The Art of Andre Debru

While on holiday in the south of France my husband and I went to visit the Roquefort caves with my mother-in-law.  On the way there we came across a roundabout with an art installation in the middle that caught our eye.  I’m generally not into art all that much but my MIL is an artist and both of us had a bit of a “WOAH” reaction as we were circling the roundabout.  We kept going but on the way back I absolutely had to stop and have a look at it.

I wish I had gotten photos from another angle as well, because it’s just so cool.  The entire thing is made of different pieces of metal.  It has a shepherd, the flock of sheep and a sheep herding dog in the back.

Like I said, it’s really rare that I get hyped up about an artist, but something about this really intrigued me.  I had a closer look and saw his info on the chest of the shepherd.  I took a photo so I could Google him the minute I was near an internet connection again because I just really loved this stuff!

The artist himself doesn’t have a website, or bother with the internet at all, but I managed to find a few blogs written about people’s visits to his workshop. There were photos of the grounds around the workshop and the art pieces he has on display and I pretty much decided that I absolutely had to get to that place as soon as possible.  They also said that if he is there that you can go in and speak to him and he will show you around, so I made a plan for Xander and I to get up early one morning and drive to Aveyron and check it out.

I took this wonky panorama photo with my mobile when we arrived.  It was really, really cool!  Standing from that spot you could see a lot of his pieces (not so much in the photo but you can take my word for it).  We could see that he was in his workshop but before we went in to meet him we had to have a look around. I couldn’t wait to see it all!

My favorite of all the pieces was this absolutely enormous elephant.  Wow, I mean look at how massive it is next to Xander and I!  I can’t even imagine how much it must weigh, considering later, when we were in the workshop, I tried to pick up a sheep that only come up to my knees and could barely lift it!

When we went into the workshop Andre greeted us and asked if we spoke French.  He speaks no English at all so I wasn’t able to communicate with him, but Xander knew enough French to ask him the questions I had and do some translating.  They chatted while I looked around the workshop and took some photos.

He told Xander all about how his father, grandfather, great grandfater etc were all blacksmiths and then passed the trade down onto him.  That is how he got started with working in metal and eventually lead to his artwork.   While we were there he was working on another installation of the sheep for a city somewhere in the southwest of France.

He also had two different sorts of smaller sheep for sale, ones made of metal strips like in the above photo and another made of smaller, more dense pieces of metal.  These are the ones I tried to lift and could barely get it off the ground… so yeah, imagine the weight of that elephant. Holy crap!

Don’t quote me on this but I think one of the smaller sheep were marked at about €240 or so, not bad considering the amount of sweat and work that goes into them.   Knowing just from how much people undervalue the time, effort and cost put into knitting items, I have an entirely new perspective on the cost of handmade items and art pieces.

He had an owl sculpture that I really loved, for €90 but it was marked as reserved.  I SO wish I’d taken a photo of it, grrr!  If it hadn’t been spoken for I would have taken it on the spot, even though I have nowhere to put it.  Such a pity that I missed out on it, but when I do finally have a house with a garden I will make sure to visit him again on one of our trips down to visit the family.  I’d love an owl or a dog, but I’m pretty sure Xander will push for one of the robots!

I’m so glad that I took the time to look him up, because I really love the work he does.  To see his sculptures in person and to see how it puts together every tiny piece of metal to make these animals and people, it’s just amazing! If you are ever exploring the Aveyron area, it’s definitely worth stopping by!

We ended up having a really wonderful day.  We initially planned to just pop out and visit his workshop and then head back to my in-laws to bum around the pool, but we got so caught up in the beautiful scenery of the area that we spent almost the entire day driving around aimlessly.  We just took in the views and enjoyed being out together, it was great.  I will be posting those photos sometime soon!