Founded by rural residents and self-taught creators in the commune of Auzet (04140), REVES PASSIONS CREATEURS operates under the French Law of July 1, 1901 (RNA W043000789, SIREN 512273061) as a democratically governed cultural association. Every strategic decision, studio rule, and budget allocation is voted transparently by our General Assembly of members without private profit or commercial interest.
The story of REVES PASSIONS CREATEURS is inseparable from the human geography of Auzet (04140) and the high valleys of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. For decades, residents living across the scattered hamlets of the Blanche Valley—situated on the mountain road connecting Digne-les-Bains to Seyne-les-Alpes—maintained rich traditions of manual craft and visual expression. After long days working in agriculture, forestry, municipal maintenance, or rural education, dozens of men and women devoted their evenings and winter weekends to painting alpine landscapes, carving walnut and larch wood, shaping terracotta, weaving sheep's wool, or assembling poetic sculptures from weathered stone and iron.
Yet prior to the founding of our association, these self-taught creators worked almost entirely behind closed doors. Without a public cultural center, a non-commercial gallery, or a shared workshop in the village, amateur artists rarely showed their work outside their immediate family circle. Many felt intimidated by academic art institutions in distant cities, believing that because they had never attended a formal École des Beaux-Arts, their creations did not merit public display or serious technical discussion. At the same time, young people growing up in the commune had almost no opportunity to observe adult artists at work or to experiment with printmaking, painting, and sculpture without traveling forty kilometers over mountain passes.
Recognizing that this dispersion deprived the village of a powerful source of social solidarity and cultural vitality, a founding collective of local self-taught painters, woodworkers, teachers, and civic-minded residents convened in Auzet to draft a foundational charter under the French Law of July 1, 1901. Their goal was straightforward yet transformative: to establish a permanent, 100% non-commercial association that would pool creative tools, inhabit a shared communal workspace at LE HAUT PRESBYTERE, 04140 AUZET, and organize regular, free public exhibitions where creators and neighbors could meet face to face.
Since its official declaration to the Préfecture des Alpes-de-Haute-Provence and publication in the Journal Officiel des Associations et Fondations d'Entreprise (JOAFE), REVES PASSIONS CREATEURS has grown steadily while remaining strictly faithful to its non-commercial public interest mandate:
| Period / Milestone | Institutional & Operational Development | Public Interest Outcome in Auzet (04140) |
|---|---|---|
| Founding & Prefectural Declaration | Drafting of the initial Association Loi 1901 statutes by local self-taught creators; registration in the National Directory of Associations under RNA W043000789 and INSEE registration under SIREN 512273061. | Creation of a formal legal framework guaranteeing disinterested, non-commercial cultural activity in the commune of Auzet. |
| Installation at Le Haut Presbytère | Establishment of the official headquarters and permanent shared studios at LE HAUT PRESBYTERE, 04140 AUZET, following volunteer-led refurbishment of the workrooms and lighting. | Opening of 140 m² of heated, accessible communal studio space for amateur painters, sculptors, and printmakers across the Blanche Valley. |
| Launch of Free Seasonal Exhibitions | Inauguration of the quarterly Expositions Citoyennes cycle featuring live creative demonstrations rather than passive, commercial gallery displays. | Over 400 rural residents and schoolchildren attended the first year's exhibitions free of charge, initiating direct dialogue with local creators. |
| Shared Tool & Library Mutualization | Acquisition—through public cultural subsidies and reinvested membership dues—of a manual etching press, woodworking benches, easels, and a 650-volume art library. | Complete removal of financial barriers for residents wishing to practice printmaking, sculpture, or large-format painting. |
| Intergenerational & Territorial Expansion | Implementation of weekly Wednesday skill-sharing workshops and collaborative public art installations across village trails and communal spaces in the 04140 territory. | Sustained engagement of 94 active self-taught creators, 3,480 annual volunteer hours, and over 1,640 annual participants. |
As an Association Loi 1901, REVES PASSIONS CREATEURS is governed from the ground up by its active members. Unlike private foundations controlled by wealthy patrons or commercial enterprises directed by shareholders, our association adheres strictly to the democratic principle of "one member, one vote" (un adhérent, une voix). Any resident, amateur creator, or volunteer who upholds our non-commercial charter and pays the nominal annual membership due holds equal voting rights in shaping the association's trajectory.
