My name is Anne-Céline. I launched Rouge Rubis in 2016 in the charming town of Obernai, in France, where I sell jewellery, gemstones, collectible minerals, quartz and healing stones. I designed a refined and welcoming space, where stones and jewels can radiate their beauty and light. Spheres, pebbles and free forms, minerals, uncut stones and cut gems, are selected for their quality. As for the jewellery, I choose exceptional stones, set in traditional artisan workshops in Brazil or Vietnam to create minimalist yet elegant models. I assemble the gemstone necklaces, bracelets, and earrings myself. I choose strings of hand-cut natural stone beads and combine them with silver ele ments to create stunning designs.
The stones and jewellery I sell, as well as the materials used in the process, come from suppliers with whom I have built a fair and trustworthy relationship. Over the years, I have built partnerships with people who have a unique affinity with minerals and the lands they come from, and with whom I share the same wonder for stones.
My father was a collector of minerals and fossils. His learned interest in mineralogy and his inde pendent temperament led him to make it his profession. He self-trained in polishing and shaping stones, while working as a draughtsman in an architect’s practice. At one point in his career, he leaved the world of architecture and he moved into an old sawmill in the Vosges mountains, which he restored and converted into a stone, mineral and jewellery store. The sales area was adjacent to his lapidary workshop and curious bystanders could stroll around and observe the craftsman’s move ments. It was here I made my first jewellery, in this inspiring place, with the song of the river below, the misty red soil, the thickness of the forest on the surrounding mountainside. After these years of learning, I opened my own space – Rouge Rubis – and I created several lines of delicate, precious and timeless jewellery in natural stones and silver.
Biography
I graduated from an art school : the École Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg, now the Haute École des Arts du Rhin, where I studied graphic communication. During my studies, I never ceased to nourish the discipline of my studio by regularly attending the workshops of the Art de partment and through the friendships I made there. I chose this course when I discovered the Polish image-maker Roman Cieslewicz and the graphic work of Les Graphistes Associés. I then moved away from graphic design to explore different fields of creation, such as drawing, silk-screening, photogra phy and Super 8 film making.
I was influenced by the pictorial universe of Georgia O’Keeffe, contemporary artists such as Kader Attia and Nils Udo, and photographers like Francesca Woodman and Bernard Plossu. My journey has been full of wonderous meanders, but it is film that has most influenced my work, in particular
movies by Andrei Tarkovski. I have directed short films which are like sensitive portraits, using an impressionist style of writing. I came to jewellery quite unexpectedly, even though I was initiated to the beauty of stones at a very early age thanks to my father who shaped and cut them. I have long had a sensitivity to crafts, yet jewellery came late in my creative process, leading me to establish a genuine affinity with the mineral world. One summer evening, while working in my father’s workshop, I made a necklace with beads that were lying around at the bottom of a drawer, end-of-line beads that he no longer required. With these neglected stones that I wished to revive, I produced a first collec tion of ten or so necklaces, each of them a unique piece. This is how I came to create jewellery, and the mineral element has become an integral part of my artistic production.
During the time I worked in the Vosges in partnership with my father, I created a line of jewellery that I named Yvonne Célina. This collection combines refinement and timelessness, from the finesse of the assemblies to subtle chromatic nuances. Initially fairly rugged, my jewellery has evolved over time towards more sophisticated bead cutting and gemstone quality. Fascinated by Mycenaean art, Etruscan goldsmithing, Sumerian and Babylonian necklaces made of gold beads and sculpted stones, I create my jewellery without trying to fit in with modern trends – ornament and simplicity are the two pillars of my creative process. The lavishness of the ornament, often intertwined and shimme ring, is the counterpart of the purity, for they are inseparable.
For my boutique Rouge Rubis, I make my necklaces by assembling beads on a thread and choose each one as carefully as a painter selects delicate hues from her palette. When composing necklaces, I find inspiration in the colours and shapes of beads. The strings of beads I use come from India; each one is unique for it is hand-cut and their irregular shape gives them a peculiar charm. I spread out the small cases of beads on my workbench and the necklace simply flows from my hands. I create colourful arrangements, or a simple string of colours, or more elaborate compositions. The choice of beads, the attention I devote to the intensity of the colours of the gems and to their purity, contributes to the ornamental quality of the jewel. Gemstone beads and their diversity of shapes and colours are constant source of inspiration for me: the blood red of spinel ovals, the golden shimmer of small chrysoprase beads, the steel blue opacity of cyanite ovals, the milky pink of opal pucks, the incandescence of small peridot spheres, the polychromy of tourmaline in tapered drops. When I play with beads and I’m stringing them, there is a poetry in this gesture, like a suspended moment in time. This regular, meditative gesture is embedded in the necklace and the stones begin to vibrate in a different way. Without thinking about it, but won over by the serenity of this quiet rhythm, it is as if I were preparing the stones for an encounter. A future encounter between the jewel and the person who will make it glow on her. My latest jewellery creations use a lot of blue opal and chrysoberyl. You can discover them on my website: https://rougerubis.fr/
The challenges and the opportunities my business is facing
More and more people have a passion for stones and their evocative power. There is a new consciousness emerging, people are becoming aware of their immense creative power and I believe that stones will take a central place in our spiritual awakening. A gemstone transforms us, its evocative power is such that it can echo an emotion deeply buried within us. By taking it in hand, or gazing at it mindfully, by letting oneself be absorbed by its beauty, a stone can bring out multiple emotions in us. Also, stone carries within it the way it was formed and structured. My knowledge of its birth pro cess, of its crystallization process, of its composition, gives me different perspectives that guide me when approaching a stone. I like to share my knowledge with my customers when they buy a stone or a jewel and to explore with them what a gemstone can potentially embody.
My big challenge is to have more time to create new jewellery! I am currently designing a new col lection to be called Ilda. I plan to collaborate with a jeweller to have my designs set in gold. I have a view to develop Rouge Rubis via an online shop and to promote my jewellery internationally.
Advice to others about business
The most important advice I can give is to stay focused on your deepest desires, those of your soul. But it is also crucial to acquire some financial intelligence and to deploy one’s ability to act intui tively in order to take risks, seize opportunities, find friendly support. It is necessary to act with confidence, letting go of your fears and remember that abundance is inner yourself.