petits papiers

*July fourteen two thousand eight*

For the past 3 years or so, i started to get a little cheesily nostalgic around the national-day-celebrations between July 4th and July 14th, for reasons i can't put my finger on. It must have something to do with being in a foreign country for so long... i don't know. I missed the fourth of July fireworks again this year in NYC like i do every year.  And i kind of regret i did.
Lame, i know.
But it makes me even more frustrated that i am going to miss the ones on the Eiffel tower tonight as Bastille day is being celebrated all over France. I never cared for these things before, never. Especially since i am the opposite of a patriotic. It is simply a foreign concept to me.
But as you get older, it seems like you start fitting more and more into the i love my country mold. I don't know. More than anything this is just another way for me to say i miss my damn country.
Anyway, i feel no shame stating that i wish i was at this very moment sipping on ice-cold pastis watching the fireworks on the Champs Elysees from a hotel balcony in Paris. No shame.
Lame, i know.

Puisqu'il m'est une fois de plus impossible de capturer la magie des feux d'artifices du 14 juillet, je me suis mise a les rever, comme quand j'etais enfant...
Il m'est possible en fermant les yeux de me souvenir des petards grisants, des fontaines d'etoiles incandescentes irisant la ville comme on ne l'a jamais vue, des odeurs de mergez grillees et de barbapapa, et des lampions qui s'eteignent comme se tait l'accordeon du musicien qui a trop bu.

Ca manque ca, c'est sur.

back to life

My weekend was... strange. It started all well, with a lot of relaxing and cheering and enjoying summer. I then got stricken with overnight fever and some very unusual exhaustion. I ended up spending most of my days off just sleeping (something like 15 hours) and trying to forget about it. So nothing productive so to speak.
Fever has receded now and all i want is to eat. I dragged myself downstairs and got a beautiful handful of cherries that i enjoyed like there were my first time... it felt like everything will soon be back to normal.

 

J'ai passe mon weekend a dormir... Une fatigue jamais egalee s'est emparee de moi, melant fievre et absence d'appetit pendant un jour et demi. Lorsque la fievre est tombee, j'ai soudainement eu une faim d'ogre. Je suis decendue, febrile, a l'epicerie et me suis offerte une belle poignee de cerises qui ont magiquement ramene mes sens a la vie, et la semaine a obstinement repris son cycle.

Is it any better, over there?

I have discovered a new blog that i am becoming slowly addicted to. It is called "A photo a day keeps the...". It posts a daily photograph accompanied by a simple line of facts in history related to the image. A fun way to learn a thing a day, but mostly discovering an amazing collection of archived photographs from the most talented and sometimes anonymous authors. It kind of echoed my previous post on vintage portraits, so i felt compelled to mention it.

In exactly 52 days (counting!) i'll be flying over the country to meet my dear friends in Los Angeles for few days of vacation (update: the trip had to be re-scheduled...)
As a lack of substantial time off, i will fly over the famous highway "Route 66", as opposed to take the road which would actually be for me the ultimate cross country dream-trip. So many variety of photography were born on these trips, it is humbling to even think i could have the chance one day to bring my contribution to the whole thing.
I have been dreaming of a change lately, i guess i've been getting way too used to my surroundings or something, i don't know... classic symptoms of an urban-ised mankind depraved of real life excitement i guess.

 Andreas Feininger  highway "Route 66" Arizona, 1953.

3+3= TODAY

Today again the weather was oscillating between grace and anger, and so i had to make a choice: i decided to be thrilled about becoming a year older.
Coincidently, the photographs i had sent to the framer a couple of weeks ago were returned to me today and it felt like a Christmas morning in here for few minutes.
Some deserved to be better framed alas, but overall, i was pleased with the result. They were hung on my wall within an hour and here are the first pictures of the makeover. I might rearrange them again later, as i am getting very picky with the balance of it all. I really love the mix of genres and feel so lucky to be surrounded by such beautiful pieces. I wish i had more space, i still have 4 or 5 more pictures that are waiting to be framed, i just don't have the budget for now...
I also wanted to include a couple of pictures of my beautiful "new" coffee table, the one i made out of crates picked up *free* on the street some while ago. They made me so happy too...
So to you all, thank you for your thoughtful mails and texts and calls for my birthday, they really touched me.

Pour tous ceux et celles qui ont pris le temps de me faire coucou aujourd'hui, un grand merci avec un grand sourir ;-)
Et oui, on ne rajeuni pas, meme si les "belles annees" sont censees ne commencer que maintenant selon ma maman...
J'etais mitigee cette annee quant a l'enterrement de mes 33 printemps, mais au final, j'ai decide de m'en feliciter...
Et puis j'ai fait de la deco pour une bonne partie de la journee, ce qui me rend toujours heureuse. J'ai enfin recupere mes photos de chez l'encadreur, et le resultat est plutot satisfaisant. Je n'ai pas omis de joindre egalement quelques photos de ma "nouvelle" table de salon (qui date de quelques mois maintenant) une recup' de cageots sur un coin de trottoir, et voici mon salon habite d'un second souffle.
Vive la recup! et vive le printemps!  & merci a tous pour vos mails, messages et poemes...

