Makers Mixtapes - Abigail La Branche
“I feel very much that when an idea comes, or I am working on a composition, it is I who is listening and the subject which is guiding me and telling me its story. I am just a conduit for the story. That is perhaps why music is so important to my process.”
We are so thrilled to share a wonderful new playlist for February, curated by American photographer Abigail La Branche.
Raised on the wild, rocky coast of Maine, Abigail has always seen the beautiful details of life that surround us in the everyday. Abigail currently resides in the perfumed South of France with her husband, their little love and a cat named Albert.
Words and Photography by Abigail La Branche
I grew up in a coastal town in the state of Maine in the United States. It is a very special place and a huge part of who I am. I will always and forever have my heart rooted in that land.
My childhood was wonderful and as an only child, I spent a lot of time dreaming and exploring the rocky coast and pine forests or being with my parents at their work.
My mother was the secretary at our church and it was a supportive and comforting place to be, a second family. My father was an interior designer and curator of two historical museums: Strawbery Banke in Portsmouth, New Hampshire when I was very little, and Old York Historical Society in York, Maine most of my childhood. I spent many hours with him in the collections and historic houses and stayed on volunteering and working there as I got older. It is another of my heart's homes.
I was always included by my parents in any activities so from an early age I went to art museums, gallery openings, historic houses, talks, antique shops, live theatre, and concerts. My extended family includes creatives and artists as well, including my late uncle, Donald C. LaBranche, who was a painter and sculptor as well as a beloved art teacher.
My father always joked that we have a photo of every Thanksgiving turkey we ever had (actually, that might not be a joke!) because my mother and I were always taking pictures of our beautiful food, tables, scenes out the window. My first camera when I was a child was a hot pick film camera with a bar of flashes that snapped onto the top and had to be replaced once you burned out each flash on the bar. Later I picked up my father's film Canon and Rolleiflex and wandered along the coastline and in the forest of our town perched on the Atlantic, taking pictures of everything that moved me.
“In the beginning, most of my photographs were of small things: rocks, seaweed, leaves, shells - pictures of noticing and of listening to those small, often unnoticed, stories.
Photography is the medium I use most at the moment but I have always had my hands in drawing, sculpting, assembling, etching, sewing, writing...creating.” Abigail La Branche
Perhaps from the very beginning. I was extremely lucky to grow up with two talented and sensitive parents in such a beautiful place, surrounded by art and history and nature. I think everything I have seen, been immersed in, experienced - it has all moulded what I do today and who I am.
If I have a sense of proportion, composition, balance, light, it is because of every painting I was exposed to as a child, every historic piece of furniture, every rock on our grey sand beaches. Formally, I studied Fine Arts at the Art Institute of Boston and it was an important part of my journey as well, though I had to leave before I could finish my degree. Oddly, photography is one of the only subjects I never formally studied.
My Creative Process
My process can vary, especially as I don't have the same working time every day, all week, but it always starts with a spark of excitement: something whose beauty I just can't believe, whose story I want to hear. It could be a flower, a plant, a stone, an artichoke I buy at the market, a piece of bread, or even a feeling or a mood.
“One still life I created last spring was started when I walked into our kitchen on one of the first warm days with the windows open and the strawberries on the counter smelled so sweet sitting in the sun that I was instantly hit with the feeling of a story of two lovers, alone in a moment, around two glasses of wine and spring strawberries.”
Music & Creating:
I feel very much that when an idea comes, or I am working on a composition, it is I who is listening and the subject which is guiding me and telling me its story. I am just a conduit for the story. That is perhaps why music is so important to my process.
I tend to prefer instrumental pieces because most often I latch on to a song and put it on repeat. It screens out the outside world and becomes meditative, letting me release the hold on my thoughts and letting my mind be guided and wander.
“I also try to only have things I love around me in my studio: a big bulletin board with things that are inspiring me and making me dream at the moment, a candle burning, dried flora from my past Flora Constellations, art from other artists, antique textiles and dishes.”
(Image (R) from Abigail La Branches Floral Constellation series)
“Those links of human experience connect us all on individual levels throughout history. The spaces in between, the unseen, the mystical.”
Inspiration
What I am holding in my mind when I work can vary but most of the time I am thinking of the connections of time and experience that link us all together and with every element, be that animal or vegetable or mineral, in our world. For example, for my Flora Constellation series, I like to explore the different moments of the flower (bud, bloom, fading); the history of the plant which has bloomed every year for hundreds or thousands of years; the idea of space and dimension with half the constellation being submerged in water, and of course the connection and relationships between the elements as in a celestial constellation.
I am immensely inspired by the natural world and history. All of those connections of time and space and experience that we don't even really understand yet. How the shocking variety of life on Earth was created from stardust.
How such a tiny thing as a DNA code unfurls to create a redwood. How the unchanged gesture of kneading bread dough links every human who has ever made bread through time and space for thousands of years. Those links of human experience connect us all on individual levels throughout history. The spaces in between, the unseen, the mystical.
What books, articles, or readings are on your nightstand right now?
Abigail: So many! The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller is my current read on paper (I loved her novel Circe) and I am finishing the Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas audiobook. Also on my nightstand: Florilège from the L'Oeil Curieux collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale (a great collection!), Upstream by Mary Oliver, a Taschen volume on William Morris, Feels Like Home by Lauren Liess, Snow White by Josephine Poole illustrated by Angela Barrett, The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd, The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, the deVol kitchens catalog, an article on the restoration ateliers of the Louvre, a manuscript of a friend's book, and an archaeological report from one of my husband's project sites where Neolithic and Bronze age structures and objects were found.
Words of advice to remember…
“An elderly friend of mine once told me, "you should never stop dreaming because the day you stop dreaming is the day you die."
Never stop dreaming.”
What have been your biggest challenges with your creative business?
Abigail: Being a mother of two young children and working from home has been a struggle - trying to find something close to a balance of giving my children my time and attention while these young years are so fleeting, and also hearing out my creative urge is something I think about constantly. It is easy to feel frustrated with the slow pace of progression but I also know that they will only be this age once and having the possibility of spending extra time with them is a gift. At the same time, I cannot completely stop my creative practice - it's like breathing and essential for the health of my soul.
How have the worldwide restrictions of COVID19 impacted your creative business and practice, can you talk to us about how you might have had to adapt or change these last few months?
Abigail: Surprisingly the sudden change in the world that came with COVID was a fortuitous turning point for me. I think it was a perfect storm of the world slowing and quieting (my thoughts are clearest in the quiet of the night), my baby reaching a certain age, a book series that had a pivotal effect on me, and us all being home all the time (I like having my people near). I began to create consistently again for the first time in years and with a clearer sense of direction, and I could share everything on Instagram meaning that I could connect with people who find something meaningful to them in my work.
It truly felt like a rebirth, an awakening. Before the restrictions, I had an online shop of curated French brocante goods which I could no longer supply when the brocantes stopped happening during lock-downs. With a strange sort of permission from those conditions to set that project aside, I was able to put my whole self into being an artist like I hadn't done in years.
Now I have exhibited a selection of my pieces in a group show and am getting ready to launch my first online shop on my website of limited edition prints and more. So while the pandemic has been so hard on so many, in a strange way, the situation it put me in was a sort of blessing and I am honestly very, very grateful to be here.
Abigail La Branche
Website abigaillabranche.com | Instagram @abigaillabranche