In France, there are no schools to learn bear design. Discover the background of a french bear artist.
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BiographyCherbourg (French Normandy), 1964: Laurence Veron was born exactly 20 years and 20 days after the D-day. As a child, she already likes reading, drawing and writing. As a teenager, she writes her diary, poetry, novels and children stories. |
Sewing and fashionShe is fond of sewing, and dresses her dolls before designing her own clothes. After completing her psychology studies, she goes to Paris to attend a fashion design course in a very renowned fashion school. For several years, each Christmas, she sews stuffed animals for her family's children. She starts making dolls. |
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...then the bearsIn 1994, for a friend of hers (a teddy bear fan) she designs a little, unjointed sitting bear, in black synthetic plush, with button eyes. She improves her pattern and searches for prospective shops and toys manufacturers. Many designs emerge, one of a kind or limited series bears. She attends her first show in 1996. January 97 : She creates "Oursement Vôtre" , the first french monthly journal about contemporary bears. For 2 years, the journal witnesses the actuality of french bear world. March 98 : Laurence Veron is the first french bear artist to show her creations on the Internet. In 1998, Laurence's works is shown in :
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...and more
1999 : Laurence Veron appears in Linda Mullins "Tribute to Teddy bear artists - series 3", the world's reference book about bear artists.
The french fashion's designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac asks her to produce her "Bibok" design in exclusivity for his parisian store.
Laurence Veron is the first french teddy bear artist to become a member of the organization "Bear Artists On Line".
2000 : Laurence Veron presents "Blanche", her millenium bear, on TF1, the biggest french TV station.
2005 : Laurence create the french website http://helene.ours.free.fr for her friend Hélène Bastien.
Isabelle's work
July 2006 Laurence is invited in Burgundy by Lyne Dor, a fairy creator. Laurence creates elves and goblins using Isabelle's ideas.
2007 As Laurence is involved in another job, Isabelle makes many of the bears presented on the site. At the end of the year, she have fun realizing tiny bears.
Let the artist talk
"I work only with passion and according to my motivation, as I believe it can be seen on the bear. A bear sewn when I'm sad will be sad too.
I don't prepare all the bears of an open edition in advance, I just sew them when they are ordered. The wishes of my customers and my own desire are very important for me.
As I don't like to make the same bear many times, even if I like him, the number of bears in a serie is not very high, often under 10. This fits to my philosophy of bears and of my work and also to collectors' standards.
In an open edition, each bear has slight differences because most of the sewing is done by hand, and that gives him more charm.
One-of-a-kind are very special bears not only because they are rare, but also because they are often very sophisticated or have such emotion that it would be impossible to reproduce them correctly.
Althought very different, some bears seems to be from the same family. This is the case for example of Isabelle's bears, as she works with my patterns but doesn't use the same fabric and imagine personal details. Most of the time, the name are chosen to show that the bears are "cousins".
Some open editions may be in fact limited serie, when there is not enough fabric to sew more than two or three bears. In this case, I just take their photo off the site.
From time to time, the photos disappears from the site just because I want to have the pleasure to present my new creations !
But as I now have another job, Isabelle makes most of the bears presented on the site.
