Valérie Wagner MFA

"Literature, movies and other types of narration are offering many insights into the way people relate to jewellery. No matter if the stories are true or fictive, jewellery bears witness to many aspects, that allow us to understand the links that unite characters, but it also allows interpretations that can be read between the lines. Sometimes stories, even make us fall into a fantastic universe, where a piece of jewellery can carry a curse or contain magic powers."

Poetic summary.

The rocks, crushed into gray sand, had for several years already been strewn with colored spots, with objects brought by the currents, it is said from countries hidden behind the horizon. You walk along the gray and white coast covered with snow, calm and motionless, like an immense immaculate sheet of paper in the distance on your right - caressed by the ink of the waves on your left, very close to you.

This is the place where something is born.

You approach a spot of red color abandoned by a retreating wave.
Is it a gem that sparkles like this?
No it's jam. Crushed fruits sticking to the inner walls of a damp, shiny glass jar.

A little further on, something thrills. You approach a flesh colored spot, skirted by the breeze.
Is it a seashell?
No, it's the face of a young woman. Her Skin so perfectly smooth, distorted on the crumpled paper.

Very near, you hear a pleading voice. You stay still and listen to it.
Is this your conscience?
No, it’s the voice of an advertising slogan. Printed on a plastic bag, projected into your head by your memory.

You continue your walk. You arrive at a wooden pontoon. You climb the steps, you pass over the sand, over the coming and going waves.
You walk on the squeaky planks, you feel the wood bending slightly under your weight. You stop at the end of the pontoon. You close your eyes, to better feel what they are used to see.

Soon it is no longer the sea all around you. You let yourself being absorbed by the materia.

A low, regular rumble becomes louder and louder, almost deafening. The sound is getting closer to you. Your cheek is resting against a surface that smells of wet stone. At meters above, the waves flow vigorously. You find yourself in a gigantic room upholstered with waves.

When you finally decide to get up, the materia under your body becomes of a completely different consistency, it remains fresh and smooth but solidifies on your contact.
The waves, which a moment earlier seemed so indomitable, slow down, gradually freeze up. You walk along the immense room. Cracks run through the translucent structure of the walls. The light comes from the material itself, soft and deep, breaking into a burst of color along its fissures. All around you, the water was as hard as a translucent crystal.

Look around you. Look beyond the palpable surface of this space, that surrounds you. You see points of golden light that spin, intersect and blend with shadows that glide, in front of you, on the ground under your feet and above your head.

Find the single point of light that remains fixed, and it will come to you.

The sphere is growing. First about the size of a firefly, now your whole body mirrors in it.

The crystal wall seems to melt all around this gigantic eye which never blinks. In its center, a black point emerges and passes through the liquid barrier that separates you. You reach out your hands to grab the object before it falls to the ground.

It is a stone the size of a pebble. It has no heaviness!
You look at it and you see a gleam there, which moves in the palms of your hands.
You turn it over to see it from a different angle. The petrified walls started moving again. The waves threw themselves into the hollow of your hands, absorbed by the stone.

You find yourself standing on the gray sand, with a wet pebble in your hands.
You wear a sleepy ocean touched by the full moon around your neck. You wear it in the shape of silence.

You wear a tunnel.
You wear a portal.
You wear a passage.
You wear an opening.
You wear a path.
You wear a key.
You wear a weight around your neck.
You turn the stone tied around your neck and a storm pours out of it.

The waves are raging but you remain firmly anchored.