Meeting with Anne-Lise / Rose de Biboun

What are your sources of inspiration and how do you maintain your creativity over time?

Inspiration comes to me from everyday life and especially from Nature, from the seasons. I create first of all because I have an idea and I want to realize it.

Then a large part of this inspiration comes from my clients and their requests, their imperatives. To maintain this creativity, I have to take breaks (which I often forget) that allow me to recharge my batteries and do something completely different than engraving stamps, writing on my blog and being totally "focused" on my activity. By taking time "aside" to crochet, garden, read, walk, experiment with other techniques, I recharge my creativity.

Do you have a creative process, from the initial idea to the final realization? What is the most unexpected or surprising thing that has inspired you in your creative process?

I usually say that I create on three paths: the first is that of custom-made , I am then not really free to do what I want since I engrave precisely what was asked of me.

The second is the most creative since I engrave and present my pure ideas, those which have sometimes been nourished by a tailor-made request (a very art deco stamp will make me want for example to create a collection in this spirit, a request from a seamstress can inspire me for "useful" stamps, etc.) but very often come from my mind, from a reading, from a flower seen in my garden, etc.

And the third way concerns the engraving training that I offer, for which I draw inspiration from the first two paths.

The creative process will mainly concern the "collections" that I can create to put on my shop: the idea can mature for a very long time, I have to draw (and for that I have to find the time), sometimes I leaf through magazines, read other blogs (I try to do it only in areas that are not mine so as not to be inspired by something that already exists and that my mind would be tempted to reproduce), I discuss it with my family. And once the drawings are done, I engrave them to test their feasibility, the time it takes and their rendering. This allows me to set a price or sometimes abandon the idea because the stamp is too complex.

Which creation, among all those you have made, is the most meaningful to you, and what personal story is hidden behind it?

I don't have any truly significant creations except the very first one. My first hand-engraved stamp was born from a challenge on a blog that I wanted to follow: to engrave a childhood memory. So I started engraving Jean de la Lune, the eponymous character from Tomi Ungerer's book that I loved as a child.

I still have this stamp, engraved with a cutter in an eraser in the shape of a banknote! Not the most beautiful but the most significant. It marked the turning point in my activity!

If you could collaborate with any artist, living or dead, who would you choose and for what type of project?

The first name that comes to mind is Michel Gay, the illustrator and author of Biboundé in particular (a baby penguin, also a childhood reading, which inspired my designer name), I would love to create a dedication stamp for him by engraving his little penguin character.

I would also have liked to engrave Klimt's works like "The Kiss" , in more color and with gold, quite a challenge!

And otherwise a project that would tempt me enormously would be to create illustrations for a children's album (by the author who wants me ah ah ah).

How do you imagine your creations will evolve in the next ten years, and what new areas or media would you like to explore?

10 years is a long time! My company is 9 years old and I have already imagined a lot of stamps, collections and implemented a lot of ideas.
I still love engraving logos and custom stamps but I really want to explore the "large format engraving" part in several colors (so several plates or lost plate) and in particular landscapes of my region and monuments of my city to start!

If your creations could talk, what would they say about you after a long day at work?

Then there would be the stamps that I have meticulously engraved to the sound of a podcast or a series that would tell me "you have been ultra perfectionist, don't touch me anymore!" and there are all the stamps that are waiting to be photographed, put online, announced on the networks that shout at me "and me and me and me"! and generally speaking everyone tells me to finally invest in a magnifying lamp much larger than what I currently have, ha ha ha!

Can you describe a particular project or creation that represented a turning point in your career and why?

First there was the Jean de la Lune stamp which marked the major turning point, making me move from creating cards and announcements to making stamps.

There was also the "Stamp & Sew" box , created for seamstresses, including stamps designed by me, ink pad, handmade notebook. I made this box a lot (and its little brother later) and it launched all my ranges of custom boxes (I make both the stamps and the storage boxes). I make less of them now because it requires a lot of time, handling, calculations, etc.

Another creation that is "running out of steam" a little but which had a dazzling start and which probably remains one of my main sales: the teacher's kits. I started with a box of "pencil" stamps, I spent the 5-6 weeks before the end of the school year engraving up to 15-20 stamps per day, every day (even on weekends!) because I had so many orders! And now this kit is available in several models.

Finally, another turning point: the creation of my Introductory Box for Engraving on Rubber with online training, which marks the beginning of another adventure, one in which I no longer only engrave for others but I also teach those who want to do the same!

What are the main challenges you have faced in your career, and how did you overcome them?

The first challenge was to validate the creation of my company with my CMA (which took 1 year to do) and it was very complicated to live with. But beyond that, I want to see only the positive things. The main challenge is to know how to renew yourself, to bounce back when you have a big dip in activity and to know how to organize yourself when, on the contrary, you have a peak (which was my case in the year of Covid in particular).

Another challenge: getting started in areas that you don't master (managing a website, overcoming a hack, training in SEO, writing newsletters, etc.).

And finally, a major challenge is knowing how to surround yourself with the right people and knowing how to delegate when it is time (but also, you have to be able to do it financially, so you have to make choices).

What advice would you give to those who aspire to embark on a creative career like yours?

My situation is perhaps special because I did not initially aspire to "live off my creativity". I wanted to have my own business, derive various benefits from it (and not just financial, which was not the main goal!) and do everything I could to make it work.

Also, starting out to make it your full-time job and expecting to make a financial living from it, today, seems more complicated to me than the process I followed.

I think you have to ask yourself the right questions first: why do I have a creative career? Do I want it to bring me the equivalent of a good salary or is it a question of life balance? And above all, do some research on what exists, on how to get started, etc.

And if there is one piece of advice I would have liked to follow at the very beginning, it is: knowing when to stop, take a vacation, to come back better! Because creativity feeds on these times when we do something else. Otherwise we exhaust ourselves enormously!


Come and discover Anne-Lise’s creations:
His online store
His Instagram account