Around furniture making, around Revel, have come or settled other craftsmen whose work sometimes complements that of the cabinet makers. For example there are the very famous
bronze foundries of Ramon at Blan and Ilhat at Balma where are cast the pieces which will be worked on in the workshops of Craman-Lagarde or Daïdé. They still use the displaced wax and the sand-mould methods of casting. At Durfort, the village of
coppersmiths, there is a museum of copper working and the Vergnes Company (
www.pierrevergnes.com) makes and displays cauldrons, basins, pans… at the centre of a village where each year 100 000 people come also to buy clothing made in the leatherwork factory, or pieces made by the potters. In Castelnaudary, in the
blacksmith’s forge,
Jean-Claude Sabaté, the third of that name, makes furniture, portals and other pieces of ironwork of a very high quality. Sometimes the flames of the forge awaken in him a creator who brings to life metal birds, flamenco dancers, fish, parrots and other improbable shapes.
One has to travel a bit, into Tarn-et-Garonne, to arrive at the workshops of Françoise Vorms at Canals. There she practices the art of wood gilding as in olden times with astonishing dexterity. It is a strangely ritualised technique by which one applies fine leaves of the yellow metal the working of which gives a patina of greater or lesser brilliance according to one’s desire.
Another material, marble: the local countryside has contributed to this love of fine furniture. The soil in the region provides a great variety of marble with varying shades and designs and businesses such as the Marbrerie Pitié (
www.marbrerie-pitie.fr) at Castres deliver to Revel all that is required to top every sort of furniture.
More recently it is horn-work which has emerged. Very rare in furniture making, the traditional art of horn-work often occupies the place of honour at the table, through cutlery in particular. Thus it is that “La Licorne” (
www.atelier-licorne.com) has come to take root at the entrance to Revel where one can even visit its workshops.
But this melting-pot is also one of astonishing personalities. On leaving the lovely village of Sorèze, if one has been well informed, one will find the lair of a modern-day sage; an erstwhile traveller who at one time toured the world as a deep sea diver, after having been a fireman. The seventh descendant from a line of “boiseux” as he calls them, Roland Floureux (
www.revel-lauragais.com) is a wood turner who is somewhat special. With the appearance of a prophet, the spirit of a philosopher and the aura of a guru, he has the fluency of a professor of local natural history, and the flame of passion. Surrounded by a garden which is disordered, but knowledgeably tended, where 800 tons of wood coming from 200 different species are stocked, this great scholar of trees preaches the subjection of oneself through knowledge and freedom, the enjoyment of the passage of time, and the love of wood.
