“Beauty is a mystery”

Why did you want to write in Forests of Writing?

It is an original invitation to cross the threshold of my world. Here in Bambois, in the Vosges, the forest and the mountains nourish the facets of my existence, from breeding to weaving, from dyeing to writing.

What does this book reveal about you?

I realized that writing, the visual arts and life are one and the same for me, but words take precedence. To write a book is to feel the electricity in the air, like the rush of love.

Music that makes you happy in the morning?

A smell rather: that of the fire in the hearth, which announces to me the day that is beginning

The person who meant the most in your family?

My mother, who watched my wanderings with sympathy and curiosity.

A hidden talent?

I don’t have any, because I’m not hiding anything! (Laughs.)

Which character would you like to play?

I would dream of being the plumage of a robin, the frame of my house, the snow that falls, the thunder that rumbles…

A gesture of happy sobriety?

Filling bottles at a source… By the way, even in Paris, it’s possible. Then, at home, pour this water into a large Duralex glass, very smooth, very transparent, to savor the magic of this moment.

A humanitarian initiative that touches you?

That of Tetyana Ogarkova and Volodymyr Yermolenko, Ukrainian literature professor and philosopher, who travel around their country at war aboard a minibus. They organize poetry readings and rebuild libraries. For them, resisting means reading.

Guardian angel on your shoulder?

On one of my shoulders watches the one to whom I cling in difficult times. On the other is not a demon, but the daimôn, in the Greek sense: an intimate force, emerging from the unconscious, which encourages me to create and surpass myself.

Which beauty will save the world?

Beauty itself. It is a mystery, capable of revealing itself in a thousand forms: a nuance, a light. Outside, it can be embodied in a red berry hanging from the bare branch of a rowan tree in the middle of winter…

We offer you immortality, will you sign?

Oh no, what a boring idea! On the other hand, eternity, yes. It contains the intensity of the heart of the present moment.