The Ordinary General Assembly (Assemblée Générale Ordinaire) convenes every year in March at LE HAUT PRESBYTERE, 04140 AUZET. Written convocations, along with the complete draft financial balance sheet and activity report, are sent to all members and posted publicly on the village noticeboard at least twenty-one days prior to the session. During the General Assembly, members:
Between General Assemblies, the association is administered by a twelve-member Board of Directors (Conseil d'Administration) composed equally of self-taught visual artists, craft practitioners, and local residents engaged in cultural mediation. The Board meets on the first Monday evening of every month at Le Haut Presbytère. All board minutes (procès-verbaux) are transcribed into our statutory register and remain open for inspection by any member or municipal partner.
From among its elected members, the Board of Directors elects an Executive Bureau (Bureau Exécutif) responsible for daily statutory administration and legal representation:
Represents REVES PASSIONS CREATEURS in all civil acts and before public authorities (Mairie d'Auzet, Departmental Council of Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, Préfecture). Ensures strict compliance with the Law of July 1, 1901, presides over General Assemblies and Board meetings, and guarantees that all activities remain faithful to our non-commercial, inclusive mission.
Maintains the official register of deliberations (Registre Spécial), files statutory updates with the Greffe des Associations (RNA W043000789), manages correspondence via [email protected] and +33 4 48 66 68 32, coordinates studio steward schedules, and oversees GDPR/RGPD data protection compliance.
Manages the association's single non-profit bank account, records every public grant and membership fee in double-entry accounting ledgers, settles invoices for studio materials and utilities at Le Haut Presbytère, and prepares the annual financial transparency statements audited by two independent member-verifiers.
Understanding how REVES PASSIONS CREATEURS operates requires understanding the unique legal heritage of the French Association Loi 1901. Enacted on July 1, 1901, this foundational law defines an association as a convention by which two or more persons permanently pool their knowledge or their activity for a purpose other than sharing profits. Our registration under RNA W043000789 and SIREN 512273061 places our organization squarely within the non-market civic sector.
In the cultural domain, the line between non-profit support and commercial promotion is sometimes blurred by organizations that operate as disguised art dealerships or private tutoring businesses. REVES PASSIONS CREATEURS enforces an uncompromising firewall against any form of commercialization. Our Internal Charter (Règlement Intérieur), signed by every creator and volunteer upon joining at LE HAUT PRESBYTERE, 04140 AUZET, establishes four permanent operational rules:
A rural association thrives only when it works in close harmony with local civic institutions. From our base at LE HAUT PRESBYTERE, 04140 AUZET, REVES PASSIONS CREATEURS collaborates year-round with the municipal council of Auzet, rural primary schools of the Blanche Valley pedagogical cluster (Regroupement Pédagogique Intercommunal), local heritage preservation societies, and senior social-action centers across the agglomeration of Digne-les-Bains.
When the commune organizes seasonal village gatherings or heritage days celebrating the geological and pastoral history of the Bès Valley, our creators open the studio doors from morning until evening, setting up outdoor easels and collective sculpting tables on the village square. When rural schoolteachers study local botany or geology with their pupils, our volunteer printmakers and painters welcome the class into Le Haut Presbytère to create relief prints of alpine leaves and mineral pigment studies of local limestone strata. Through these concrete, everyday partnerships, artistic practice ceases to be a distant metropolitan spectacle and becomes a shared language uniting the entire community.
For the sake of complete institutional transparency toward public authorities, municipal partners, and prospective members, we summarize below the foundational articles of the statutes of REVES PASSIONS CREATEURS as filed with the Préfecture des Alpes-de-Haute-Provence under RNA number W043000789 and SIREN 512273061:
To ensure that daily operational decisions at Le Haut Presbytère are never concentrated in the hands of a few individuals, our Board of Directors delegates specific preparatory tasks to four open volunteer commissions. Any member of REVES PASSIONS CREATEURS may join one or more commissions according to their interests and availability:
Public trust is the cornerstone of any Association Loi 1901 operating with public subsidies and municipal facilities. Beyond the statutory work of our Honorary Treasurer, the General Assembly annually elects two Independent Accounts Verifiers (Vérificateurs aux Comptes) who do not sit on the Board of Directors. Two weeks before the annual General Assembly in March, these verifiers are given unrestricted access to all bank statements, grant notification letters, supplier invoices for studio equipment, and membership registries kept at LE HAUT PRESBYTERE, 04140 AUZET. They deliver a written verification report directly to the members prior to the vote on the annual accounts.
Furthermore, our strict conflict-of-interest rule stipulates that the association may never purchase supplies, rent equipment, or contract maintenance work from any company owned or managed by a member of the Board of Directors or their family members. Every euro of public grant money and reinvested membership dues is tracked down to the centime and dedicated strictly to serving the residents and self-taught creators of Auzet.