My name is Gabriel Berthélémy, I was born in 1990. I grew up in France in the Ain county, then in the city of Lyon. When I was a kid, I loved disassembling objects, seeing how things worked, how elements fit together, how they were organized and assembled.

My father used to get annoyed, because I didn’t always know how to reassemble objects I was taking apart. No matter how many tools and explanations he gave me, I just did as I pleased.

I’ve always wanted to look inside, to touch and see in order to understand.

I studied architecture, because I loved drawing and designing. But above all, my studies helped me to discover that I needed to work with my hands.

I started by volunteering as a bike mechanic, then gradually took up welding, and left the big city of Lyon to settle in Drôme, where I started making jewelry from recycled materials.

Then I met Flo Baroud – my forge master – who passed on to me his love of metal transformation and introduced me to the art of knife making.Thanks to Flo, I started giving blacksmithing demonstrations during events. Thanks to Flo, I also have a love of passing on gestures and knowledge, something that became very important to me.

Thanks to acquaintances in Drôme, I met with the famous knife maker David Lespect, who trained me in liner lock mechanism and passed on his know-how. A friendship was born.

I forge some of my knife blades in Damascus steel. On other knives, I cold-machine the steel.

Forging is very much related to the physical senses : the eye sees the right temperature, the sound on the anvil tells me if I’ve hitten correctly, and my hands tell me the right angle to bend the piece in the right direction.

I’ve always had a taste for drawing, I love graphic arts and I enjoy taking pictures. It helps me to seek out new lines and propose new combinations of materials, new colors and textures.

In the quest for mechanical precision : assembling, disassembling, reassembling, adjusting, marbling, polishing, shaping and tempering, until the perfect balance.