The dream factory - conversation with Ophélie Gerard
For our second collection, we had the chance to collaborate with designer Ophélie Gerard. Together, we imagined « KATU », a series of delicate wooden trays carefully made by hand.
Based in Brussels, Belgium, Ophélie lives surrounded by nature, and has chosen her path through design by imagining and making things preciously with her own hands. For us, she shared her dreams, her thoughts on design, and life.
- What brings you coziness?
The moment I go through the door, and get in my home or in my atelier.
Being in my private space means a total peace to me. I am with myself, in calm, I feel safe.
It is like I can leave all my problems, the bad weather outside!
I think home is such an important place, that you build slowly, by collecting objects you like, by leaving more and more your smell. It becomes part of yourself.
- How would you define your design approach?
My design is quite rational but I like to bring a little poetic twist in it. I do design functional objects for people, and also children toys. In both cases, I think playfulness is important and I believe in purity, in the inner-child we all have, towards the way we apprehend objects that are surrounding us. Because I consider myself also as a simple and pure person, driven by passion and dreams.
- Tell us about your little mock-up, next to your bed
This is my ultimate dream I have since I was 6 years old. I was always passionated by the concept of house-atelier and I was dreaming to build one by myself one day. I got recently the opportunity to have a part of land where a tiny ruin stands. I am not an architect but I designed an atelier/house that I see there. I am renovating, building the place little by little, every weekend. This mock-up, placed next to my bed is like a reminder that motivates and encourages me.
Ideally, when it will be finished, I see myself there, having a micro-manufacture of objects in a broad way. It can be making books, objects, drawings… anything that can be made by my hands. I would call it « La Fabrique à rêves » (the dream factory). People who pass by in the neighbourhood would come inside, like they visit an artisan. I like to share my design with people who are not in the field, because I find them very pure and honest on their comments. I design for those people at the end.
- How did you start working with wood?
I like to work with my hands since I am very little. Wood was the easiest, the most accessible material to start creating things, so naturally continued until now. The magic part of wood is that quite simple actions are enough to sublime the material, and giving life to an object. Furthermore, I really like the natural pattern of it, the way it behaves like a well-being.
- How do you see the future?
Recently I started to feel more my place in this world. A kind of legitimacy I got or I granted myself. I started to not follow what the others do, the main design scenes, but rather to focus on myself and my pleasure into making things I like and I believe in. That’s enough. I see myself in my atelier/house, surrounded by my goats and chickens, making things with my hands.
KATU is a trays series made of beech wood.
With delicate grooved grid on the surface, some colours appear and disappear.
KATU is inspired by the mosses and little things that live in between the paving stones in the street. Once you start paying attention to them, your journey becomes way more precious. The series is composed of trays in various dimensions, including flat and inclined versions.
On the diner table, on the desk or on the side table, KATU trays display beautifully your little precious objects.
All hand-made in Belgium.
Text & photography by Elisa Defossez Kikuchi