BIO-CREATIVE PATH

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CREATIVE PATH

"You're never the doer.
Things happen
And you just become a means for those events to happen."
 

NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ

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As I retraced the thread of my life, I found the precise moment when the imperative need to write naturally imposed itself on me, like an emergency exit!
However, strictly speaking, I've never kept a "diary".
What I did do was express my feelings and thoughts on friendship, love, death, relationships and so on... in general terms. At the height of my teenage emotions, of course. In the end, I often let the pen run free, with no specific intention other than to expel from me the words I wasn't saying.

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​Looking back, I think I was questioning the pen itself, strangely no longer expecting answers from the “Great Ones”, or at least not from those around me. And so it was that I discovered, thanks to the pen, an escape, an intimate relationship, a consolation too, but above all a journey of ink which, totally escaping the filter of my mind, offered me perfectly fluid, limpid flashes of light, revealing ideas and thoughts that were hitherto unknown, surprising, and which often delighted me...

Fascinated me no matter what.

Driven by the same impulse, many years later I would explore the flame of a blowtorch with Murano glass and solid silver, raw materials used to create jewelry. These pieces also sometimes inspired texts for fellow travelers, when it wasn't the writing itself that sought to be embodied.

At the same time, I left Paris and moved to a farm in the Bresse region, in the middle of the countryside, urgently seeking space, calm and silence.
Photography came naturally to me, not only because I wanted to share the jewels I'd made on my website at the time, but also because of my insane desire to capture the wonderful nature that now surrounded me on all sides.
And so I surveyed, whether walking to the pond or standing for hours on a happy stump left in the horses' meadow...: my own inner lands. And in the process, without even premeditating it, I collected thousands of shots, material to shape for the rest of my life!

In truth, photography has been with me discreetly since I was a teenager. Initiated by a father who was passionate about silver images at the time, and who willingly lent me his camera at sea during our cruises (He was generous about sharing his many passions! For those who were interested too (sailing old rigs, woodworking and photography).

 

So freedom of time, freedom of movement, accompanied by my two young boys, then little by little by cats, dogs and a big grey horse too! I rediscovered the luxury of losing all notion of time, so caught up in the present.

Having always lived in the city up until then, I finally developed a taste for listening to nature, such as the sound of leaves caressed by the wind, for inner silence and for the art of contemplation that nature graciously offers us, provided we give it the time.
A return to wonder, too.

A way of being in the mirror, me too “calm and upright”, open to the immediate world, to the “Now”, which neither begins nor ends, and which will gradually become totally inseparable from my creative impulses.

Totally at your disposal!

At the end of 2011, the freedom of movement afforded by a digital camera in my hand, and the desire to express my emotions through the thousands of images I'd collected, finally took precedence over the pleasure of spinning glass, which physically obliged me to stay in my studio, even though the outdoors was irrevocably seducing me.
So it was time for photography! It would slowly become my new master of ceremonies.
In 2012, the images began to organize themselves into the series you'll find on this site.

Finally, from 2015 onwards, the need to touch the material physically, directly, to rediscover perhaps the same intuitive path from nothing that my young pen gave me in front of its blank page, as well as the memory of woodworking in my father's workshop, was clearly felt.
A natural balance had to be found with images that ultimately imposed too much screen on me, and that necessarily needed a camera and the talent of the famous Shooters in my professional laboratory (Art Photo Lab) to be able to express themselves fully.

During these years of photography, I also played with earth, white paint and ash. Whatever I could get my hands on, with no other intention than to try...

So, in the end, it was only a short step from ashes to pigments!

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At the end of 2018, I moved to Southern Burgundy, to the heart of the delightful medieval town of Saint-Gengoux-Le-National, transforming my rustic but spacious attic into a studio and, later, my first floor into a gallery space to showcase my work.
At the same time, I completely overhaul this site to make it more open to the different media I now use.
Like so many “Possibilities” within Myself, in a “laissez-faire” (or non-doing, for that matter!), ever freer, happier and more confident, above all and essentially because it forever allows itself crossroads and moments of pause.

In the end, I believe that it will only ever be a question of relearning to respond “Present” to what's happening, and to trust ourselves. To be present to this unique and unspeakable Joy of Being, deep within us, which generates impulses and impulses that are frankly irresistible!

An eternal and exciting return to childhood.

Hélène - 2024

 

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"...So I lift from my shoulders the burden of time and, at the same time, the burden of performance that is demanded of me. My life is not something to be measured. Neither the leap of the goat nor the rising of the sun are performances.Nor is a human life a performance, but something that grows and strives for perfection.And what is perfect does not perform: what is perfect works in a state of rest.It's absurd to claim that the sea was made to carry armadas and dolphins. Of course it is - but it does so while retaining its freedom. It is equally absurd to claim that man was made for anything other than living. Sure, he supplies machines and writes books, but he could just as easily do something else.The important thing is that he does what he does in complete freedom and in full awareness that, like every other detail of creation, he is an end in himself.

It rests in itself like a stone on sand."

Stig Dagerman - Excerpt from Our need for consolation is impossible to satisfy.

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