Émile Chaudron, Le zoo de bois branchés / The zoo of branched wood

Chaudron's creations in the current location 
(townhall of Lafauche)

It can happen to any of us. In a piece of wood or a branch of a tree one recognizes a human figure, an animal or some object. Most people leave it at that, but some may become so interested that they begin to collect and adapt such small wooden items.

Life and works

This happened to Émile Chaudron (1927-2003). Born in the small community of Prez-sous-Lafauche, located in the north-west of France, he became a woodcarver by profession.

In 1960 he recognized the head of a dog in a branch of a cherry tree from his garden. This aroused his interest and he began looking around for comparable branches. In this way he built a collection that ultimately would include some 400 items.

Chaudron regarded the collection as a single entity and he was not prepared to sell stand alone items. He apparently considered his creations as inextricably linked to him and his habitat.

this picture and the next four: screenprints from 

the video by Marie 3657 (see documentation)

In preparing branches for inclusion in the collection, Chaudron left them almost entirely in their original state. The only adjustments he indulged, were carving a head with a specific expression and adding some attributes that gave support to the depicted character, like in above scene he added faces, a hat and pitchforks.

The collection mainly includes animals and there are several scenes that depict the in France well-known fables of Lafontaine.

Already in 1961 Chaudron had such a number of items available, that he could organize a small exposition in Chaumont, the capital of the Haute Marne department, not far from Prez-sous-Lafauche.

Maybe he feared people would make fun of his passion for these small wooden items, but his characters were popular with the public and the exposition was a success.

Charlie Chaplin

So in 1963 Chaudron opened a small museum named Zoo de Bois in Orquevaux, a community of some 80 inhabitants, close to his birthplace Prez-sous-Lafauche. 

It's a community that in summer is visited by tourists who are attracted by the natural beauty of the area, and the museum didn't go unnoticed by holidaymakers.

In 1977 the museum was relocated to Prez-sous-Lafauche.

After Chaudron died in 2003, the family approached the local association Amis du Château de Lafauche, a group of volunteers, active in promoting the local castle. This association agreed to take over the management of the Zoo de bois branchés.

After a relocation to the nearby village Lafauche, in May 2016 the museum was reopened. Together with photos and models of the local castle, Chaudron's collection currently can be seen in a room in the town hall.

Documentation
* Article (in Spanish) on Infomadera net, July/August 2002

Video
* Le musée aux branches, video by Marie 3657 (4'41", Daily Motion, 2008)

Émile Chaudron

Le zoo de bois branchés
Mairie de Lafauche (Town hall)
11, route Nationale

52700 Lafauche, dept Haute-Marne, region Grand Est, France
can be visited in summer (May 15-September 15) on weekends

Concetta and Michele Sassano, Jardin décoré / Decorated garden

this picture and the next one: view from the street (2008)

The book published in 2015 about art environments in the north of France, d'Étonnants jardins en Nord-Pas de Calais (Amazing gardens in Nord-Pas de Calais) devotes two pages to Concetta and Michele Sassano's art environment in Wingles. The editors of the book say that notwithstanding various attempts, they couldn't get into contact with the couple to talk about their creation, so they rely on the few already available sources and pictures to present this site.

Life and works

Biographic information about the couple is limited. According to the article by M.P. Griffon (see documentation), Concetta was at age 66 in 2002 and she moved from Italy to France in 1957. So she was born around 1936 and she moved to France at around age 21.

In 2008 the couple participated actively in an interview, as can be seen in the video Mon Louvre à moi, but if currently (2016) they are around age 80, this might explain they didn't not feel like an interview any more.

Concetta and Michele Sassano spent over fifty years of their lifes to creating and maintaining their art environment. And it virtually took all their free time. As Concetta said when interviewed in 2002: 

"We went five or six times on holiday in forty-six years, but I'm glad.  I'm proud of what I did. I am happy when people stop to watch"

the garden, seen from the rear

screenprint from the Mon Louvre à moi video

Over these years the garden has been adorned with a very large number of commercially available statues, such as an Indian of some two meters high, an ancient Greek athlete, a Venus of Milo, but also a Betty Boop, an Elvis Presley, a Marilyn Monroe, and of course a large variety of gnomes, plastic flowers, vases and all kinds of adornments.

If required Michele painted the items in appropriate colors, like Concetta provided them with clothing.

This decorated garden was special. It wasn't  an art environment in the in this blog usual sense, since its components haven't been single-handedly created by its maker(s).

However, the site in it's overall appearance demonstrated a specific original quality because of the boisterous, festive quantity of artifacts, which could be appreciated as a creative adventure as such.

