Elsa Muse: filmmaker and creative director

1. What is your very first memory connected to art?

Elsa Muse: My very first memory connected to art is inseparable from my grandmother, who played a central role in my upbringing.

She used to paint in the conservatory of our family home. I remember her easel always standing there, a canvas in progress, the smell of oil paint, the colours mixed across her palette, and the gridded tracing paper she used to reproduce her drawings.

She painted what surrounded her: the garden, flower bouquets, and the landscapes of Thiérache.

She was also the one who gave my sister and me our very first drawing books.

We spent countless hours drawing beside her. I think my relationship with art began there, in the idea that creating is simply part of everyday life.

A few months ago, I hung a small painting in my baby's room that she had given me for my second birthday. It depicts a farm woman surrounded by chickens and a cat. Some images stay with us for a lifetime.

2. What is your relationship with art today?

Elsa Muse: Today, art is woven into my daily life. I love surrounding myself with beautiful handmade objects, whether it is a ceramic piece, a marquetry furniture piece, an embroidered garment, or an artwork hanging on a wall.

We are currently renovating our home, and this project has once again become a way of bringing art into everyday life through stained glass windows, a mosaic floor inspired by the gardens of Montreuil, and the reconstruction of an old peach wall using traditional techniques.

Over time, I have also been fortunate enough to acquire artworks and support the artists and craftspeople whose work I admire.

This feels especially meaningful because my professional life increasingly brings me into collaboration with them.

Discovering their expertise, showcasing their craftsmanship, and bringing their creations to life through animation is undoubtedly what excites me most today.

3. How would you describe your artistic world to someone who does not know you? What makes your work distinctive?

Elsa Muse: My creative world exists at the intersection of animated filmmaking, craftsmanship, and the natural world. I enjoy creating universes where objects, flowers, and materials seem to come alive.

Stop motion is my medium of choice because it allows me to work with real materials such as wood, glass, paper, textiles, and ceramics. I am fascinated by craftsmanship and by the gestures involved in making things.

Through my films, I try to create a dialogue between worlds that do not always meet: craft and luxury, puppetry and fashion, poetry and technique.

What perhaps makes my work distinctive is this desire to create deeply handmade pieces in collaboration with artists and craftspeople.

At a time when so many images are dematerialised, I like viewers to feel the presence of human hands behind every detail, no matter how long it takes.

4. What inspires you on a daily basis? Where do your ideas come from?

Elsa Muse: I am deeply drawn to objects that carry a story and to traditional craftsmanship.

I love visiting workshops, observing how things are made, understanding techniques, and discovering materials. This is often where my ideas begin.

Nature is also a constant source of inspiration. Plants, flowers, and animals feed my imagination in countless ways.

I enjoy building bridges between these different worlds and bringing them together within my films.

5. Which artists do you love? Which ones move you, and why?

Elsa Muse: I am drawn to artists who create entire worlds and maintain a strong connection to materiality.

I greatly admire Joseph Cornell for his miniature boxes, which feel like fragments of dreams.

Sophie Taeuber Arp resonates with me deeply. She created puppets, painted, wove, and sculpted, constantly blurring the boundaries between art, craft, and design.

Among contemporary artists, I greatly admire Eva Jospin for her extraordinarily intricate sculpted landscapes. I am also very fond of the work of Ugo Schildge.

More recently, I discovered the work of Anne Féat, who sculpts paper with remarkable delicacy, during a collaboration on one of my projects.

I treasure these encounters that lead to new forms of admiration.

6. Finally, what are you currently working on? What projects lie ahead?

Elsa Muse: I am currently pursuing several projects that are particularly close to my heart.

I continue to develop my work as a stop motion director, always with the desire to create a dialogue between image making, craftsmanship, and traditional skills.

At the same time, I am developing Apoticari, a brand inspired by herbalism and the plants of Auvergne. I am also working with my father on a project centred around non alcoholic fermented beverages.

Ultimately, whether they involve films, plants, or drinks, my projects tend to share a common purpose: to re enchant everyday life, to place living things and craftsmanship back at the centre of our lives, and to restore a sense of slow time in a world that moves ever faster.

Their favorite artworks