I work in salvage the way others work in silk.

The material arrives with history — varnish that obscures, hardware painted over, proportions hidden under time. I strip back to structure. I look for line, bone, balance. A piece either has integrity or it doesn’t. Paint can’t manufacture what was never there.

What I look for: the tension between refinement and utility. The chest of drawers built to last, not impress. The chair with honest joinery. The frame cut from actual wood, not veneer pretending. These are the forms worth preserving — not as relics, but as starting points.

My palette is deliberate. Milk paint in colors borrowed from Scottish moors and French limestone. Waxes that protect without shine. Finishes that invite touch, not distant admiration. Each piece is worked until further intervention would diminish rather than elevate. 

This isn’t restoration. I don’t return objects to imagined purity. Much like the Velveteen rabbit, they are loved into a new future. 

There’s an old saying: one who works with hands alone is a laborer. One who works with hands and head is a craftsman. One who works with hands, head, and heart is an artist.

Les mains, la tête, le cœur. Hands, head, heart.

Where is it found? le peripherie