Whenever I go visit my friend Odile in Isle sur la Sorgue (a village full of antiques comparable to Saint Ouen in Paris) my heart instantly feels happiness. Not only because she is an antique dealer extraordinaire, an artist, and a collector of antique textiles, but more-so because she gives lessons on how to see the unseen.
It isn't as if she stands in front of an imaginary chalkboard, or lectures, or holds your hand guiding you around her shop. No Odile is as natural as blooming flower, her ways are as gentle as petals and her words better than perfume.
She teaches by allowing you to see.
Odile shop is tucked in a little alley away from the busy street where most of the antique dealers shops are. So very much like Odile, not caught up with what is in the spotlight, or fashionable, or what sells… she buys from the heart and you can feel the energy of that source the moment you walk into her shop.
In the window a extra large paper mache crown, and crystal loops that interlock creating a curtain where light is allowed to dance on the walls.
Underneath the crystal loop curtain, that is too short for the window, a bucket on pink peonies have room to be noticed.
A chandelier with striking blue crystals illuminates a Louis Philippe mirror that is void of gild, bare wood happiness.
Odile by her style, by her charming vignettes, creates a space that opens one's eye to see the broken, peeling, cracked, used, abandon objects not as faded grandeur, but as a soft whisper that gets under your skin.
It is as if she lets your imagination have a safe haven to bloom.
Odile's shop is called: La Petite Curieuse, or in English, The Little Curious (One).
Odlie gives vista points a different meaning. Sets up viewpoints not often taken. Makes the unseen seen.
Letting things be as they are, letting their story continue without jumping to a conclusion:
"Broken pot, throw it away" is not her motto.
Being is more important.
Rough linen, mixed match fabric stained by rusty nails, though the chair is still a beautiful chair as it is.
Being is more important than fixing it up to look like something it is not…
New and shining.
Comfort is not what it is all about.
Whenever I go into La Petite Curieuse, I see what is not seen everyday, yet has brought the day to me. History… Old objects, that have lived, stood the test of time, pink pottery teapot with one flower, and a zinc bucket no longer in the barn.
And if you love textiles that haven't been manipulated into patchwork jackets, purses or sachets… but are pieces of historical art as they are… Odile's is the place to visit.
Every little thing is worthy in La Petite Curieuse eyes.
La Petite Curieuse
Odile Bouscarat
23, rue de la République
84800 L'Isle sur la Sorgue
04 90 20 86 59 – 06 10 26 37 54
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