When you see the word Chantilly, you will have to think of this beautiful chatêau above. This is the official Chantilly castle, the prime icon of Chantilly. Chantilly is a beautiful city located 30 kms north-east of Paris. This city is historically famous for Chantilly lace and Chantilly cream.
I have been a fan of Chantilly for years. The drive to Chantilly is through beautiful countryside roads, viewing the adorables homes in the Gouvieux neighborhood and then reaching the cobbled streets of Chantilly.
I am currently having my exhibition at its médiathèque or the town library. As you can see the walls are made of stone. It is an ancient structure that they have maintained wonderfully. The exhibition started on the 28th November and will all the way until the 5th January 2019. The address of the library is: 34, rue d'Aumale, 60500 Chantilly. They are open on Saturdays apart from the weekdays, but closed on Mondays. If you wish to know more details please click here.
The team at the médiathèque had been extremely nice to me from the time that I approached them with the request of having an exhibition. They agreed to have me as a few of my works are inspired from popular childrens' stories. They love having works of artists who have some relation to books. They told me that they never had a papercut artist exhibiting at their médiathèque.
The team at the médiathèque not only prepared my flyer but they also prepared this little info that was distributed around Chantilly. I am so thankful to them!
I gave a demonstration in the afternoon of the 1st December. I drew in many curious people. thanks to the flyers and publicity done online, there were people aware that a papercut artist would be in. I met a few people who came specifically to meet me. Some of them thought I was giving a workshop (but alas! I was not), a Father brought his 5 year old girl and he specifically wanted me to explain to her about my working process, another brought me an ancient locket that contained a miniature papercut... It was such a pleasure to see so much interest in my work and my art. I was more than happy to let them know every detail of my tools, the reasons why I choose to draw in certain ways, why I am attracted to certain themes, my knowledge of papercutting as a traditional art form in countries like China, Japan, Indonesia and Switzerland etc.
I was happy to have met a friend who came by herself all the way from Paris to see me and my exhibition.
Since the time of my exhibition, I am happy to say that my papercut above along with some others have been sold. However, if you wish for me to make another similar one with a personalisation to it, then yes, I would be happy to do it!
If you would like to view more of my exhibition photos or my latest updated works, you can like my Facebook page here.
After my demonstration was finished, my family and I drove over to the neighboring village of Coye la fôret, another magical little place where I found this friendly cat sitting on the table of a quaint restaurant by the lake.