Marie-Hélène Morell | Q/A with Audrée H. St-Amour

“I love my minimalist studio: it’s big, the walls are white, and the light is beautiful.”

— Audrée H. St-Amour

Recently I went to visit Audrée H. St-Amour, an artist who works with metal to create jewelry and pieces of art. Originally from Montreal, Audrée has lived in Fredericton for nearly 10 years and works part-time at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery as a program coordinator and an art teacher. The rest of her time is divided between her creative practice and her two children, Enzo and Noée. Audrée welcomed me into her home with a warm smile and brought me upstairs where her studio was set up. There were white walls, machines in the corners, a workbench by the window with all the hand tools, and a big white table in the middle, covered in various art pieces at different stages of completion. Like every studio, this one offers an image of the artist who inhabits it: a visual representation of the artist’s imagination. 

What inspired you to pursue metalwork as an art form?

“I started making jewelry after studying fine arts. I studied plastic arts at the Cégep du Vieux Montréal. Back then, I was doing lots of paintings and stone sculptures, and I was looking for a way to express my creativity that would also allow me to travel, which I really enjoyed doing. That’s why I started exploring jewelry-making. I dreamt of having a mobile workshop. With this idea in mind, I took a class in jewelry at the École de Joaillerie de Montréal where I learned the basic skills needed. I thought I had learned enough to go off and do my own thing, but I quickly realized that I needed to learn more. I moved to New Brunswick in 2009 with my partner at the time, who was from here. I started taking evening classes at NBCCD and fell in love with the arts community in Fredericton. I enrolled in the jewelry/metal arts program at NBCCD, got my diploma, and afterward, continued in the advanced studio practice program. Then, I did a Bachelor of Applied Arts at UNB. During this time, I also taught part-time for 8 years at NBCCD and made two beautiful children! Once my kids are in university, maybe I’ll come back to my fantasy of a mobile studio…”

Can you tell me a bit about what you are working on at the moment? 

“Right now, I am working on my project called “Foreground”. It’s based on children’s drawings and is taking longer than I thought. I am trying to capture the visual expression that children show at a very young age. Ideally, I’d like to make 6 to 8 pieces, so working with 6 to 8 children. In this work, I analyze the visual expression of each child and create a piece of jewelry that attempts to express each of their personalities. I use lines, forms, colours, and compositions that the children seem to use in their own creations. Then I present them with “their own” piece of jewelry. They put it on and we take a photo with the piece that represents their work. I received a creation grant from ArtsNB and I hope that once this work is completed it will be my first solo exhibition. In the space, the portraits of the children will be larger than life to elevate the children into a position of importance relative to the spectators. This project is a sort of homage to the freedom of expression children seem to enjoy when they get to work on something creative.” 

“It can be difficult, but very important, to try to keep a balance between what is inspiring me in the moment, production work, and special projects that are more conceptual like “Foreground”. I don’t often feel like doing production work, even if there are certain times of the year when you have to do it, like in the spring and just before Christmas. It is precisely in these moments that I’d rather be playing and exploring in my studio. This exploration can materialize into more concrete and wild projects, like my “Space Pickles” pieces for example.” 

What does your creative rhythm look like? 

“I haven’t had a very disciplined creative practice for the last couple of years, especially since I separated from the father of my children. It’s still sporadic, even one year later. I accept it, knowing that my artistic practice often resembles the movement of a wave. Part of being a professional artist is accepting that our rhythm can sometimes seem sporadic, often slow, sometimes rushed; we are in response to the stimuli that surround us. Since my studio is in my home, I have the chance to go to it whenever I want to. Whether it’s midnight or early in the morning, it doesn’t matter. I keep coming back knowing that at some point something will come from it. What is fascinating is that I never know how much time I will spend in my studio. It’s a fluid, organic relationship. On average, I spend about 15 hours per week, minimum. I’m often there when my kids are in school, or after having put them to bed. Since living alone with my kids, I spend a lot more time in my studio. Sometimes my kids work on their own projects, often asking me to weld this or that (often crazy ideas!). It makes me really proud to see that they are interested in creating, in jewelry. Since we moved, I have a larger studio and I have more space for my creative world. It feels really great to have all the room I need to create.” 

What does your studio mean to you?

“For me, my studio has always been a sort of temporary installation where I can create for a certain period of time. This is my third in-home studio, and it’s the first time that I’ve had room for a big table. It seems a bit disorganized, but I love leaving everything out, coming back to it, arranging pieces, looking at them, taking a photo… it’s a bit like a physical, tangible sketchbook.”

“As soon as I have a new idea, you can tell immediately because my studio becomes extremely clean. Everything has to be immaculate: ready to get into a new project.” 

—Marie-Hélène Morell, Interviewer

Photos by Hailley Fayle

This is an English translation of the original French article. If you are interested in reading the French version, you can find it in Issue 10 of CreatedHere magazine: Ode to Studios.