Ten years ago, Nathalie wanted change. This former manager of cultural programming for municipalities in Pays de la Loire retrained in 2015, when she founded the Atelier du pencil. Based in a small town in the Landes, in Lesperon, Nathalie also shares her passion with the many visitors who visit her.
After meeting Patrick, a pencil maker based in Auvergne, Nathalie found this job very “poetic”. The man was willing to pass on his know-how to her, on the condition that she did not settle in the same region as him. And this is how she established her workshop in the Landes.
“To be a creator is to be an actress”
L’Atelier du pencil, “is above all a story of feminine craftsmanship,” she explains on the website atelierducrayon.com. And it is also “a story of reconversion”, since Nathalie moved from the civil service to the craft industry. She describes her old job as “super interesting”, but emphasizes that after ten years, she got bored. “I wanted to change,” she summarizes at the microphone of France Bleu, specifying that she created the Pencil Workshop “a bit like a joke”.
“Every day in the pencil factory, I manipulate tools, I activate my muscles (reasonably) and my brain. I am in contact with noble materials which I transform into poetry”, confides the one who describes herself as “a ferryman, a mirror, a drop of water”, in short, “the grain of sand of an economy of human “.
“Only natural” and “no waste”
As she explains so well on her site, the designer does not need to “bring down thousand-year-old trees” to make her pencils since she uses wicker, a wood that could not be more ecological: “We take strands on the wicker stand and it grows back every year. » In addition, this wicker is grown using sustainable agriculture, so it does not use chemical treatment.
Furthermore, there is no plastic in the body of the pencil, which in this case does not require petroleum and therefore results in “less waste of fossil energy”. Finally, Nathalie emphasizes that it is a “zero waste” pencil since the sections of wood used are usually set on fire by the osier growers or basket weavers.
Pencils that don’t “hurt the wrist”
Nathalie also assures via her site that her pencils do not “hurt the wrist” being made from oily leads which “slip on the paper”. And these mines are rich in pigments and therefore rich in color, ideal for obtaining an intense color, without having to “force”. “It’s what we call ‘Fine Arts’ quality, it dazzles because it shines so much. »
“Because a branch is unique, it’s beautiful and it gives meaning and value to the object: we don’t bring anything from China (even if we have nothing against the Chinese!) and we does (almost) everything with our little hands,” points out the pencil creator on her site.
“You know the magic forest, the one that’s full of pencil trees? »
Nathalie also likes to share her passion with the many visitors during the summer, a time when she sees “800, sometimes 1200 people pass by”, she tells our colleagues.
These workshop visits are “a moment of discovery and encounter where we sharpen our senses”, because the place smells of “wicker, cut wood, mining wax and fresh glue”, describes the site. But what Nathalie also likes is telling stories… So when she gets tired of saying that she makes holes in the branches, she invents another version of the facts. “Every morning, I go for a walk in the forest with my pruning shears,” she begins. Once she has cut some branches, she looks inside. “If there is yellow, it makes a yellow pencil. The next branch, if there is red, it makes a red pencil. »
On her site, she offers another variation. “You know the magic forest, the one that’s full of pencil trees? We like to say that we found it. Children never believe it but adults…”, it is written not without humor. During school holidays, Nathalie sometimes offers creative workshops, in partnership with the mine de rien association.
“We are not rich in money, but we are rich in our time. We can choose what we do with it,” concludes Nathalie to France Bleu, visibly very fulfilled in her work.
How can you help us stay informed?
Epoch Times is a free and independent media outlet, receiving no public support and not belonging to any political party or financial group. Since our creation, we have faced unfair attacks to silence our information, particularly on human rights issues in China. This is why we are counting on your support to defend our independent journalism and to continue, thanks to you, to make the truth known.
