

 

 

 Photo Source: La Belle Brocante.

 

Alwen describes how she started to collect French ephemera,

"La Belle Brocante was born of carbonation ... sitting in front of a cafe in Anduze, France watching the bubbles rise to the surface of the glasses, watching the world pass by. Musing on the word Quincaillerie, and the fact that it would probably be challenging for English speakers to get their tongues around, though it was the essence of what we wanted to do. A mixture of old treasures, old ruins, snippets of life in the beautiful south."

 

Alwen describes her shadowbox (above): "10" x 20" stretched canvas. Vintage photographs and paper ephemera. Embellishments: brass finials, dip pen, monopoly car, shell buttons, optometrist lens, clock hand, charlotta doll, French box lid, fossil, human tooth, enamel pocket watch face. A mosaic of thoughts and stories."

 

 

 

 

 Photo Source: La Belle Brocante.

 

 I love the way Alwen describes her photos and artwork on her blog,

"Teeny tiny ink bottles to add a little dose of French sweetness to your studio decor." Alwen mixes snippet of poetry, and fact, "Bottles are approximately 2.5" tall and are for decorative purposes only ... after decades of opening and closing and waiting to write that fateful love letter, the ink has dried up in despair."

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Photo Source: La Belle Brocante.

 

"My life via a vintage telescope lens." I love how Alwen describes her life as a collector in this quote and photo.

 

 

 

 

 Photo Source: La Belle Brocante.

 

 

I thought I had the peeling, rusty, chipped, faded, dusty French brocante bug badly... until I discovered Alwen's blog. Alwen makes my collection of bugs look like a hiccup.

Last week when I asked what do you collect I was giggling inside thinking of Alwen and her mass collection of brocante bugs.

I admired too, that my cousin and another reader, who do not know each other, both said they collected their cat's whiskers. I am sure Alwen smiled reading that too.

 

 

 

 Photo Source: La Belle Brocante.

 

Collecting what we love, what inspires us to live an artistic life.

Be it objects, or memories, or most likely a collection of those things and thoughts that make a whole.

 

 

 

 

 Photo Source: La Belle Brocante.

 

 

 Photo Source: La Belle Brocante.

 

 

 

Alwen continues to say, "I am drawn to rust and dust and dents and scratches. To the imperfections and fingerprints left by years of use. I love the stories, the history, of belongings that have been left behind, outliving those who once valued them." 

 

 

 Photo Source: La Belle Brocante.

 

 

 

 Photo Source: La Belle Brocante.

 

 

 

 

 

 Photo Source: La Belle Brocante.

 

 

 

"The teeny tiny things that accumulate in my studio:

Vials of watch parts. Mourning pins. Wee carnivorous teeth. Clock hands. Gem sized photographs from early photobooths. Small bones. Military buttons from forgotten conflicts.

Bits and pieces of a creative life."

 

 

 

 

 Photo Source: La Belle Brocante.

 

 

 

 

 Photo Source: La Belle Brocante.

 

 

 Alwen's collections:

 

"Beautifully worn handwritten mailing labels. Glued to small wooden boxes that were used to post gold and other valuables, the boxes were then wrapped in twine and secured with wax seals."

 

 

  Photo Source: La Belle Brocante.

 

Alwen comes to France, in search of those bits and pieces that are often overlooked, she said,

"...Early morning brocante in the Super U parking lot. Bits of magic unceremoniously displayed on rickety tables and blankets laid out on the ground. Old books and piles of engravings. Zinc basins. Enamel clock faces and hand blown wine bottles. Wooden crates of postcards and letters and other ephemera. And at the back, a jumble of handmade lace, knotted and tumbled together. In amongst the larger pieces were cards with lengths of the sweetest lace pinned to them. Fine as cobwebs, and not much more expensive."

 

 

 

 

 

 Photo Source: La Belle Brocante.

 

and her humor, "Because really, when does pink ever get a mention?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Photo Source: La Belle Brocante.

 

 

"Bliss!",

Found at the brocante, Alwen is someone who knows the affection that the brocante bug gives, she gets the passion, she has the artistic eye that sees the world as beautifully old and worn in perfection,

"An enormous stack of antique documents from Paris and its environs....mostly 1700s....some 1800s....some 1600s....incredible wax seals....hand drawn maps....little attachments stitched on with fine thread....steel pins holding pages together....the most heavenly aroma, that mixture of cedar and tobacco that makes me swoon every time....beautiful watermarks....parchment so fine it is transparent....ragged edges....creases and stains....the foxiest foxing...."

 

 

 

 

 

Photo Source: La Belle Brocante.

 

 

 

 

"Everyone has their letter," writes Alwen, "Mine just happens to be A.

