Moving Closer to the Clouds. Jacques Jarrige's Dance with MDF

Labour is blossoming or dancing where 

The body is not bruised to pleasure soul.

Nor beauty born out of its own despair,

Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.

O chesnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,

Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?

O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, 

How can we know the dancer from the dance?

William Butler Yeats*, 1928

Photographs © Claire Le Douaron 

* Among School Children, from The Tower, 1928

Jacques Jarrige sculpte à la main le Mdf, découpe la feuille de métal, assemble les bouts de bois ramassés dans la forêt dans une tension entre équilibre et mouvement, au plus près des choses et de la matière qu'il travaille. Il insuffle vie et rythme à ses pièces de mobilier et fait vibrer les panneaux de fibre de bois comme les découpes de métal. La ligne vivante se fait sinueuse et coule comme une eau vive, ou court vers les nuages... Entre fragilité et force de vie tout vacille, danse et refleurit. Il anime depuis  plus de vingt ans un atelier de sculpture au centre médico-psychologique de Saint-Maur. Sa recherche s'est nourrie de cet échange, l'amenant à travailler non pas la ligne tendue mais la ligne hésitante, serpentante. "Jarrige experienced a powerful artistic inspiration several years ago from an unlikely quarter —the patients of the Hôpital de Jour, Centre Médico-Psychologique de Saint-Maur in Paris, where he has taught woodworking for over twenty years. One day, upon seeing the irregular lines his patients achieved using an electric jig, Jarrige felt himself on their wavelength, in kinship with their efforts. The tremor or slight meander they produced in the wood reminded him of the natural effect of water as it eroded a riverbank, something more alive and unpredictable than the mechanical results that come from the standard use of woodworking tools. With a conscious effort, he began to introduce this new kind of hesitant, meandering line into his own work, with exciting results. In some cases, it has been applied to the surface of rectilinear cabinets, softening an otherwise geometric form."**

** Jeanine Falino, Jacques Jarrige in the Moment

Valérie Goodman Gallery

 “Meanders” : Furniture in Movement

New Work by Jacques Jarrige

315 East 91st Street

New York, NY 1012

 http://thesearchingline.com