It takes a (small, paper) village
It's the busiest time of year for Sebastopol paper artist Anne Louvau
Sebastopol artist Anne Louvau makes small, meticulous, paper buildings that give off a soft, warm glow. You may have seen them on Etsy or Instagram. That’s where I first encountered and admired them, but I discovered only recently that she lives in Sebastopol.
Louvau calls her creations “perfectly precise paper house luminaries,” which is a bit of a mouthful. Her descriptor, “luminaries,” comes from the idea of luminaria, those simple paper Christmas lanterns consisting of a paper bag, weighted down with sand, with a votive candle inside.
“The idea behind the luminaries is that they are illuminated with a little LED pretend candle that pops in the back and the whole thing sort of glows because the paper transmits the light,” she said.
Louvau is a native San Franciscan, raised in Berkeley and educated in art history and literature on the East Coast. “I’ve had a number of different sort of lives, but I worked in New York City for Christie’s and Sotheby’s, the auction houses. I led luxury bicycling and hiking trips for Backroads, which is based in Berkeley. I was with Backroads for 12 years.”
Louvau happened into what is now a full-time business almost by accident.
“I’ve always been an artist in a number of ways. I was a silversmith. I’ve been a book binder and watercolor artist,” she said. “But for Christmas, several years ago, I noticed that we were sending Christmas cards that would just be recycled at the end of the season. We were making this big effort and sending out things that had a limited lifetime. So I thought, ‘What can I put in an envelope that might be decorative, that people might collect over time, that would be a gift?’”
“And I thought I could make a house that can fold. The original ones were very simple, little tri-fold pieces that opened up like a card or like a little triptych. And they were well received. Our friends sent lovely photos of their Christmas villages growing on their mantle,” she said. “They’d get a new piece from me every year, and it was very rewarding. And, like so many, when the pandemic came and I was home and thinking about what I could do with this new time I had, I decided to make a business.”
The name of her business is Belgian Paperworks. “It comes from my husband’s heritage and our last name, which is Belgian,” she said. Louvau is also interested in genealogy, and some of her works are based on photos or drawings of homes her family’s ancestors lived in.
Some of Louvau’s houses are extremely elaborate. She uses a cutting plotter to cut most of the pieces but also cuts some pieces by hand. She said she’d like to use a laser but lasers leave a toasted edge she doesn’t like. “When lasers can cut without that toasted edge, I will be the first in line,” she said.
She explained her process in an interview with Ann Martin, who has a paper arts blog called “All Things Paper.”
“I use creamy, 140-pound French watercolor paper, beautifully textured and very strong, as the foundation for each building. Then I add meticulous details by hand, with some houses having as many as seven layers, or close to 80 pieces. Finally, the most delicate bits are reinforced, until every house is, literally, ready to shine. The finished houses are folded flat for shipping and storage and are designed to last for years.”
As you might guess from these photos, Louvau’s business is a seasonal one.
“They really do fit very well for Christmas time and for winter decoration,” she said. “So my sales are very quiet throughout the year, and they start to pick up for Halloween, and then they become very robust at Christmas time, and then everything quiets down.”
Louvau said she is the only person she knows of who is practicing this particular art form. Her work has appeared in Better Homes & Gardens, and she was recently an Etsy Design Award finalist.
You can find her work in her Etsy shop.
