Lacanau beach

 Lacanau beach
Atlantic ocean, Gironde,  France

Kathmandu graph

 

Graphitis round Kathmandu...

Angoulême

Submission

 

"Women don't have to be intelligent, in the sense that we give to this word: she must be an expert in the pleasures of the flesh and in good caring. Here stops her role, even if she lives with men, and that is why the liberation ideas of which we get our ears full at the moment seem to me absurd."
Joris-Karl Huysmans

This sentence by Huysmans, the inspiration for the book, could resume the scandale of the moment in the french literary world. Welcome to Submission from the loved and hated writer Michel Houellebecq. If some scream to the current politically incorrect anti- islam, this book appears to me as a question between man and woman relations, which are seen as the base of human resources economy. Islam in this book, is nothing but a timely escuse to discuss religious notions in general, and of the totalitarian systems that religions can create. The real subject at the center of the debate is the dificult relationship between men and women. Decadence of the modern world, politics, the limits of individualism with it's multitude of identity crisis, a little sex and a little god, some good wine and a good meal, Houellebecq is at his top.

Winter sea

Alone
I breath
Open space
The sound of the waves fill me up
All one
I walk

Oleron island

Speaking with walls

"What is it?"
"It's a wall"
"But what does it mean?"
"It's art."
"But what is the meaning?"
"It's for nepale blind dwarfs."
"Ah ok. Ramro cha."
So, we took a wall, a long and grey wall. The wall smells like piss, the ground covered in garbage, it's a favorite spot of the many glue kids of Thamel. Here they gather, squat next to the street dogs, hide under their caps and sniff the glue hidden in plastic bags. Glazed eyes watch life pass, the days are glued together by the sticky goo that takes them to oblivion. The kids look at us bring paints, spray cans and notebooks. We're not here to beat them, we even speak with them. Instead of rocks in our hands, we have paint brushes. So we chose a wall, a long and grey wall. Gonna put colors on this wall, gonna bring some art into the streets, gonna share a dream, gonna make some art. Gonna be like the dogs that piss on the wall to mark their territory. We're crazy artists, no body will stop us, we are ghosts, we pass through and only leave colored shapes behind us. For no reason at all, we play with kaos and give it forms we like...

When the earth sleeps

All is quiet
Covered in white, crystals reflect
Flip flop
Melting water drops under the sun
Flop flip

Fun

Kathmandu night 2

 

Katmandu night

Kathmandu wall

 Night work

Dust and mud in Kathmandu

A new plane ticket. Direction: Kathmandu. Everything is packed, ready to go. The train from Normandie to Paris, the RER to the airport. All is fine, it's time to fly again. All is ready, except for one thing. In line for checking the bags in, I realise that I forgot my passport. God damned, first time I do this one. Some would say it's a sign, I did not really want to go, or I simply should not go. People like to see signs, trying to find meanings in the chaos we call life. Things have to make sense many think in despair, hold on to anything, anything at all, but hold on, do anything you can not to let the vast emptiness of it all swallow you in the river of meaninglessness. Sunyata whispers, samadhi some call it, so many names to name the unknown. 
So, I forgot my passport, that's enough sense for me, shit happens when we don't check twice. Take the train back to Normandie, buy a new tiket, kiss mam again, train again, RER, and 3 days laters I am back in line at the airport. This time I get on the plane. I'll remember not to make that mistake twice. Lesson of the day: a plane ticket. Learning always has a price, being absent minded comes with extra tax.

Nano

Kathmandu, Nepal: Nano, a text in french for those that speak frog or use the bable fishes.

Angels

The garden

 "The grass is not greener on the other side, it's green where you water it."

After my visit to the island, I went to the garden. I wanted to learn permaculture techniques, so I found a teacher and a garden to work in. The garden was huge and the teacher was a contemporary painter and a great gardener who has devoted 20 years of her life to make the garden what it is today. A quiet woman, she knew all the plants and gladly shared her knowledge with me. We have to be greatful for our teachers, and I thank this woman for being my permaculture teacher and friend, an amasing artist who I am glad and extremely lucky to have shared some time with. Her philosphy is simple and best: Art is life, Life is art. She knew I needed to put my hands in the earth, I wanted to be outside the whole day and make the body move. I wanted to hang out with the birds and drink fresh water. I needed to do Gaia Yoga, so in the garden I was...

Shades of red

The news

The news
Pencil on paper

Snails

 Snail

The island

I took the big jump and I dove inside. I landed on what seemed to be an island. I was on a white sand beach, blue crystally water waves making sweet love to the land. In and out, in and out they went. The light was bright in the sky, shining of an almost synthetic glow. As I looked up in the sky, I saw that it was moving and changing constantly. I started seing images passing, and the images became scenes from movies. The sky appeared as a giant technicolor screen on which were playing all the movies, books, and information I gathered through my life. After a while I got up on my feet, and I started walking.

