Month: June 2014

Meet the designers at ZUTusine

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Charlie Arnold, owner, designer, creator

I trained firstly as a fine art painter and printmaker at Leeds, then at Central Saint Martins, London where I obtained a Masters in Fashion. Since then I’ve worked as a freelance print designer and a craft curator organizing design exhibitions.

 

 

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David Arnold, designer, creator

David learned traditional cabinet making as well as contemporary furniture design at Rycotewood College in Thame, near London. He has been working as a designer-maker for over 20 years creating unique furniture commissions for individuals and museums.

ZUTusine…A bit of background information

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We moved to France from England in 2004.
We needed space to house 5 tons of woodworking machinery, my 5M textile printing table and our 3 small, but growing, sons.
SO…we bought a ramshackle, virtually roofless, disused 1920’s hydro-electric station in the middle of a forest in the Massif Central, like you do.
10 years later and we are still renovating our buildings!
David managed to get the roof on in 2005 and since then we seem to have been chopping wood to keep the rayburn going, helping our children with their homework and installing the odd bathroom when David got a good commission or I had an exhibition project.
It’s been pretty hard as we’ve done everything ourselves, but very rewarding and now, although not entirely finished, we are comfortable and enjoying solar heated water in the summer. This year too we have finally built our long planned for wooden deck over the old canal into the building, so we can better enjoy our beautiful woodland surroundings at tea breaks.
10 years on, the children are older and speak French much better than us.
I finally have the time to get down to my own design work again.
Voila, ZUTusine!