Visit to Avignon: an artist’s workshop with soft and natural shades
It was in Provence that the Vime workshop was born, creator and publisher of wicker objects and furniture, under the leadership of Anthony Watson and Benoît Rauzy. Passionate about art, craftsmanship and the history of furniture, the duo launched a new challenge by restructuring and decorating the top floor of a family house with a view of the Rhône and the ramparts of Avignon. Son envy? Restore the soul of this former artist’s studio from the 1930s and transform it into an apartment for rental. Its name: “La Maison Saint-André”. To achieve this, Anthony and Benoît create a dialogue between three inspirations. First, a tribute to the time of construction of the property by recovering the original spaces and the rounding of the bacula ceilings (plaster on wooden lath or canisses). Then, the highlighting of the theater culture, inherent in the City of the Popes. Finally, the promotion of Provencal craftsmanship through terracotta tiles on the floor and a beautiful collection of Chinese ceramics by the two men: earthenware from Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, Apt, Vallauris or La Veuve Perrin manufacture.
The whole coexists in a beautiful harmony, paintings by Max Jacob alongside theater sets on painting by the Russian Léon Bakst and vintage mottled furniture signed Audoux-Minnet, Jean Royère or Gio Ponti. The apartment is also punctuated by pieces signed Atelier Vime: the “The 20’s” vase, the “Facettes” and “Aramis” rattan pendant lights in the kitchen and on the landing.
The old colors of the collection of Provençal ceramics were used as a starting point for the colourist Samantha Rouault, consultant for Farrow & Ball, and the painter restorer Frédéric Sourdon, who unearthed a palette of eight shades in the archives of the manufacturer creating a game shadows and lights compatible with rope and wicker, essential materials of Atelier Vime. In the living room and the hallway, the dominant shade is “Cat’s Paw”, a brown that varies between neutral and warm tones, which Benoît and Anthony have associated in the hallway with “Pantalon”, a traditional brown-green that changes at will. lighting. In the end, a refined rediscovery of forgotten shades, which only required the eye of experienced aesthetes to emerge from oblivion.