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WHY THE ALMOND TREE ?
This question is asked every day that we are open to the public, very intrigued and coming from around the world.
First of all, my relations with the almond tree go back to my childhood when my Grandpa Victore Lesur often took us in his garden wagon drawn by his horse "Grisé" around his properties in the Costières du Gard, planted with olive trees, grapevines and surrounded by almond trees. |
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We would head off towards PUECH ROUGE to the north of Saint-Gilles, passing through the Valla de la GAOU, making our way along a road full of ruts sown with flint stones that shook our wagon, putting its weak springs to a rude test !!!
Upon sight of the first almond trees, so as to relieve the poor horse, our first stop permitted us to gather the almonds from the ground, blown off the trees by the generous Mistral wind. It was no trouble cracking them open with two stones, sometimes feverishly, and thus hurting our inept fingers. |
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These stops were not always to the taste of my grandfather, in a hurry to undertake his hard labour, in the service of his crops, under the fierce Provençal sun, but on the other hand, it made Grisé happy, benefitting from the welcome rest. So it was with those nuts that I was able to appreciate the treats from the almond tree.
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Some years later, riding a bike with a trailer along the road to Marseille, to the south of Saint-Maximin la Sainte Baume, looking for firewood, my eye was caught by a dead tree, lying right near an oratory called the Saint-Pilon. I stopped, opened my bag, drew out my handsaw and got down to cutting up this great find just lying there waiting for me, an unexpected chance, so welcome to me.
Alas, I didn't know its resistance ; it was such a hard almond tree that I had to cut it up with the metal saw. There I discovered one of the qualities of this wood, one of the most dense in France.
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What a good fire I was going to get with these difficult to saw logs; my efforts would be largely compensated for by the future grilled meats. Back in my workshop, at the foot of the magnificent but uncompleted basilica on the Rue RASPAIL, I detached the stump from the precious trunk and stood in admiration before the colour of this wood and the harmonious forms that revealed themselves to my dazzled eyes.
In December 1953, here I am with my little family arriving in Saint Rémy de Provence, on an arctic cold day, Boulevard Marceau, in a house abandonned a long time before but which already had a modest workshop where I quickly got down to the finish of this almond wood structure, attached to a rock frm the Durance river and since called l'INITIAL, so it dates from 1952 !
In 1976, occupying since 1960 the former Hôtel de Lubières, and having accumulated a large collection of wood objects found in the Alpilles, the Luberon, the Lower Ardèche, the Aveyron and the Gard, I was able to show to the public these riches, mirrors of Nature in their forms, their smells and their colours, later called "SYLVISTRUCTURES", the structures of the forest ! |
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In the light of the success at home, I then decided to present these works elsewhere starting in 1982: exhibitions in Nîmes, Aix en Provence, Toulouse, Forêt de Senart Paris, Lausanne, Saint Martin de Crau, Neustadt, Reims, Troyes, Créteil, Sophia-Antipolis, la Sainte Baume, in 1994, when I finally home published my book, "CHIMERES DU BOIS", following "COLOMBIERS et PIGEONNIERS DE FRANCE" published by Massin in Paris. In the meantime, with a group of friends, we created an association :
LES AMIS DE L'ANCIEN HOTEL DE LUBIERES, to the address of which was added MAISON DE L'AMANDIER in recognition of this mythical tree which since has united around us a mass of admirers and promotors in love with this plant so admired for its early winter blossoming, unique in the world.
Today, in the fashion of our friends the Germans who possess thousands of almond trees, bordering the vineyards, we have offered to the Most Beautiful Villages in France hundreds of trees, as we do for the villages in the Alpilles, so that soon, like in Germany, festivals can take place during the flowering period, at the end of winter for the joy of all...
© A. and JP. Fizet |
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