Maison Piaget, Suisse

Let me first warmly thank the fair damsel from House Piaget (Switzerland), who honored me with the catalog of that prestigious watchmaker-jeweller. And, then, you think: "Wow!", then, you gulp once, twice, and wonder how many bodyguards it would be necessary to get in order to go for a stroll through Paris -let's say Champs-Elysées Avenue and its neighborhood with all the pickpockets- with a $500,000 (or more) watch at your wrist! (Of course, there are some "cheap" items too, à $50,000, $20,000 or even less ...)

Of course, as I wrote it before, everybody knows that I didn't touch any of the coming items, and when some people ask me how I manage to do this or that, I just answer that nobody ever taught me how to do this or that. I learnt almost everything by myself, with the help of the computer. On a pure technical basis, working at those pictures on the computer is not any far from the job of watchmakers because it requires the same concentration and stability of the hands (!!) and, of course, keen eyes. Fortunately, compared to watchmakers and jewellers, we have a great advantage that at a simple pressure on a thumb wheel of the mouse, we can enlarge the working zone on the screen of the computer.

Each of the coming pictures took from two to four hours to turn it into an anaglyph, the most exciting and intense moments being the picture with the designer checking a prototype on a sheet of paper, and the picture at the bottom: an element of El Altiplano (Super thin watch, a speciality by Piaget), something that lets you get a true headache! To be honest, you feel like playing chess: none of your muscles moves, nevertheless you are going to perspire a lot because the temperature doesn't stop to increase and you are really hot. Anyway, I felt the same pleasure as to work on Géricault's Radeau de la Méduse or Manet's Déjeuner sur l'herbe, some of the paintings I am working on at the moment.