Spreading Wings

From jewelry and small bibelots to tables and large-scale installations, the ‘Crow’ makes it in metal.

By: Ilene Dube

Staff photo by Mark Czajkowski

Francois Guillemin’s bronze violin player was inspired by his musical sisters.

   Le Corbeau means "the crow" in French. West Windsor resident Francois Jean-Marie Guillemin took the name of the glossy black bird while living with his French-born parents in the mountains near Santa Fe, N.M. "It had to do with my way of living. I thought I’d be a hermit living off the land. My friends all had Spanish and Indian blood," he recalls. "They all had animal names: Beaver, Grasshopper, Cricket, Trout, Urraca (Spanish for magpie)."
   "In all art matters, I refer to myself as le Corbeau," Mr. Guillemin states at the top of his résumé. The sculptor/jeweler/metal worker will soon open an art gallery and workshop in Hopewell.
   Before entering his home, you pass through two giant upright boulders unearthed from a construction site at Route 1 and Texas Avenue.
   The woodsy retreat, tucked away in an undeveloped nook, is enchanting. The ceiling is wooden slat-and-beam, a wooden stairway ascends to the second floor, and a farmhouse sink and old enameled stove gleam in the kitchen of this 1920s former carriage house.
   "Just look around; if it’s metal, I made it," says the Crow, seated on one of two sumptuous leather sofas. There is a magnificent metal coffee table, metal lamps, a metal umbrella stand, a curved metal sidetable, a bronze horse head and a bronze woman in a dress with a violin for a head.
   A glance outside the kitchen window offers a view of even more: an umbrella in a cage, a series of verdigris Greek columns with a woman at the base of one, another verdigris woman with cascading escargot melding into a tree trunk.

Above, a bronze horse head, floor lamp, table-top sculpture and umbrella stand by Mr. Guillemin.
Right, "Pastoral Farce," a sterling silver sugar bowl.
Staff photos by Mark Czajkowski

   "I am a traditionalist, a remnant of classical art techniques," says Mr. Guillemin, 50ish, a tall man with a thick handlebar mustache. "I started as a goldsmith, then moved into sculpture and architectural art. I’ve done jewelry, furniture and lighting."
   What he terms jewelry is, to this observer, more like small sculpture. There is a silver wine goblet, letter openers and a cigar box made of Nautilus shell, gold and silver. A sterling silver sugar bowl, "Pastoral Farce," takes the form of cows holding up an egg-shaped world with a tiny farm tractor on top. These are not pieces you would expect to find in a home but in a palace or museum.
   The cigar box, about 10-by-12 inches, took 13 months of eight-hour days to complete, spread over 16 years. It took the most number of hours of any project he has worked on. "I work slow, but I do good work," says Mr. Guillemin. The gold and silver is worked like stacked shingles, with gold hinges and an enameled tail. It is fit for a shah.
   "I never build to sell but to satisfy my sense of curiosity," says the artist. "If it does sell, I’m happy, but I’m not doing this for anyone else."
   On the other hand he’s not sentimental about his work. "I am willing to sell it," he says. The gallery in Hopewell will provide that opportunity.
   There are rings, necklaces and bracelets made from gold, silver, opal, kunzite and rose-colored spodumene.
   In 1977, shortly after traveling to Sweden with his father, Roger Guillemin, who had won the Nobel prize in medicine, and his mother, Lucienne, a musician and musicologist, le Corbeau began establishing roots in the Princeton area. "You get to a point where you realize you are who you are, and moving destroys footholds that you will have to rebuild."
   He attended a lecture about technical aspects of the bronze casting process by Herk Van Tongeren, who went on to be president and director of the Johnson Atelier, first located in Princeton before moving to the fairgrounds in Mercerville. Mr. Guillemin worked at the Atelier from 1978-1985, ending as the department head of the metal-finishing department. But before he left, he had a blast — literally.

"In the Valley," above, is a bronze figure covered with escargot. Below, "L’Assistant Anti-Pyrinne (Assistant Against Fire)."

Staff photos by Mark Czajkowski

   Having forged a cannon, he was curious to see how it worked during a Fourth of July bash at the atelier, he recounts. So he fired the cannon. "The cannon ball went over a lake, through a forest, and landed in someone’s bathroom," says Mr. Guillemin. "The target was unintended. It wasn’t the police who came to break up the party; it was a lawyer."
   A week later, le Corbeau resigned from his job at the foundry. "I realized I wouldn’t be going very far in the company," he says, laughing.
   The prankster-turned-family man — his sons Omar, 17, Sebastien, 14, and Kierin, 11, seem to share his sense of merriment — had work to do on his house with his wife, Irene, a nurse at the Acorn Glen assisted-living facility in Princeton. They put on an addition as well as fixing up an outbuilding for a studio.
   In order to earn more money, he began taking commissions for architects and designers, from Michael Graves to Robert Stern. He continued to work on his own designs, as well, but putting in long days for clients, he has had little time to market his work. The Crow recently broke ground on the 900-square-foot workshop and art gallery he expects to open in fall 2003.
   "I’m coming out of my shell," he says. He expects to employ eight to 10 people. "We will make jewelry, sculpture, furniture, gates, lighting — anything in metal. We will do forging, casting, fabrication and metal spinning." Mr. Guillemin met his architect, Arthur Chabon of New York, while making a spiral staircase and 35 exterior railings for rock star Jon Bon Jovi’s house.
   Mr. Guillemin’s new property, near the Tomato Factory antique shops and Hopewell train station, has historic designation and includes truss work from a turn-of-the-century bridge that will be used for the gallery. It will be called The Metal Works.
   Walking through mature plantings on his two-acre property is like touring a sculpture garden. First we pass a fire hydrant with webbed frog feet. Le Corbeau introduces "L’Assistant Anti-Pyrinne (Assistant Against Fire)."
   "Foundry work is all about molding," he says. The fire hydrant was molded from one near the atelier, and the frog feet were molded from the artist’s own feet wearing a pair of flippers.
   "Ode to Missing Children" is a chair balanced atop a pyramid. "It came to me when (1997 sexual assault victim) Megan Kanka was killed," he said. "Chairs are usually grouped around a table, in community, but having a chair out there by itself is like a missing person."

Staff photo by Mark Czajkowski

Above, Mr. Guillemin with "Ode to Missing Children," an outdoor piece.

   The bronze umbrella in a cage is called "An Angel in Despair."
   "An umbrella is supposed to protect, but it can’t do its job," says Mr. Guillemin, who used to write poetry before turning to metal. He says this piece describes how he felt while working at the atelier, where he wasn’t able to produce his own work.
   "Spring" and "Winter" of a planned "Four Seasons" are complete, each a female torso. "Spring" is entwined with dogwood, and "Winter" has the bark of a tree and a hand coming up behind.
   At the age of 14, le Corbeau learned how to turn art into cash. Using silver coins, he drilled a hole through the center in woodshop class, shaped the exterior with a steel spoon, pounded it in the schoolyard and sold the rings to his teachers. "It was a good way to turn a quarter into five bucks," he says.
   The self-taught artist has five sisters who are musicians, dancers, painters, cellists. His father, a neuroendocrinologist, also paints. The family lived in a provincial chateau outside Paris, built by one of Napolean’s generals, when Francois was 5 to 10.
   He went to college for forestry, wanting to live out in the woods. "By the age of 18, I realized I had an ability with metal and switched to studying art. I wouldn’t want to wear a tie and commute on a train."
Francois Guillemin expects to open a studio and gallery in Hopewell in a year. For information about Mr. Guillemin and his work, call (609) 799-7979.