Gérard et Yoann Huck
Gérard and Yoann Huck, carpenters
First, the father : Gérard, why this career ?
I was six when, with my mother, I used to walk past a builders’ merchant. I used to adore the smell, the smell of wood ! From that age I always wanted to work with that material and that smell. I would carry a knife and a piece of wood with me. I never changed my mind. Of course, at the start of my apprnticeship, I sometimes wondered whether devoting my life to it was the right thing to do. But when you see, at the end of a day’s work, that you’ve made a door or a piece of furniture which is going to grace someone’s house, it’s very gratifying. Just to take a piece of wood and give it a form, a function.
Yoann, did you want to do the same as your dad ?
Well, I must admit that I was almost born on a pile of sawdust ! When I was very small my father took me to building sites and I, too, used to love that smell of wood. At first I wanted to become a violin-maker, but I was never sufficiently steeped in music. I should really have developed an interest in music earlier in my life, and I was afraid to let myself down. So carpentry became, for me, another way of working with wood. At the start of my apprenticeship I had some grave doubts, and I began to regret having abandoned the idea of making stringed instruments. After all, it’s magic to create an instrument which can make music, but I guess so is creating a space for people to live. I did my apprenticeship with Claude Busset at La Murée near Vers l’Église, and all of a sudden I understood exactly what I was doing, carpentry « clicked » and I became hooked. After that, I worked for five years down in the valley. That’s when I experienced the second « click », at the moment when I was able to construct lovely things, taking the work right through from beginning to end.
Gérard 079 474 83 79
Yoann 079 797 44 38
Translation : Gordon Douglas