Maya

Maya

Monoprint
Maya

Lovers

Lovers

Monoprint

Self portrait

Self portrait

Charcoal on paper

Turiya

 Turiya

Shades of green

 

In and Out

Looking in

Looking out

Ink on paper

Bodhi

Bodhi

Subway

 Forget

Gurdjieff on art

Gurdjieff has divided art into two categories. The modern art he calls subjective art. The ancient art — the real art — the people who made the pyramids, the people who made the Taj Mahal, the people who made the caves of Ajanta and Ellora, they were of a totally different kind. He calls that art objective art. Subjective art is like vomiting. You are feeling sick, nauseous; a good vomit helps you to feel good. The poison is thrown out, you feel relieved. It is good for you, but not good for others. Now, in the name of modern painting, you are hanging vomited, nauseous, sickening things in your rooms. In the name of modern music you are simply getting into crazier spaces within you. It is subjective art. Modern art is childish — not childlike, remember, childish; not innocent but stupid, insane, pathological.

Shades of blue

Zen and Shakyamuni

"Amongst millions of the poor, Shakyamuni was son of the rich. His father, the king, gave him all: a palace surrounded by wonderful gardens, the best foods, luxurious clothing, the most beautiful bride, hundreds of servants. Locked up in his luxury prison, he did not know the servants misery. All of the sudden, like a little bird that fell on his head, the futur buddha, just like a girl, was taken by a panic attack... Reality was not what he believed it to be!

Flowers

New chapter: seeds and salad

"But says Alice, if the world makes absolutely no sense, 

what keeps us from inventing one?"

I need fresh air. After 3 months of meditation, sitting in the same room, I need the body to get back in action. Fuck zen, fuck meditation, I ain't a monk, I join the world again and I need action. So I take the car, turn up the radio and I drive south. Direction: unknown. I first stop by some friends, the body wakes up. Dishes under the rain and wind, a bit of work in the garden, speak with a girlfriend, it feels good. A few days laters, back in the car for another friends visit. This time it's party time. We eat, drink and pass the joints. Wake up for more drinking, moments of smoky oblivion, time stops, it's artificial paradise. A few days are spent in perfect harmony with the sunsets. A night by the fire, we dance under the stars, we put our heads on drunken knees. It's good and that's enough. I make a tattoo, then 2, then 3, a bit of blood, we carve memories to better remember that it all will pass. We start building a new tippie, enjoy work together. 1,2,3 lift up that star for the roof on top of our heads.

Fractals

 Bubbles

Butter fly

Pinguins serie 2

 On top of the world

Reality

Life, death and love: keep on breathing

It’s been a long time since I wrote. It’s not from a lack of something happening, on the contrary. Too much has happened, too much at the same time, way too much. So when we get a big meal to digest, we need to sit, time to digest. So I sat, I digested for a long winter the new events that are unfolding in my life. Death in the form of the lung cancer of my dad, love in the form of separation from a husband, 6 years passed, it all fell apart in one instant and I found myself back in my home land after 25 years of exil, back at ground zero to witness the ravages of cancer at my parents house. What happened? What did I do to get to this place?

Ghost town

 Memories or what's left behind. Pictures of a ghost town.

Another day to enjoy

Nature contains Nature,
Nature rejoices in her own nature,
Nature surmounts Nature;
Nature cannot be amended but in her own nature.

Sometimes in life, we have to make choices. We stand at a crossroad, we have to pick one way or the other. We’d like to forget it all, start over, erase, delete. Yet  we are not computers, and deleting would be too easy. The truth is that we can not forget, the choices we make become part of who we are, and the only thing we can do is to live with our decisions. The yoga tradition calls it sanskara, the modern science calls it cellular memory. If the yoga tradition speaks of previous life imprints, I figure that dealing with one life is already complicated enough, the next life will come soon enough, and I can’t recall anything about before. After all, it seems that in one life, we already have so many lives, why ask too many questions to which we can only get more confusing answers? The rest, we’ll call it art.

Ernst Haeckel

Ernst Haeckel. A scientist with controversial ideas about human evolution and it's origins left behind him drawings of a rare beauty. For him, his drawings were just a side line from his more serious theories about biology. Yet his drawings are so amasingly beautiful in their details and complexity, that one has to be in awe in front of such an eye for seeing the wonders of nature. In Haeckel art, what he called his "doodles", nature appears as a living mandala, rich and alive, infinite in it's variations of shapes and forms. Sea creatures, plants and animals, Haeckel went deep into the mysteries of nature. But enough words, sometimes the most beautiful things are better seen with a silent eye. Welcome to Ernst Haeckel beautiful and magical world...

Welcome to the machine

Welcome my son
Welcome to the machine
Where have you been?
It's alright we know where you've been

41 years later

Once again, I passed another year. 41 years laters, and I am still here, even to my own surprise. For some, it’s old, for other’s it’s the beginning of life. For me, it’s a trip, and oh, what a trip it’s been. Around 40, we’re supposed to be grown ups, we should be adults as the books say. But I don’t believe everything that the book write and I am not quite sure what an adult is yet. So, for this time, let’s take a look at what those 41 years in this life has taught me and if I even learned anything...

Kathmandu by night 2

Kathmandu by night

Kathmandu, Nepal. By night.

 Durbar Square

St Malo

"When they think they know the answers, people are difficult to guide. 

When they know they don't know, people can find their own way."
Tao Te Ching

Flower back study

Back study...