The site doesn't exist anymore

In August 2023 a reader of this blog reported that the decorated garden doesn't exist anymore. 

Documentation

* Referrals in weblog Le Poignard Subtil (Bruno Montpied)

* l'Inventaire général du patrimoine culturel, region Hauts de France, pictures and description

Video

* Video Mon Louvre à moi by Pascal Goethals (4'19", YouTube, uploaded October 2008); the sequence with Concetta and Michel Sassano starts at 1'35"

first published March 2016, last revised August 2023

Concetta and Michele Sassano

Jardin décoré

15 rue Victor Hugo

62410 Wingles, dept Pas de Calais, region Hauts-de-France, France

site doesn't exist anymore

José García Martin, Jardín de esculturas / Sculpture garden

picture courtesy of David Delgado, from his weblog

front view, click to enlarge

Pictured above is the front view of an art environment in Teguise, a town on Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands in the Atlantic ocean across North Africa, which together form a region within Spain.

Life and works

This art environment was created by José García Martín (1932-2019), also known as Pillipo or as Pillimpo).

The internet hasn't much biographic information about this artist. He was born in a poor family and as a young boy he wouldn't enjoy much schooling. He has been described as an illiterate, but wise man.

this picture and the next seven (early 2018)
courtesy of Petr Hrŭza and Marcela Vorlickova

God has a special place in García's life. As quoted in weblog d'extrangis (February 2014), García said: Cuando vienes a este mundo, Dios nos ha dado ya todas las habilidades que debes tener en el camino. A mí me dio la imaginación, ya que no podía aprender esto en la escuela.  (When you come into this world, God already has given us all the skills you should have along the way. He gave me the imagination, since I could not learn this in school).

It is not clear when this happened, but at some moment in his life García began making sculptures, using clay, sand and water for the build-up and white plaster for the finishing.

The life-size sculptures mainly depict different types of people and various animals, such as a horse, lions, a fish....  Although García was a deeply religious man and there is sculpture of an angel, the majority of the sculptures have no specific religious character. However, on the rear part of the garden several crosses are installed, which may primarily reflect death, but also may have a religious significance.

On the pictures in this post the sculptures mostly appear in white, but this could change over time because García liked to color the sculptures again and again, with light green as one of his favorite colors. When he died, in the spring of 2019, all sculptures where white colored.

In general the site has the character of a sculpture garden, although it is supplemented with bric-a-brac, such as dolls, TV-sets. old furniture, music instruments, so to speak all things people discard at any given time. Perhaps a reflection of the relative value of earthly goods.

Located on the corner of two streets, the site not only extends along the main street, but also for tens of meters along the side road. So it's a garden with rather large dimensions in relation to the relatively modest living house.. By means of small walls, often decorated with frescoes or mosaic, the garden is divided into various compartments. 

The site has been denoted by various names, such as Museo Mara Mao, an indication on a sign held aloft by a black painted sculpture that probably depicts the devil. Another sculpture holds the sign Museo Pillipo and an inscription at the entrance gate reads El Paraiso del recuerdo (Paradise of memories). 

Seen from the street the left side of the garden borders a large area where on Sundays a touristic market takes place. García's art environment attracts a lot of interest of the tourists and websites such as Trip Advisor have published their pictures and remarks. García occasionally was available.to talk with tourists, but in general he preferred to be on his own, not welcoming visitors to his garden.

After the death of García on May 11, 2019 the site remained as it was. Currently (September 2019) it is not clear whether there are heirs and what the future of the site will be.

Los sueños al viento

By chance Spanish filmmaker David Delgado San Gines got to know García's art environment. He became inspired to make a movie about the site and the dreams of it's creator. García, who meanwhile was in his early eighties, agreed to cooperate and in 2014 the film was shot. 

Entitled Los sueños al viento (Dreams into the wind) the 80 min film in March 2015 was presented at the International Film Festival of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. 

On the Festival's website the synopsis reads: On the island of Lanzarote, a wise and unlettered man has built, to offer it to the world, a strange garden, where has given shape to the disturbing images of his dreams. It is Pillipos planet, a world ordered with images and visions, where angels scamper in the wind with God. 

A weblog by Delgado regarding the film comprises facts and reflections about the art environment and its creator. 

