Sebastopol artist Anne Louvau makes small, meticulous, paper buildings that give off a soft, warm glow. You may have seen them on Etsy or Instagram. That’s where I first encountered and admired them, but I discovered only recently that she lives in Sebastopol.
Louvau calls her creations “perfectly precise paper house luminaries,” which is a bit of a mouthful. Her descriptor, “luminaries,” comes from the idea of luminaria, those simple paper Christmas lanterns consisting of a paper bag, weighted down with sand, with a votive candle inside.
“The idea behind the luminaries is that they are illuminated with a little LED pretend candle that pops in the back and the whole thing sort of glows because the paper transmits the light,” she said.
Louvau is a native San Franciscan, raised in Berkeley and educated in art history and literature on the East Coast. “I’ve had a number of different sort of lives, but I worked in New York City for Christie’s and Sotheby’s, the auction houses. I led luxury bicycling and hiking trips for Backroads, which is based in Berkeley. I was with Backroads for 12 years.”…