Marie (Belle) Jeanne Haba
Mediums: Stained Glass
Studio: 346
Marie (Belle) Jeanne Haba is an independent artist working and living in Hellertown, Pennsylvania. She moved to the U.S. at 16 with her two younger siblings to join their mother, who arrived a year prior. Growing up in Conakry, the capital of Guinea, West Africa, Marie didn’t consider art an expression of creativity. She grew up making dresses for her dolls and playing house and believed those to be a form of creation. Marie never admired her natural creative tendency and never imagined that she would be cutting and grinding glass to create art pieces.
Marie’s interest in art and stained glass began in 2010 when she first arrived in the U.S. and started attending Germantown High School. She distinguished herself by crafting paper birds with intricate feathers and stained glass. One of her feather birds won first place in the Philadelphia School District art competition, kicking off her career as a visual artist.
Upon graduating High School, she attended the Community College of Philadelphia, where she continued studying English as a second language. Marie then transferred to Shippensburg University, majoring in French language and culture while engaging in many art courses, including art history, 3-dimensional art, and ceramics.
After graduating from Shippensburg University, Marie felt torn between pursuing a career as a translator and exploring her passion for stained glass and painting. She decided to pursue her love of art and turned part of her basement into a studio, a sanctuary where she could express her creativity and dedicate herself to making art from an intentional perspective.
Marie’s early childhood experiences in Conakry, Guinea, and the West African perspective on life continued to influence her artwork. She draws from the region’s spirituality and the concept of sacred femininity. “Heaven is under the feet of women,” according to Islamic belief—a famous saying across West Africa. Marie’s art depicts the female figure. Her work explores the mythology, spirituality, and representation of women in her culture. With her fine art, Marie combines her experiences as a young adult in Pennsylvania with her early influences in Conakry to invent an elegant technique called “Habaism.” Habaism is a glass-on-glass technique where the artist takes the color approach to apply each design. Patterns are then projected onto the glass to highlight their tactile form. Although women are considered sacred in West Africa, there is still a taboo surrounding open conversations about a woman’s body. Therefore, Marie’s dream is to introduce a candid dialogue about all aspects of femininity—including the bodily form.
Artist Statement
My artworks are inspired by my early experiences in Guinea Conakry, as well as by the West African perspective on life. I draw from my country’s spirituality and the concept of sacred femininity. “Heaven is under the feet of women,” according to Islamic belief—a popular saying across West Africa. With this in mind, my work explores the mythology, spirituality, and representation of women in my culture.