Exposition in summer 2019

In the summer of 2019, from June 21 until September 15, the International Museum of Contemporary Art MIAC in Arrecife, Lanzarote, had an exposition entitled La posibilidad de un museo, with works from various artists, among whom García (the first presentation of his work in a museum)

Documentation

* Article on weblog 25mq-di-verde, November 2013
* Article on weblog d'extrangis, February 2014
* Weblog Los sueños al viento (January-October 2015) by David Delgado San Ginès

Video

* Video by Axel B (1'24", YouTube, August 2014)

first published March 2016, last revised April 2023

José García Martín
Jardin de esculturas
Calle José Betancort
35530 Teguise, Lanzarote, Canarias, Spain
can be seen from the road
on the outskirts of the town, along the road towards Yaiza,
close to the petrol station
streetview

Mariano Ros Martinez, El Gau esculturas de roca / El Gau rock sculptures

this picture and the next ones courtesy of Wim Kuyps,

from his weblog

In the Sierra del Ferriol, some ten kilometers north of Elche (Alicante province in the south-east of Spain), a quarry has been transformed into an art environment, a creation by Mariano Ros Martinez (1926-2017). 

Life and works

Already as a young boy Mariano Ros, the one with the beard in above picture, loved to wander in the mountains, like he also herded goats in the mountainous area around Orihuela, a city in the Alicante area.

Later, settled in the neighbouring city of Elche as a shoemaker, his love of nature and the outdoors manifested itself in hiking, mountaineering and travelling to destinations such as Mount Kenya, the Kilimanjaro and the Mont Blanc. With a group of friends he founded the Union Excursionista de Elche. 

In his mid seventies, around 2000, Ros began sculpting the rocks in Castellar, a location in the Sierra del Tabayá in the neighbourhood of Elche. He had no education in sculpting at all and maybe he was inspired to make sculptures when somehow he carved some rocks when outdoors.

Anyhow, carving stones earned him an amazing experience. As he said in an interview: Estaba ya drogada con las piedras (I became almost stoned by the stones).

Ros' choice of the location in Castellar was not very appropriate, since it was a protected, archaeological significant area and after he had made a number of sculptures the authorities ordered him to stop this activity.

Ros was not discouraged and in 2004 he shifted his worksite to another area, an abandoned stone quarry in the Sierra del Ferriol, a site that over the years grew into a popular art environment with some seventy creations.

Different from Ros' first spot, the stones at the quarry are rather soft and easier to carve. Ros also decided to color the carvings and in this way the depictions acquire the character of high relief frescoes.

Most creations have been made in the upright rock wall and have a vertical or rearwards inclined position. The site also has some (more or less) horizontally situated works, such as a crawling crocodile, a plane, birds, a discobolus and two ladies.

All creations in conjunction form a tribute to the city of Elche. As Ros said in the interview already referred to: Yo a Elche la admiro, la quiero (Elche, I admire her, I love her).

There are scenes, as pictured above, which depict the city as a world heritage with its palm trees which have a protected and UNESCO heritage status indeed.  But there are also many scenes that depict daily life in the city, former crafts, local monuments or outdoor activities such as mountaineering.

The videos in the documentation below give a good impression of the various scenes depicted in this art environment.

In addition to the rock sculptures the site also includes caves equipped with tables and chairs, and the site also has some built constructions, such as a pyramid with a globe on top.

In making this art environment Mariano Ros was assisted by some friends, among whom Candide Escribano and José Perez Alcaréz, who for example kept the site clean and also planted and watered palm trees.

In 2008 the authorities once more ordered Ros to stop and refrain from further enlargement of the site, which at that moment included some seventy creations. Ros, who meanwhile was 82 years old, did not oppose this decision, realizing that he did not own the land and that he already was advanced in years. 

Mariano Ros Martinez died on April 24, 2017

The art environment such as formed until 2008, has continued to exist and has become a local landmark. 

Situation in 2021

The picture above, made in December 2021 by Tiramisu Bootfighter, who traveled through Spain in the context of his project La Valise, Galerie Ambulante, shows that the site at that time still was in good condition. It is maintained by Candide Escribano, a friend of Ros..

Documentation

* Interview with Ros (2011) in weblog Aventur-arte-la revista 
* Article (July 2013) in Wim Kuyps' weblog about Hondón de las Nieves, with a series of pictures of the site

Videos
* Video by Costa Blanca Directory (2'01", YouTube, uploaded May 2015

* Video Ilicitanos. Los Mundos de Mariano Ros, by  Andrés Maestro Cano (2'38", YouTube, uploaded March 2014)

* Video The artistic Mariano Ros nestled in the mountains of Ferrio. Elche by Jan van Droffelaar (3'54", YouTube, uploaded August 2013)

first published March 2016, last revised December 2021

Mariano Ros

El Gau

Elche, Alicante, Comunidad Valenciana, Spain

some ten km north of the city center
route from city center