Self Made Dumasienne - How the Week Works

Teaching

The Self Made Dumasienne weeks are best suited to people who have existing craft experience or who are naturally practical and are happy to work on their own as there will be no professional instruction during the week.   

Skillshare

Although there is no formal instruction we encourage skill sharing within the group. This skill could be creative or culinary, a healthy activity or pursuit or techniques to help designer/makers or small businesses flourish. You don’t have to be an expert - a passionate interest in a subject will make what you have to say, or demonstrate, interesting. Skill sharing is completely voluntary and not a condition of being part of the week. If you don’t have a particular skill to offer you can just share the love!

Equipment and Materials  

There is a wide range of equipment at the Chateau available for your use free of charge including basic equipment such as aprons, pens, pencils, crayons, paint brushes, paper, pva glue, scissors, sewing accessories, etc.   

Specialist consumable materials such as pigments, dyes, binders etc are not included and will need to be purchased separately. You can bring any specialist materials with you in your luggage or order them for delivery directly to the Chateau.  Our address for deliveries is:   

SARL Domaine Chateau Dumas 
Lieu dit Dumas
82220 Auty
France

Contact:   Lizzie Hulme
Mobile:  06 35 58 75 93  

We always have a selection of print and dye ready natural fabrics for sale by the metre in stock. These fabrics include cotton, velvet, wool and habotai silks. 

Three months before the start of your stay we will contact you to ask which activity(ies) you plan to pursue. This will help us make sure we have the right equipment in place so you can make the most of your studio time. You might even think about doing some advance preparation and arrive with sketches and designs so you can hit the ground running. 

You can download individual PDFs of the Materials and Equipment available at the Chateau here:

TEXTILE CRAFTS

MILLINERY

FABRICS

Please follow this link for the Equipment and Materials list including a list of European suppliers, fabric list and the address to use for deliveries to the Chateau. 

EUROPEAN SUPPLIERSuropean Suppliers

Resources

Come with your ideas already developed or allow the inspiration to flow once you’re at the Chateau. The garden is stocked with ancient trees, flowers and inspirational panoramic views and our library has craft and nature books for reference and pencils for sketching.  There is a lightbox and photocopier/printer for reproducing imagery.  If there’s a special technique you want to use in your work tell us about it beforehand and we’ll let you know if we have what you need. 

Dumasienne Duties

The Chateau will be ready and looking beautiful for your arrival but there will be no staff during the week to carry bags, make up your beds each day or provide table service.  We will be our own self-sufficient community with everyone lending a hand with the daily jobs.  These include serving aperitifs, laying and clearing the table, emptying the dishwasher, sweeping and mopping the floor.   For a group of 12 people this should work out to be about 5 hours per person over a week.  See our sample timetable of Dumasienne Duties here.

Artist in Residence

One or more professional artists will be staying at the Chateau during your week and working in a separate studio and developing their own body of work. While the artists are not able to offer tuition, they will be pleased to talk to you about their work and host a daily open studio session when you can see what they have been working on. This is a perfect opportunity to observe the routines and outcomes of a practising artist and maker.

Registration 

Once we’ve received your deposit you’ll be invited to register.   In the first instance we’ll ask for your personal details, dietary requirements and so on. 

We’ll be in touch again three months before your stay to invite you to a Zoom call where you’ll have the chance to meet the other Dumasiennes signed up for your week.  We’ll also  ask your permission to circulate your email address amongst  the other participants on your week so you have the chance to coordinate your travel plans (see the note on Airport Transfers below)  You might like to travel up together to our local train station or form a mini-group to be collected by coach.  We are happy to organise coach trips for you for groups of more than 5 people. 

Airport Transfers

We encourage people to take the train to Caussade where we can pick you up for 5E per journey. If you’d like private transport we can organise that for you. A single journey from the airport to the Chateau by private transport costs between 150E-200E depending on the driver and time of day. If several people are arriving on the same day the cost can be shared between you all.