valerie wartelle

Valérie Wartelle on Film

I walked into Valérie’s studio space and marvelled at the floorboards beneath my feet. ‘They came from a boat that sailed the seas’ Valérie told me. The morning light was just peering in through the mill window onto a shiny patch on one of those floorboards, and for a moment I thought I could hear those waves. It seems so fitting that Valérie’s studio is situated in one of the old mills in Halifax, on the banks of a river, the water from which would have been used to produce the materials the mill was making. And turning full circle, water is a part of Valérie’s process too.

Valérie commissioned me to make a film about her work, her inspirations, and her processes. Along with my camera for filming, I also took my analogue film camera to take a roll throughout our day together. And I wanted to share some of them here, along with the film, and some of Valérie’s words.

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‘I love the mill because it has its own story to tell. In the building, you can see where it’s been pushed and pulled and twisted’.

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Valérie’s process is very tactile. There’s movement, rhythm and repetition in the way she works with the materials. It’s very meditative to watch.

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‘It is that rhythm, that repetition that seems to nudge me a little bit in this semi-meditative space, and I find that space quite freeing.’

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‘I feel my work is effectively an expression of this sensory dialogue between me, the materials, and the process.’

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In the film I made, these 3 and a bit minutes are a culmination of all those excited planning conversations after Valérie first wrote to me. This film feels like such a collaboration. That Valérie wanted it to include certain aspects of her studio life and process, but wanted me to tell it as a reaction to what I felt and saw watching her work. And you can see more of Valérie’s beautiful work at her website here.