Elisabeth Lapierre - An Abandoned Conservatory

Reflections of Common People

by Pam North 

Elisabeth Lapierre lives in Saint Savinien, a small town 50 km from the sea, in Charente-Maritime, France. Now happily retired from a career in teaching, and then managing a small company, she has her own business, les miniatures de Liz.
Elisabeth discovered miniatures 30 years ago, in a shop in Faversham, Kent, while traveling with her Scottish husband. Intrigued by all the tiny items, she thought one day she might have a dollhouse. Fifteen years later, she finally embraced the miniature world, enjoying the challenge and fun of making her own things. Her first dollhouse was less than successful, she admitted, as she had neglected the scale. The second one was the result of more thoughtful planning, and was the copy of her own house, but she never finished it. She had found that dollhouses were not the focus of her interest, but rather room boxes, smaller vignettes by which she could represent how people lived in the countryside of France before World War I. “I started with life in the countryside of different regions: Saintonge (where I live), Savoie, Bretagne, Alsace, Guerande, Auvergne, Provence, and Vendée. I thought that it also would be interesting to represent different social classes, in typical room settings that show how house construction and furniture were different with the local materials used.
Elisabeth’s inspiration comes from research, through the internet, books, and museum visits, done before she starts a room box. In the case of  An Abandoned Conservatory, it was a photograph of an abandoned school in Kent that gave her the idea, and it has been a very special project for her. “I was about to finish an estaminet (café inn), showing how bachelor miners used to live in the north of France. As I was looking through my files, I found that photo, and it seemed to represent a cloister (because of the metal arches supporting the glass roof)  in the north of Europe (because of the bricks). I had most of the materials I needed: calendar cardboard, cereal boxes, wooden camembert and crate boxes, cans, etc. From the picture and the back door, I calculated the height of the building and made drawings. I made a pattern so that the four openings would be the same, and each opening was cut twice, so with batten in between, I had the thickness of the walls. Cutting calendar cardboard (2 mm thick) with a Stanley knife is much easier than cutting wood, but I still got blisters before it was finished!” 
She continued, “The main problem was how to make the arches. I'm always working from scratch, buying very little, and making every thing myself, but I foresaw that arching 1 cm wood dowels would too complicated, so instead I glued hemp rope onto the cardboard, put coating on the arches and on the walls, and drew the stones and bricks. At that stage, all walls and arches were separated. The metal arches supporting the glass roof had to rest on capitals. I made one in plasticine, then made a mold in silicone, and eventually made eight capitals in plaster. To color stones and bricks, I used watered-down acrylic paint, and applied several layers of color, rubbing it immediately to give the impression of unevenness in the color. The floor was made from a cereal box, cut into tile shapes and glued down  individually. The color was fixed with matte varnish, and the floor painted with the same seal used on real tiles. Arches also were made from calendar cardboard, brushed with metallic paint, and given a patina. The glass was made of transparent plastic sheet, made to look dirty and broken. I made a flowerbed of hydrangeas; petals and leaves were cut from tissue paper with a punch, and glued individually onto a small paperclay ball for the flowers, and on wire for the leaves. Flowers and branches were put on a block of  green styrofoam. A tree, coming in from outside through a window, was made from wire, and tissue paper cut with a punch, and took me around 100 hours to make it. Other materials were: dead leaves, again cut with different punches; little bits of wood, sand, and earth to get the floor dirty; doors, made of cardboard and painted; and a bar of LED bulbs to give the impression of  light coming from outside. 
“I always try, as far as possible, to make everything myself for a room box. I use a lot a scrap materials. Until now, the only things I could not make myself were the glass items, but I now have managed to make some very plain, simple glasses from resin.
Elisabeth has had no formal training, learning by herself, and inventing the techniques needed. Her Dremel tool is one of her most valued pieces of equipment. 
Selling her work is not a part of her creative endeavors. “I would find difficult to part with my room boxes, I think,” she remarked. “I'm creating a museum in the small town in which I live, to tell the story of how people use to live 100 years ago.” She does enjoy sharing her acquired expertise with others, having also created with a friend last year an association named Miniatures 17, where she teaches three workshops a month, with up to five persons at a time. 
When asked what she loves most about miniatures, Elisabeth replied, “I love to recreate atmosphere that gives people the feeling that they are traveling back in time.”
Elisabeth’s next project is  a room box depicting how a weaver would live in Lyon 100 years ago, and she also is planning a castle.
Contact Information:
Email: lapierre1951@gmail.com
Phone: 33 6 10 01 37 53
Address: 6, rue du petit Champeroux  17350 Saint Savinien  France