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Books. The public library in the city center was my favorite place, a territory of unlimited exploration: adventure, reasoning, relationships, languages, cultures, animals, investigation. I was in my adoptive home with my family of heart. Books have been the constant all through my life, teaching, soothing and unfolding endless worlds.
Learning. I love to understand. The question is the seed. Learning opens doors and challenges to dig out unknown capacities. We were speaking french in the house, by 4 I learned the spoken local language so I could understand and communicate with the children and the teacher. We were taught in german and the year after started french. So for the next years I would enjoy learning and reaching for the best. No one would really ask what I liked. Regarding my grades the obvious path was scientific. As I started to gain interest in emotions during my teen years, and questioning the lack of concern for them in the society, I managed to orientate my future towards a mix of art and science: architecture.
Travelling is mind opening. A summer workshop at the Glass School in Pilchuck in the USA changed my life. Ever since I was a small child, I understood that it was important to find a meaning to life. I found it on the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. By then it was more of a vibration, a strong intuition. The following years I would complete my formal studies and earn my state degree in architecture. At the same time I was exploring an informal education in the world of the artists, the glass technics and values from the Studio Glass Mouvement. There was the intellectual path and the intuitive path. I enjoyed both equally.
Work. I love to explore, question and choose the best possible solution to a problem. While swinging between the two professional paths, I build my art studio in Paris in France. Creating, teaching, try and error, hands-on work, commissions. There came a moment where I needed to explore thoughts and ideas on a deeper level and looked at the winking phd. I chose to investigate urban resilience as an object of research. In 2001, after going through several mournings and a breakup, I longed for a travel to change my mind. So on septembre 11th my flight from Paris to Toronto took off. Aah! driving solo to visit a friend, discovering crafts, architecture, nature and wildlife. Canoeing on the Saguenay River. I still ask myself why this coincidence? Maybe to give me the awareness of resilience. While walking in New-York in 2014, the skeleton structure of Calatravas Hub seemed to emerge from the ground simultaneously like a newborn entity and a giant scare. It was April, sunny and the flowers were popping. If this city after such a trauma could continue to live with vital energy while taking care and remembering its wound, why couldn’t we human do the same? It was as if the lost colors in a movie were back.
Research. Exploration leads to more questions, read, comprehension and share. It’s like mind travelling and as satisfying as completing a jigsaw puzzle. I pulled the thread of resilience, starting with the jewish children in WW2, Viktor Frankl, psychology, politics, urban planning, sustainability, inclusiveness, narratives. Resilience became a versatile word. Isn’t it about a story we choose to tell? The direction of the university lab lead me back to my studio, my creative lab.
Creativity.
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The focus during my architecture studies was on perception, taking a dive into phenomenology by exploring through writings, architectural projects, in situ how the use of glass in architecture (the skin of the building, the structure, the texture) impacts the ambiance of the space. I selected several dimensions of glass as architecturological similar scales in order to explore the object: transparency, translucency, reflection, time and memory, the tactile, the shadow, colors, optical distortion, the audible, the water, the negative.
I created a tool to translate the perception one has in a given space, a language, a writing of the light. This led me to the « in situ » projects.
The matter of perception stays in the heart of my work as I explore objects like family, home, cycle of life, trauma, resilience and healing at a human, craft, architectural or urban level.
A universal and timeless creative answer is as important as the awareness, understanding and respect of the contemporary anthropological, cultural and environnemental context.
Sustainability is in our choices of lifestyle and values.
I chose to work with glass because of its recycling asset. Throughout the years my awareness of energy consumption through the production of new material and the use of kilns grew. I continue to optimize the recycling of the material, the use of the smallest fragment and the load of the firing. I’m currently in an exploratory stage of the creative sustainable use of different materials.
Craft is the expression of a thread throughout time and space of the intelligent hand: it tells a story that belongs to all of us, we are part of humanity and crafting is the testimony of our perception, of the narrative we choose to bequeath.
Key words:
Perception - Context - Universality - Timeless - Resilience - Healing - Home - A Safe Place - Sustainability - Transmission
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Education:
Pilchuck Glass School, USA, 1997
Architect dplg, Architecture School Paris La Villette, France, 2003
Post Master in Research, Anthropology Architecture Lab, Architecture School Paris La Villette, France, 2016
Glass Masters: Antoine Leperlier, Perrin & Perrin, John de Wit, Stephen Paul Day & Sibylle Peretti
( Fusing, kilforming, pâte de verre/lost wax, lampworking and glassblowing )
Kids and Kilnglass, Brazee instructors Sandy Gross, Emily Repp, Bullseye Mamaroneck, NY, USA
Research:
Réflexion sur la création artistique verrière basée sur les oeuvres d’Antoine Leperlier.
Reflection on artistic glass creation based on the works of Antoine Leperlier.
Dissertation under the direction of Professor François Lautier, philosophy and anthropology of form, Architecture School Paris La Villette, France, 1999/2000.
Quelles sont les dimensions du verre?
What are the dimensions of glass?
Dissertation under the direction of Professor Philippe Boudon and Professor Bernard Patarin, poiesis of design, Architecture School Paris La Villette, France, 2000/2001.
Verre - Architecture: Ambiance, perceptions.
Glass - Architecture: Ambiance, perceptions.
Diploma defense under the direction of professor Serge Dollander (imagination and structure), Professor Mahtab Mazoulman (scenography), Professor Philippe Boudon, artists Perrin & Perrin, Professor Anne-Marie Guillaume, Architecture School Paris La Villette, France, 2003.
Le processus de la résilience urbaine:
L'influence du défi international "100 Villes Résilientes" sur la transformation de la Ville de Paris.
The process of urban resilience:
The influence of the international challenge "100 Resilient Cities" on the transformation of the City of Paris.
Post Master defense under the direction of professor Alessia De Biase (head of Architecture and Anthropology Lab), Architecture School Paris La Villette, France, 2016.
Collaboration with Architects Coulon and Associates and with the Glass manufacturer SCHOTT to elaborate an artistic wrapping up of an Art Centre in Schiltigheim (FR) with 100 tubes (3048mm high, 60 mm diameter/120 inches high, 2.36 inches diameter).
Collaboration with Architects Coulon and Associates for the realization of 34 crystal blocks to be embedded in the wall of a school, Strasbourg (FR).
Collaboration with Architects Coulon and Associates (Strasbourg, France) on the submission for the contest “Museum for contemporary glass art” in Sars-Poteries (FR).
Collaboration with various artists and designers.
Instructor on fusing, kilformed glass, pâte de verre and lost wax.
Jury member for art school dissertation.
Attendee at Becon conferences organized by Bullseye in Portland, OR (USA) on kilnformed architectural Glass.
Attendee at Glas Art Society GAS Conferences in Chicago, IL.
Architect in own office (renovation, interior design, consultant).
Works in private collections
Usa, Canada, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, France and Germany.
Exhibitions
L’Expo, Paris (FR), Edgar Quinet, Montparnasse, Paris (FR), Festival des Arts Losserand, Paris (FR), Kunst en Living 2010, Rotterdam (NL), Café-Restaurant "Les Artistes", Paris (FR), Galerie Thuillier, Paris (FR), Autumnfair, Luxemburg (L), Iron, Fire and Glass Symposium, Hälleforsnäs (S), Cité Internationale Universitaire, Paris (FR), Pilchuck (USA).