Where it all began
While walking along the beaches of my childhood, more precisely in Saint‑Aubin‑sur‑Mer in Normandy, the homeland of my parents, I came across, one day in 2001, a piece of glass polished by the elements and by time…
That shard of glass, jostled with every step in a trouser pocket alongside one or two fossils, a pretty stone circled with fine white lines, and a few pearly shells, would find a place of honor in my apartment, but more singularly, its place in my mind…
Weathered and polished to perfection, almost too smooth to be simply ‘glass’, its blue‑green tint turning grey in the light. Most of all, it appeared precious.
Ever since then, I have gathered sea glassTo observe without fully understanding. To scrutinize so I could dream. Why did these battered jewels draw my gaze? What would become of these scarred yet soft fragments, simple in appearance yet heavy with stories?
In the oceans, glass takes four thousand years to return to dust… Thrown into the sea, it slowly fades, becoming a grain of sand in this vast universe, while in a fleeting gesture, tossing a bottle into the waves, humans imagine themselves mighty.
For twenty years, my art wandered through theater, writing, music, and painting, yet within it remained an empty space, a silent drawer, a loose shelf sheltering all those fragments of glass. Greens, blues, yellows, whites, deep greens and golds; blends of brown and orange, gray and sometimes turquoise; countless shades tossed by the waves began to color my thoughts, assembling into a mosaic stretched between the abyss and the surface.
While walking along the beaches of my childhood, more precisely in Saint‑Aubin‑sur‑Mer in Normandy, the homeland of my parents, I came across, one day in 2001, a piece of glass polished by the elements and by time…
That shard of glass, jostled with every step in a trouser pocket alongside one or two fossils, a pretty stone circled with fine white lines, and a few pearly shells, would find a place of honor in my apartment, but more singularly, its place in my mind…
It was worn, perfectly smoothed, too much, perhaps, to be mere glass, its bluish-green hue shifting to gray in the light. But above all, to me, it was PRECIOUS!
At the dawn of this century, I resolved to gather them carefully during my walks, to observe without understanding, to scrutinize so I could dream…
Why were they so alluring to my eyes? What would I do with these battered jewels, scarred yet smooth to the touch, seemingly simple but laden with stories?
In seas and oceans, moved by eternal rhythms, it takes four thousand years for glass to return to dust… Cast overboard, a glass object will take its time to grow small in this vast and mysterious new world, until it becomes a grain of sand, while, in a single gesture, raising a bottle, humankind, joyous or tormented, will feel immense in an instant!
For twenty years, my mind wandered through theater, writing, music, painting… yet within it lingered an empty space, a silent drawer, a loose shelf sheltering all those fragments of glass.
Ranging from green, blue, yellow, white, deep green or amber, to blends of brown and orange, to grey and even turquoise, the countless shades of these wave‑tossed fragments colored my thoughts, gathering into a mosaic unfolding between the depths and the surface.
The Turning Point
I was walking without any particular purpose, listening to the tiny crackling of stray shells beneath my feet, scattered across a path of a thousand shades, when my eyes stopped on a triangular piece of glass. It was delicately polished and held within it a metallic filament woven into a square. Solid and unusual, this reinforced glass triangle, though lost among countless others, felt instantly familiar.
Like a fin severed from its body, hydrodynamic, resolute against time, it offered an answer: it would tell the story of a shark.
What had seemed merely waste became a revelation. Transparent fragments, nearly invisible, patiently awaiting erosion: I began to admire their shapes and to listen quietly to what they had to say.
From Bottle to Dream
It was while assembling them that the images began to appear; and one wonders, by what reason or unreason these glass bottles ended up on the ocean floor. Perhaps a lovesick or desperate sailor; a kiss in the heart of a storm; a fisherman and his solitude; a quarrel fed by too much alcohol; a wedding at sea; a breakup on a shoreline; a shipwreck; a message in a bottle, or, more simply, our failure to care for the Earth.
A simple bottle slipping into the dark depths delivers its message as it reaches the bottom, breaking apart to scatter the traces of its brief journey, from human hands to the realm of mermaids. From this container, my search for meaning began.
And here, reality steps back—so that dream may begin.
