Saint Joseph teaching Christ to walk

In this image we can see St. Joseph, the Old Testament, the law, the observant Jew, a straight man sculpturally structured in straight and stable lines. Our fathers in faith, teaching Christ to walk, New Testament that will soon begin to walk on its own, still tender, unstable, still composed of curved lines, still developing.

Important to me is the point where they join hands, the tenderness of the father who watches his son with attention and affection, the confidence of the son, who imitates him in his steps but already begins to look ahead.

Learning to see further

Giving is growth and source of life.

These pieces of wood that I receive are offered by the ocean itself, which has gathered them from another life, another shore of which I know nothing. Pieces of nature tossed by the waves onto the land. They hold the trace of their previous life. My eyes are seeing them, my heart feels them, my hands shape them to give a new life. It is now my turn to present these sculptures to your eyes, your heart, your touch. From smuggler to smuggler… It is your turn… It seemed terribly obvious to me to propose a wooden sculpture made by human hands as a way of getting closer to the truth of Saint Joseph, about whom we know little except that he was a carpenter. I chose an ocean drift wood, a humble material, discreet without adornment, which evokes the figure of the Gift and Humility that is Saint Joseph. The wood carries within it accidents that I tried to preserve and underline in the composition, echoing the words of the poet Christian Bobin “”Each one has his wound and his treasure in the same place”” which also evokes of this one from Saint Luke “”For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also””. It is with his weaknesses and wounds that Joseph accepted to become the adoptive father of Jesus and to welcome him into his life from that poor stable in Bethlehem. The sculpture is entitled “”Learning to see further””, it evokes Jesus on Joseph’s back as a father would naturally do for his son to allow him to see what he himself only partially sees, this kind of infinite light that he guesses and wants to offer to his son. It is also a way of bearing witness to all the learning that Joseph invisibly transmitted to Jesus in the complicity of their relationship. Jesus leans on him, but his gaze is not directed in the same direction as Joseph’s gaze, as if to signify the path in the making between the angel’s word and the Cross to save humanity from death and its wounds.

Saint Joseph

Saint Joseph is the earthly father of Jesus and his first teacher. His destiny is to care for God on earth.
It is he who brings up the Son, prepares him for adult life.
It is with him that Jesus learns his trade.
In the presented sculpture we see St. Joseph and the little Jesus at work. They are united by a wooden beam symbolizing the cross – the tree of life.
St. Joseph, the carpenter, prepares the beam that Jesus will sanctify with His martyr’s death for the salvation of the world.
St. Joseph is the silent executor of God’s will.

St. Joseph teaches Jesus the names of birds

St. Joseph is silent in the face of the mystery of life

This diptych about St. Joseph depicts the fullness of his human maturity, which combines the attitudes of a father, teacher, and master with the attitude of a student, a child of God who constantly carries a sense of awe in the face of the mystery of God and life.
In the first photograph, St. Joseph is walking with young Jesus, pointing to the sky and teaching Him the names of various types of birds.
„Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.” (Genesis 2:19-20)
In the second photograph, St. Joseph is silently observing Jesus, who, while playing with clay birds they made together, breathes life into their nostrils and allows them to soar up into the sky.
[Based on the apocryphal Gospel of the Childhood of Thomas]

Bien-aimé (beloved)

This image was obtained by digitally superimposing four photographs: a man walking, the beloved of the Song of Songs, trees against the light, the rising sun, deliberately photographed in a blur. The last photograph represents the sand of the desert, whose discreet presence can be guessed through a play of transparency. This last element echoes the symbolic desert that the Beloved comes to inhabit with his presence.

Les Songes de saint-Joseph

Crug

When Saint Joseph looks at us

Saint Joseph

The work describes the life of Saint Joseph, showing how Joseph struggles with the news, seeks guidance in his dreams and ultimately takes on his role as the earthly father of Jesus.

Dreptul Iosif