wood sculptor Gilles Gillaizeau who makes statues and church furniture styling

The Sculptor

From my youth, passionate for the truth and in search of perfection, I have visited paces completely deserted and isolated, long abandoned by man. I am deeply moved by the architecture and furniture which form a unity in these historic sties. It seems to me that we can understand the thinking of the past by studying the construction and decoration of these buildings.
The same way, because of my love for historic truth I have always tried to remake the images and objects of past times taking the trouble to be as exact as possible.
When I was 16 I was very interested in wood working and I became apprentice in a cabinet maker's workshop near Faubourg Saint-Antoine in Paris.
I am passionate about my work , a friend, albeit older that I, communicated the passion he had for his work. I am still trying 22 years later to work as he did.
When I was 18 I went through France learning. Starting in Catalonia I learned to make solid furniture in the style of the Spanish renaissance, and Louis XIII and Louis XIV.
Then I went up to the Auvergne where I learned to restore old funiture.
I started working as a cabinet maker and restorer in Brittany on Belle Isle when I was 23, and worked there for 6 years.
I got the taste for sailing in traditional boats and at 29 I took some courses in a ship yard in carpentry, modeling, marine cabinet making and sail making, working in association with a friend in a naval ship yard. I did this work for 21 years. At the same time, 13 years now, I started wood sculpture, with the years this has become a new passion, enriched by past experience.
When I was 49 I opened my studio of wood sculpture, furniture making and statuary.
To start off I enrolled in a association of the best workers in France, "meilleurs ouvrier de France" After 5 months of work on the subject of a competition; the poop of the Dédaigneuse, a corvette, and her sister ship the Hermione, I was winner, thus I became one of the "meilleurs ouvrier de France en sculpture sur bois". That brings me to talk about my work............