BIO-CREATIVE PATH

​

​

CREATIVE PATH

"You're never the doer.
Things happen
And you just become a means for those events to happen."
 

NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ

​

As I retraced the thread of my life, I found the precise moment when the imperative need to write naturally imposed itself on me, like an emergency exit!
However, strictly speaking, I've never kept a "diary".
What I did do was express my feelings and thoughts on friendship, love, death, relationships and so on... in general terms. At the height of my teenage emotions, of course. In the end, I often let the pen run free, with no specific intention other than to expel from me the words I wasn't saying.

​

​Looking back, I do believe that I was actually questioning the pen itself, strangely no longer expecting an answer from the ‘grown-ups’ – or at least not from those around me.
It was indeed thanks to it that I then discovered an escape, a consolation too, but above all a journey of ink which, sometimes completely escaping the control of my mind, offered me flashes of inspiration that were perfectly fluid, crystal-clear, even revealing ideas and thoughts hitherto unknown to me.
They therefore surprised me, often delighted me...
Fascinated me, come what may!

Driven by the same impulse, many years later I would also explore the flame of a blowtorch whilst working with Murano glass and sterling silver, raw materials chosen for the creation of a few pieces of jewellery.
These, too, sometimes inspired texts to accompany my travels, when it was not the writing itself that sought to be embodied in glass.

Around the same time, I left Paris to settle on a farm in the Bresse region, deep in the countryside, driven by an urgent longing for space, peace and quiet.
Photography naturally drew me in, partly because I wanted to share the jewellery I’d created on my website at the time, but also because of a mad desire to capture the magnificent natural world that now surrounded me on all sides.
And so I would roam, whether walking towards the pond or spending hours sitting on a happy old tree stump left there in the horses’ meadow…: my own inner landscapes.
Without planning it, I would accumulate thousands of photographs, and thus material to work with for the rest of my days!

In truth, photography has always been a quiet part of my life, ever since my teenage years. I was introduced to it by my father, who was passionate about film photography and was always happy to lend me his camera when we were out at sea on our sailing trips (he was generous in sharing his many passions: sailing on a good old sailing ship, woodworking and photography).

 

So freedom of time, freedom of movement, accompanied by my two young boys, then little by little by cats, dogs and a big grey horse too! I rediscovered the luxury of losing all notion of time..

Having always lived in the city up until then, I finally developed a taste for listening to nature, such as the sound of leaves caressed by the wind, for inner silence and for the art of contemplation that nature graciously offers us, provided we give it the time.
A return to wonder, too.

A way of being in the mirror, me too “calm and upright”, open to the immediate world, to the “Now”, which neither begins nor ends, and which will gradually become totally inseparable from my creative impulses.

Totally at your disposal!

By the end of 2011, the freedom of movement afforded by a digital camera in my hand, coupled with the desire to express my emotions through the thousands of images I had gathered, eventually began to take precedence over the pleasure of working with glass – an activity that physically confined me to my studio, even as the outdoors was irrevocably winning me over.
So, it was all over for glassblowing! Photography would thus, gradually, become my new master of ceremonies.
In 2012, the images began to organise themselves into series, which you will find on this website.

Finally, from 2015 onwards, the need to touch the material physically, directly, to perhaps rediscover that same intuitive journey starting from scratch that my young pen provided me with before a blank page, just as surely as the memory of working with wood in my father’s workshop: became truly palpable!

A natural balance to be found with images that ultimately imposed too much screen time on me and which necessarily require a physical form and the skill of the renowned printers at my professional laboratory (Art Photo Lab) in order to fully reveal themselves.

During these years of photography, I also played with earth, white paint and ash. Whatever I could get my hands on, with no other intention than to try...

So, in the end, it was only a short step from ashes to pigments!

​

At the end of 2018, I moved to Southern Burgundy, to the heart of the delightful medieval town of Saint-Gengoux-Le-National, transforming my rustic but spacious attic into a studio and, later, my first floor into a gallery space to showcase my work.
At the same time, I completely overhaul this site to make it more open to the different media I now use.
Like so many “Possibilities” within Myself, in a “laissez-faire” (or non-doing, for that matter!), ever freer, happier and more confident, above all and essentially because it forever allows itself crossroads and moments of pause.

In the end, I believe that it will only ever be a question of relearning to respond “Present” to what's happening, and to trust ourselves. To be present to this unique and unspeakable Joy of Being, deep within us, which generates impulses and impulses that are frankly irresistible!

An eternal and exciting return to childhood.

Hélène - 2024

 

​

"...So I lift from my shoulders the burden of time and, at the same time, the burden of performance that is demanded of me. My life is not something to be measured. Neither the leap of the goat nor the rising of the sun are performances.Nor is a human life a performance, but something that grows and strives for perfection.And what is perfect does not perform: what is perfect works in a state of rest.It's absurd to claim that the sea was made to carry armadas and dolphins. Of course it is - but it does so while retaining its freedom. It is equally absurd to claim that man was made for anything other than living. Sure, he supplies machines and writes books, but he could just as easily do something else.The important thing is that he does what he does in complete freedom and in full awareness that, like every other detail of creation, he is an end in himself.

It rests in itself like a stone on sand."

Stig Dagerman - Excerpt from Our need for consolation is impossible to satisfy.

​​​