Perhaps it should be B for the Brocante.

Or R for Rust.

But it just happens to be A."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Photo Source: La Belle Brocante.

 

 

"Being a collector is akin to being a custodian or a curator. I live in a small 1940s bungalow that has become an evolving, overgrown installation piece, a museum of not-quite-precious things. It started, perhaps, with a collection of hanko (Japanese stone name stamps) from my grandmother. They were joined by registered mail labels. Medicine vials with handwritten labels. Saints' heads. Hands. French documents. Optometrists' trial lens frames. And on and on. Everything is carefully edited. Vignettes hint at past lives and relationships." 

 

 

Description of Alwen's shadow box: "Studio Collage. 23" x 47". Antique French botanicals. Ooooold French script. Cabinet card. Wooden Loto markers. Clock faces."

 

 

 

 

 Photo Source: La Belle Brocante.

 

 

 

 

Description of Alwen's Shadow Box:

"Elements being arranged and rearranged, added and subtracted, and moved once again:

• French business letter, 1904 
• Britains 3-legged cow (originally 4)
• Biblia Sacra, 1829
• Pair of German porcelain legs, 1890
• Vintage French photo booth images"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Photo Source: La Belle Brocante.

 

 Wouldn't Alwen's collections, musings, shadow boxes make a BEAUTIFUL BOOK!!!!!!!!

 

Description of Alwen's Shadow box:

"6" x 8" wooden box collage. Vintage papers, early French photos, Muybridge imagery, bone/ebony domino, vintage copper upholstery nails."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"I heard once that it takes three of something to make a collection. Imagine, then, the visual impact of 30. Or 300. A drawer full of antique enamel watch dials. A cabinet stuffed with doll heads. Apothecary jars filled with charlottas. Dozens and dozens of blown glass doll eyes, all staring blankly. Enough bottles of arsenic to give anyone nightmares. Glass dome after glass dome filled with eggs." Alwen said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"I find it more and more difficult to distinguish between art and collecting. Shadow boxes line the walls and the elements within them move fluidly from one to the next, making room for new arrivals, new stories. Things are not fixed in the sense that would traditionally make them become art pieces, but I think they serve much the same purpose. (Perhaps I'm an unrequited interior designer?) With collage I am a little more sure-footed. The building blocks of paper, paint, and charcoal, familiar elements telling new stories. The common thread is the story, the narrative that unfolds through alignment and juxtaposition, heartache and humour."

Please visit Alwen's Belle Brocante. 

All text quotations are from Alwen.

 

Comments

[Zosia]

Wonderful creations. Thank you for introducing Alwen and her world to us. I am especially drawn to old photographs of people or scenes of life from the past. I have one old photo, probably from the beginning of the 20th century which I bought in Canada in an Antique store. It shows three children, ages about 8 to 11 (two girls and one boy) in their Sunday best, sitting on a high, horse drawn buggy (with a very big wheel). Maybe they were going to church or to a Sunday picnic. The girls are wearing beautiful white dresses, the boy is in a dark suit. The moment I saw this photo, I knew I had to buy it. I framed it and it hanged in my house for many years. I didn't know who these people were, but I felt like they were my family. Now, they are still in a box in storage waiting for the time we move to a bigger place. I miss them.

[Brother Mathew]

uugh.

[carol]

She, like you, has a way with vintage treasures and words. You have a lot in common. :) Beautiful, interesting post.

[parisbreakfast]

They would make a beautiful book!
Love her use of Fr handwriting in particular...

[[email protected]]

mathew,( with one T) you don't know what you are missing. this does not get any better. all this oldie stuff. it's just like a luscious dessert. i cannot stand it. corey, what a blog. this women could keep me breathing forever. some selections.Bestest, Denise

[Merisi *duck*]

Quick, brother Mathew fainted! Where's are the smelling salts?
)Quite brave of him, though, to actually look at all these treasures until he could take it no more!).

[Chris Wittmann]

WOW!! I'm drooling over those beautiful antique pharmaceutical bottles with their gorgeous sepia labels, the lovely old handwritten mailing labels, the artful arrangements...holy cow!! :)

[Susan young]

FA-BU-LEUX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Jan]

Heart-grabbers. Thank you so much for introducing us, Wow.

Jan

[[email protected]]

These are extraordinary and beautiful creations - they surely deserve wider attention, as your post hopefully will help achieve!

[Nancy]

I can certinly see why you like her so much Corey..you two have such similar tastes and beautiful ways of discribing things..I have signed up to follow her blog..Thank you for introducing us Corey!!

[Brenda, Walker, LA, USA]

I enjoyed this immensely!

[peggy aplSEEDS]

oh how wonderful! thanks for featuring her!