2025 Essays

Within the Workshop Walls and Beyond: The Spaces of Artisanal Experiment and Inquiry

Uchacz, Tianna Helena

The author-practitioner of BnF Ms. Fr. 640 rarely describes the spaces he works in or moves through; his focus is almost exclusively on activities of making. Nevertheless, spaces, places, and their material and conceptual contours support the author-practitioner’s activities and offer insight into his worldview. This essay attempts to reconstruct something of the author-practitioner’s workshop, his itineraries in and beyond Toulouse, and his assumptions about environments of creative labor. The first half of the essay considers the space of the author-practitioner’s workshop, surveying the equipment, tools, and materials in his workspace and comparing them to the items commonly found in the workshops of contemporary French goldsmiths. The second half pivots to examine spaces beyond the workshop walls, examining the role of domestic spaces, the urban landscape, the countryside, and the wider world in the author-practitioner’s enterprise.