9

Ever since those summer mornings when I picked marble blocks alive out of the brook’s waters, out of its bank-lined bed, I have patiently being freeing them from their shell of sand and earth., and while my hands were overflowing with plenty, the exchange was beginning : how I ever indulged in reading their mystery through ! How I ever indulged in their appeal ! I would immerse them over and over again just to see their face resurface once the veil had been lifted. There were heaps of those stones neglected and given up to dust in my studio, all reminiscent of the vast crowd of very dry bones lying on the ground of the valley in Ezekiel’s vision (Ch. 37) and awaiting their coming back to life. Piled up marble blocks : a vision of death unto resurrection ? a vision of the chaos of the origins when the creator’s gesture is pending, the artist’s genius awaited ? or a tale of “sleeping beauties” ready to sink back to water depths and return to their immemorial dancing ? Nothing of the kind; but the plain figuration of our common human condition rather, for when I manage to patiently “bring to life” those rough stones, one after the other, when I stroke them up into loose beings, as loud and clear as the words of a language, I figuratively aver that every person can comply with the elegant fluency of her words, and be intimately in line with her gestures and exchanges. That is how the triviality of our even days is eventually adorned with glitter !

(Translated by Michèle Bustros)