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 looked back over my life, I came across the precise moment when the overwhelming need to write naturally presented itself to me as a wonderful way out!
That said, I have never, strictly speaking, kept a “personal diary”.
I would express my feelings and thoughts on friendship, love, death, relationships, and so on, in a rather haphazard and general way… naturally, from the perspective of my teenage emotions.
In the end, I often let the pen run wild, with no specific intention other than—of course!—to expel from myself the words I did not speak.

It was writing, then, that actually offered me an eternal promise of escape, a kind of consolation too, but above all that journey of ink which, sometimes completely escaping the control of my mind, also presented me with flashes of insight that were perfectly fluid, crystal-clear!, even revealing ideas and thoughts hitherto unknown to me.
They surprised me, then!, and often delighted me...
They fascinated me, come what may!

Driven by the same impulse, I would also explore—though many years later—the flame of a blowtorch in my work with Murano glass and solid silver, raw materials chosen at the time for the creation of a few pieces of jewellery.

These pieces sometimes inspired texts to accompany my travels, when it was not the thoughts expressed in writing itself that sparked the desire to turn them into a symbolic piece of jewellery...

Around the same time, in 2008, I left Paris to settle on a farm in the Bresse region, deep in the countryside, driven by a deep-seated longing for space, peace and quiet.

Photography naturally drew me in once more, partly because I wanted to share these gems on my website at the time, but also because of a mad desire to capture the magnificent natural world that now surrounded me on all sides.
From then on, I would roam about, whether walking towards the pond or simply spending hours sitting on a happy old tree stump left there in the horse paddock where mine was there too……: my own inner landscapes!
And at the same time, without even planning it, I would accumulate thousands of photographs, and thus material to work with for the rest of my life!

In truth, photography has always been a quiet companion of mine since my teenage years. I was introduced to it by a father passionate about film photography, who willingly lent me his camera.

Freedom, then, of time and movement, accompanied by my two young boys, then little by little by cats, a dog and a big grey horse too! :
There I rediscovered the luxury of losing all sense of time.

Having always lived in the city up until then, I eventually came to appreciate, whilst living in the countryside, the pleasure of listening – to the rustling of leaves on the trees as they are caressed by the wind, to the inner silence, and to the art of contemplation that the flora and fauna so graciously offer us, provided we give them just a little attention.
A return to a sense of wonder, of course!
A way of being that mirrors my own state of mind—I too am ‘calm and upright’!—open to the immediate world, this ‘Now’ (which neither begins nor ends), and which will gradually become utterly inseparable from my creative impulses.
In short! A total surrender to the moment.

By the end of 2011, the freedom of movement afforded by a digital camera in my hand, followed by the desire to express my emotions through the thousands of images thus gathered, would eventually take precedence over the pleasure of working with glass, as that physically confined me to my studio, whilst the great outdoors was irrevocably winning me over.
So, it was a done deal for photography! It would thus become my new master of ceremonies.

In 2012, the images began to organise themselves into series, which you will find on this site.

During those years of photography, I would also sometimes play around with clay or white paint mixed with ash. Whatever came to hand, really, with no other aim than to rediscover the intuitive, direct movement of the hand, to experiment with different materials, and to decorate my home in the process!

A natural balance must also be found with images that inevitably require the skill of the renowned printers at my professional laboratory (Art Photo Lab) to be realised exactly as I envision them.

From ash to pigments, it was ultimately just a small step and a change of region!

At the end of 2018, I moved to southern Burgundy, to the heart of the charming medieval town of Saint-Gengoux-Le-National. I transformed my rustic but spacious attic into a studio and, later, my ground floor into a gallery space to display my works.
At the same time, I completely revamped this website to make it more open to the various mediums I now use, even though acrylic painting has now taken centre stage!
Like so many “Possibilities” within oneself, in a spirit of “letting go” (or “doing nothing”, for that matter!), ever freer, happier and, above all, more confident! Essentially because it allows itself, forever, to take detours and enjoy moments of pause.

I truly believe it will always be a matter of relearning to respond “Here!” to whatever comes, and to trust in what needs to be done and in oneself. A presence in this Joy of Being, singular and indescribable, deep within us, generating truly irresistible bursts of energy and impulses!...

An eternal and thrilling 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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