NICOLAS LEDOUX

In my job as a visual artist - designer, I first use my heart, my brain, and then my hands. In a way, I am the interface between the designer’s wishes and feasibility requirements, dealing with sometimes fantastic requests that would never have been considered in crystal form. Working from different supports, pencils, sketches, gouaches, watercolors, sculptures or models, I carry out the study of decorations, which will be translated on our pieces in engraving, in size, in gilding or in enameling. But before my first drafts, a whole spectrum of ideas comes into motion, with plays of colors, contours, like a sewing pattern that I adapt so that it harmoniously fits the shape! I’m looking for a flash of inspiration, and when I’m confronted with a blank page, I draw from all areas of culture, from literature to history, from art to music, to find the spark, that happy little accident. To provoke desire, it is necessary to sublimate the crystal, to give it edges, curves, to work on its play of light to discover a whole unsuspected kaleidoscope. Some projects are structured, and others are freer in their interpretation; it is up to me to find the appropriate orientation. I like to alternate curves, splines, add a little straightness, contrasts, symmetry… That is how I can discreetly inject my style and share a piece of my dream! Once the project is validated by the marketing department, I scan or vectorize the base that will be submitted to the designers. As a glassmaker for about fifteen years, I understand that this hyaline material is delightfully capricious; it embodies an excursion into unknown lands. I joined Baccarat as an apprentice and went on a journey that took me to the Ministry of Culture to receive my knighthood in the Order of Arts and Letters. Baccarat trades have an incredible power of attraction, a fireball that births a crystal vessel.

© Trafalgar Maison de Portraits & Romain Chambodut