The first picture I saw of Valentine stopped me in my tracks. It was winter in Montréal and I had just split up with a partner who was really good at making things.
This partner built terrariums out of moss. They whittled wooden spoons, they poured beeswax candles, they made mini frying pans out of wool. Often, they’d hand me the object they were working on. “This is for you.”
This partner — mm, ex-partner — often talked about saving up to buy a small piece of land on which they would build cob houses.
Cob houses was the plan. Cob houses for them and us and their friends. And in bed, we’d watch videos of people hand building these smooth and wobbly homes. Homes that you could mold in whatever shape you wanted. Secret and queer and separate from the world.
Sometimes I felt confused because my partner’s making and gifting was new to me. The way I knew love was talking and touching but mostly talking. Maybe one of the reasons why we broke up was because I didn’t fully see how making objects could be a form of love. Or it could have been that we broke up because I didn’t really see myself co-building the house my partner wanted to live in with me.
Valentine Schlegel is a French sculptor who lived from 1925 to 2021. She was 96 when she passed away two years ago. In the first picture I come across of her, it’s the 1960s and Valentine is leaning against a plaster fireplace.
I am stopped in my tracks for two reasons. One, she looks like my ex-partner. Short hair, defiant eyes, soft cheek. And two, the fireplace next to Valentine is smooth and wobbly and beautiful.
On my screen, I close my ex’s Instagram profile. And I type Valentine’s name into Google dot com. There, I find out that Valentine’s specialty was turning fireplaces into plaster sculptures. Valentine built the fireplaces according to the home. Some had cavities for wildflowers. Others had built-in benches for guests.
I also find out that there’s only one book out there written about Valentine. It’s a book called je dors, je travaille which translates to I sleep, I work. I order it and wait for it to cross the Atlantic.
When I open the book, I learn that Valentine is a gift-giver. That even later in her life when she started making good money off her work, gift giving remained a way for her to experiment with a material, perfect a technique. But as I flip through pictures of beautiful wooden spoons, clay whistles, large vases and custom made fireplaces, I feel an absence. Who is she giving the gifts to?
At the end of the book, I learn that Valentine lived with a roommate near the end of her life. A lady roommate. They shared a living space and had separate studios. There is a picture of a ceramic sign with two arrows. Valentine to the right, her lady roommate to the left. Separate.
I close the book and sit on my bed. I’m kind of crushed and I’m kind of confused.
Is it bad to want to read that Valentine’s roommate was in fact her partner? What web of friends and helpers and lovers was Valentine a part of? Where is the loving in the working and in the sleeping?
A bilingual audio doc about queer fireplaces. Which is just another way of saying an audio doc made with gaps, friends, plaster and translations. If you’re down, have a listen and email me your lingering questions / moments you leaned in / moments where you did not / sound design dreams. Your feedback is precious for other rounds of making!
Til the next infatuation,
— zo
j'adore, je travaille