A Postcard from Antoine Ricardou
- 12/07/2022
- Postcard
At Touriste we love receiving postcards, so we asked our favorite globetrotters to write to us…
We are happy to share this monthly pleasure with you !
From My Parisian Workshop
A little about myself …
I am Antoine Ricardou, co-founder of Atelier Saint Lazare (ex-bepoles studios) in Paris and New York. I am also the devoted husband of Gwen, a landscape architect who brings green into my life, the father of Gaspard who is 16 and still loves us, of Diane who is 13 and doesn’t like kisses and of Irene who likes to understand how it works.
I am writing to you from …
My Atelier in the 9th district of Paris. A hybrid place where you can cook as well as draw. A place that we wanted to be resolutely oriented towards “doing” so that talents can be expressed with the hands as well as with the head.
My Tourist moment …
I am a tourist who avoids tourists. I am a tourist who does not like to be told what to do. I like to get lost, I don’t read guidebooks and I don’t read reviews of restaurants. I go by instinct. I often stop to draw. I like the long time of drawing which allows me a level of observation that cannot be found in any other meditation.
A souvenir I always bring back …
A drawing. I draw all the time but even more when I travel.
“I like this drawing of a 747 that I drew just before the lockdown on the way to NYC. It’s one of the last ones in operation I think (it was leaving for the Caribbean fully loaded of course). It reminds me so much of my first long haul flights. This plane was wonderful. I love drawing in the boarding hall.”
A Short Story
When I travel to ride my bike, I am often offered to leave it in the hotel’s shed. I always refuse and ask to keep it in my room. One day in Provence (hence the lilting accent you have to take to read this text) the receptionist asks me a little mockingly if I sleep with my bike? I go up and discover my tiny room. Impossible to move inside with the bike in the way. I put my bike on the bed the time to get organized. That’s when they bring me my dinner. The girl looks at the bike on the bed and says: “Oh yes! my colleague was right, this madman really sleeps with his bike !”