Sculpture Casting Factory Hidden in French Neighborhood
Hidden Away in a Neighborhood
Walking through what seemed to be a residential area in Paris, we happened to glance over and see a bunch of half finished looking sculpture piled up in front of the entrance to what we thought was someone's home. Amanda was so intrigued that she immediately pounced over to the door and peeked inside. Of course, that freaked me out a little bit because neither of us really speaks French, and this didn't look like a public kind of place.
Inside there was a very nice woman, who managed to figure out that we were tourists and she invited us in to have a look. It turned out that they were a small factory and specialized in casting all kinds of sculpture. We fumbled our way through asking her if we could have a look around, and she humored us. These are some of the photos that we took while invading their workplace!
When we first entered the studio, we came across this room with several people working on various projects. Please forgive the quality of some of these photos; the entire place was pretty dark so the camera overcompensated a bit. Some rooms were worse than others! I'm always amazed when I go into an art studio where people are creating things and they have such terrible lighting to work under. Maybe it's an artist thing?
There were several rooms where they were actively working on things. At first, we thought that it was extent of the building but boy were we in for a surprise after walking past this room.
Behind the next door, we found ourselves in a labyrinth of smaller rooms full of tables and shelves with artwork stacked from the floor to the ceiling. I think Amanda was going to have an aneurysm!
And now for a long series of images that speak for themselves. This place has so many nooks and crannies! The images are of varying quality as some of them were taken with a point and shoot camera and the rest were taken with a Canon 7D.
So it was time to move on. We were pretty grateful that the owner of the factory allowed us to explore it. I think it was kind of a unique experience as it appeared to be privately owned and I don't think many outsiders have ever seen the inside! So suppose this photo series may be sort of unique on the internet.
Sadly I have no idea what the name of this place is. It may have been written on a plaque somewhere, but honestly I wouldn't have known it if it were right in front of me being that I don't speak French!
I suppose it doesn't really matter because I don't think they'd be too happy about me sending people their way. It isn't exactly a public studio! It's a good thing that Amanda is always so insistent that we check places out, or I would have missed out on a lot of adventures over the past 15 years. I'm sure looking forward to when the the lock down is lifted so that we can start finding more of these amazing hidden treasures as we travel.
Oh wow, that is a crap load of castings and stuff like that. It reminds me of a trip I took to the sculpture museum at one of our local colleges. Very cool! I bet she was just itching to get her hands dirty and create something of her own!
I tell you man, we had no idea it was going to be like that inside. We thought there would be just a room full of people working and a few items. On the outside, it doesn't look that big, but the rooms go on and on.
Yeah, she was inspired to do some work for sure.
That is pretty cool. We have a store near where I work that is kind of like that. You go in and the place just goes on and on forever.
Wow. That is amazing, just stunning. I know where a couple of 'pottery production studios' are in Mexico, they cast and mold endless copies for the tourist trade.
At a smallish museum in Eastern Washington is the largest collection of Rodin sculpture outside the Louvre. It is mostly bits Rodin cast as models for his larger sculptures in bronze. It's really an amazing collection that shows much of the process graphically.
I used to live down in Mexico for a while. At one point we drove to Monte Alban and there were these kids selling fake versions of artifacts that archaeologists were digging up around the site. Apparently they started making fake versions (pretending they were real) because they had been digging real objects in the past and selling the priceless objects to tourists for like $10.
I guess it's better that they aren't practically given away these national treasures anymore, even though they are selling replicas pretending they are authentic! I actually bought a few of them because they are still cool looking, even though fake.
That is so neat. Thanks for sharing @nuthman. Really interesting place with some fabulous art pieces.
Thanks for sharing. Its so cool and interesting...
Thanks! It's sculpture lover's paradise in there.
What a cool find. This is what makes traveling so great. Sure you can go see all the tourist attractions, but this is real!
Exactly - we always try to find these types of hidden places when we go somewhere new. You really miss out when you stick to the tourist route.
Same here. We enjoy meeting locals and striking up conversations which usually turn into good points of contact for good finds. I remember on one trip following some locals to a hidden swimming spot in northern austerlia where everyone was sliding down a waterfall and sharing beers.