Up five flights of stairs in a building not quite an artist squat nor quite a residency, was 59 Rue Rivoli – while living In Paris, I was a frequent visitor. Inflatable animals (meant for the pool) decorated the outside in a gaudy manner, as if protecting it from historic complacency. One particular visit was special. With my best friends, we saw scribbled above one of the  doorways "Terviseks," Estonian for cheers. The coincidence? My friends happened to be Estonian as well. I found it fitting for us to try and find the cheerful artist. So demanding resident’s nationalities we finally found her: Helina Rääk sat there sewing her art – portraits threaded onto canvas. Peaceful and at home, surrounded by cloth and blankets, it was a room of security in Paris (where security is the farthest thing from one’s mind). I will never forget our encounter.

The Pieces We Hold Together

In Paris people question your motives every second, where trust lies with the rats in the sewers. It is a city of beautiful sharks; those with quick hands and loose judgment. Inviting her that night to my empty chocolate box of an apartment to dine with my friends, my motive seemed suspicious. It was my desire and one that she agreed to. But in a city of dogs, was she naive to agree? Could I be trusted?​

Artparasites: Navigating the catacombs of life in Paris is something I've done and what you continue to do. How have you managed for so long?

Helina Rääk: I don’t have anything, but I don’t miss anything either. I don’t count or even have money. There are ways to survive in Paris and it can lead to adventures. But an opportunity in a palace, being Cinderella, made me realize the meaning of freedom and of independence. As an artist and a person, I realized I am not a dog; I am a wolf. I wear no collar and I’m hungry. I need some danger in my life.

Years later, naive is the last thing I'd call Helina Raak. I've learned that lesson before with Estonian girls (traveling with three of them through the Australian outback); I may have been filled with doubt because of their beauty, but when I was weak they held me stronger than the arms of any solider.

APs: Sketching portraits from thread that can easily be mistaken for a pen​, your work sees you sewing a lot. What does this represent to you?

HR: In Estonia, everyone gets it with their mother's milk – everyone knows [sewing] from birth. I love painting but it doesn’t really tell my story – I need something tactile. I love textures and materials where I can express my feelings and thoughts. It came from Cypress when I was in art school; I didn’t have money to buy canvas or paint. I started to collect left over canvas and started sewing them together. I had the foundation already, and it had a story.

APs: Do you ever feel you are sewn together?

HR: Sewing is repairing and putting together different pieces that sometimes don’t belong together; fixing and healing. You don’t need to be broken to do that but life is like that. A bunch of pieces: nationalities, traveling, cultures; who I am and what I want to do.

APs: Are you held together by thin thread or one piece of thick rope?

HR: It's something you always have to do: you always have to fix. It will never be a whole. We have to brush our teeth every morning, you don’t brush once and its done. I like that it takes time and is repetitive – It leads to transformation.

Believing In Love Is An Art Form

APs: Paris is the city of love; tell me a love story.

HR: The most beautiful love story of my life was with an abandoned baby crow. It's hard to explain how you get so close to a bird, but there was a connection. When I hear the crows now, I think 'it’s Chuka.' She took me as a mother; I taught her to eat and to fly. She heard the other crows and was confused. She heard nature calling. I could feel her questioning, “Who I am, why am I here?" It was a feeling I knew all too well. When she became strong enough I gave her to an organization that handles birds, and now she is somewhere free in Paris.

APs: If you could have turned into a crow and went with her – would you have?

HR: ​That's what makes life the most beautiful: it's all about losing. What makes a story a story is that there’s an end. We are going to lose everything: our teeth, our lovers, our lives. It’s just matter of time and we have to trust that when it arrives it’s the right time; what matters though is that it did all happen. I have this feeling now that when I look into the sky, I look with different eyes.

It’s hard to explain how I truly met Rääk. I could have gone back years to when I traveled in Australia; driving through cyclones and writing my final words when I believed I was going to die – but I will leave those stories to another time. As with this story, you have read everything you need to know. Our meeting was one being woven for years before we even knew; we just had to trust in it. Years later I would come to learn that the person who wrote that Estonian word above the doorway, wasn't even Helina Rääk.

Helina Rääk [Price range of works 100-10,000 Euros]

Article by Tristan Boisvert

Read our exclusive Artletter

Painting by Catrin Walz Stein

Subscribe to receive the most awe-inspiring stories from ArtParasites, only available by ArtLetter.

Be the first to write a comment.