A mere three-and-a-half years ago, artist Heather Chontos purchased—sight unseen—a run-down 18th-century farmhouse in southwest France.
Photography by Heather Chontos (@hchontos), unless noted.
For Heather, who grew up in Upstate NY, the biggest appeal of the property was the fact that it came with a 17th-century stone barn twice as big as the house: a dream studio.
Located in the hamlet of La Tour-Blanche-Cercles in Nouvelle Aquitaine in southwestern France, Heather’s stone house is linked (but not connected) to the barn, which was built a century earlier.
The back garden, shown here, was “a pit of sand, plastic, and nettles” when Heather started working on it.
The Viewing Room
Heather describes the barn as “my studio, gallery, kitchen, meditation space and art viewing room.” It required clearing out, shoring up, and dividing into a series of small spaces—”otherwise it would be too cold”—all heated by a single wood stove.
A self-taught artist, her paintings are sculpture are exuberantly bright and abstract: “I harness the power of gesture to create instinctive compositions,” writes Heather.
The old cement mangeoire, feeding troughs, are leftover from when the barn was occupied by cows. She paneled the wall with found barn wood and drew on it with oil stick.
Heather says she plans to leave most of the furnishings behind: “I feel like they belong here.” The old French wardrobe came from La Caverne d’Ali Baba in Cercles, her favorite local source for vintage furnishings.
Heather’s “summer kitchen” is situated right off the garden. Heather uses the space for making coffee while she works and she keeps a pizza oven in here.
The Kitchen
The over-the-counter shelf is an old gun box.
The kitchen s classic concrete floor scratched in a grid of little gutters so water can run through it for easy cleaning was a great discovery when Heather cleared out a hundred years of dirt hay dust old...
...wine barrel pieces and wood this region used to be a wine region before Bordeaux became Bordeaux It took a long time to get to this base layer Heather created the wall mural using oil sticks and house paint
The old butcher block table by the door to the garden came from the flea market in Moissac.
Heather built a second floor in the barn to use as her painting studio. The metal rims on the wall are wine barrel hoops found in the woods.
The Studio Loft
Photograph by Anna Malmberg.
Heather, here with her spring spaniel, Filou, always starts her large canvases on the floor—and then hangs the work to take a stepped-back look at it.
On view in the studio: a collaboration chair made with Pol Angrill of Barcelona-based Mirror Design Studio—”he’s the youngest brother of the family I went to live with in Barcelona when I was 16.” The patchwork on the wall is a kitchen mat Heather stitched from scrap fabric.
Studio/Yoga Room/Guest Loft
Heather collected old doors, windows, and shutters to partition the upstairs: “I wanted to use recycled materials.” She makes smaller works on paper and wood here.
The loft has a bed on top and an infrared heater inside—Heather built it for doing yoga: “I wanted a small space with a heat blast.” The stair hatch alongside the loft leads to the kitchen and bathroom.
Heather has left her mark all over, including the old French vase on her work table.
Rolled up paintings and drawings are stored on a salvaged hospital cart. Next: Heather and her daughter and their menagerie are moving to Marvao, Portugal, just over the border from Spain opposite Lisbon.