NYC's whim

Today, it looked like this... uninterrupted and damp, inside and out, i mean in my head too.
For those who wonder, i didn't take these pictures, i stole them form a nyc weather-blog dedicated to the phenomenons of global warming. I think they are so beautiful, or the city is, or maybe it is because i feel gloomy... They are kind of depressing too, the whole day felt like straight from a bad sci-fi flick or something.

La ville etait de cette couleur aujourd'hui... une pluie ininterrompue, vents en rafales et parapluies finissant en forme d'etoiles dans les poubelles, et puis des new yorkais tres tres agaces, y-compris moi. Vu sous cet angle, c'est assez terrifiant, comme sorti tout droit d'un film de science fiction... horrible!

Le theme de la journee: lavage, rincage et on recommence sans essorage...

Sepia recollection

It feels like the older we get, the more attached to the past we become. That isn't always the case though, as i clearly recall myself being attached to the things of the past already as a child... i guess i was born to be a nostalgic, i just can't help myself. When it comes to photography, as much as i enjoy photo-journalism for its spontaneous and hidden eye, i have to admit that  vintage portraits from the early 1900's is an art that never fails to fascinate me.
I so cherish the work of August Sander for his ability to capture the most haunting truth in his portraits. But i also noticed that it is not unusual to find great photographs from that era that belong to the talented vision of a -long forgotten- anonymous author. Thinking of it, that makes me even more nostalgic. Back then artists were living in a world where nothing was conscientiously created to satisfy a "market" demand. Some beautiful photographs were left without a date, a name, or the slightest trace of an ego. A long-gone era, so it seems... Anyway, it is always so amazing to get lost in these photographs. I have a particular affection for the "duo'" ones.

Il est assez rare de trouver le nom d'un auteur au dos d'une photo du debut du 20e siecle. Peu d'amateurs a cette epoque se souciaient de la qualite historique de leur travail. Il est courrant de trouver des portraits saisi par l'oeil d'un auteur anonyme aux talents desormais a jamais oublies.
August Sander est sans aucun doute devenu l'un des plus grand portraitiste du debut du siecle dernier. Son travail saisissant de realite retrace la durete d'une epoque ou la notion de loisir n'avait pas de place.
Il y a quelque chose dans le regard de cette epoque qui m'emeut, me rend nostalgique.  peut-etre est-ce cette qualite silencieuse d'une vie passee, delavee, oubliee, et deliberement mise en scene dans sa forme la plus simple.

Out and about

This month has been one of these "let's go out and meet new faces" kind of month for me. Unfortunately, it's been happening more in the virtual world than in the real one. First, i created a little profile on mysapce, which is now sucking even more of my precious time up to the computer, but hey, i've got 14 new friends within 3 days!
I did find out though about this place in Brooklyn called Monkey Town where my (real) friends and i had a thrill a couple of weeks ago.
The front of the house is just another indie-like restaurant & bar swarming out in williamsburg right now (btw decorated by these guys) but what makes it so cool is the back room: A high-tech, high ceiling loft space cloaked with 4 large canvas screens on each side of the room. Video-art, live music and dining are all happening at the same time in a strangely enough non-overwhelming manner. It is quite well done. They have a wide variety of events happening there and we were lucky to  sneak inside Ali Baba's cave without a reservation, which seems custom there.
Anyway, i felt compelled to talk about it to introduce this last picture of me, over there... as i know some of my friends & family across the world beg me to post more often.
Happy week to you all!

Je sais que je ne met pas assez de photos de "moi" sur ce blog, a la grande deception de ceux qui sont physiquement loin de moi, alors voici une petite derniere, prise un soir de sortie a Brooklyn. Pas de tres bonne qualite, mais la soiree fut belle et pleine de rires , il s'est donc impose de l'immortaliser.

Elle figure egalement dans mon nouveau profil cree cette semaine sur myspace, histoire de garder contact avec de vielles ET de nouvelles ames...
Bonne semaine a toutes et tous!

Blood on the tracks

The first time i heard about Peter Beard, it was way back in school at the university of Lyon, France.
I remember being mesmerized by the originality of his compositions, using photography, diary writings, drawings and what i thought was paint at the time. It actually happened to be blood. Some may argue that his aesthetic is morbid but we all have to agree that the message coming through his body of work has a powerful correlation with the world of nowadays;  bloody and raw, fearless and greedy, but also possesses beauty and profuse grace. The stories of his adventurous life are as haunting as his pieces and i had the privilege to meet him at home here in NYC in 2002 as well as at his studio downtown, now replaced unfortunately by some poor-taste gallery...
What a humbling moment to watch him work, down on his knees, hands in blood without - so it seemed- any awareness of our presence. Time felt suspended in the dimmed atelier.
The significance  of his work in 20th century's photography is undeniable. His work is highly protected by copyrights and it is almost impossible to find pictures online of his most striking pieces, but this link will be a good start as to get to know his intricate world.

Il est indeniable que le travail de Peter Beard a largement marque le monde de la photographie de cette fin de siecle. Son style unique, reconnaissable entre mille mixant photographie, ecrits, illustrations et ce que l'on confond souvent avec de la peinture ou de l'encre. Beard utilise en fait du sang recupere des abtoirs locaux. Certains diront que sa demarche est morbide, mais il faut reconnaitre que son message est edifiant de realite. Le monde actuel est un monde cruel et sanglant, mais il est aussi magnifiquement harmonieux, riche et foisonnant de beaute. Nous avons eu Aurele et moi le privilege de rencontrer l'artiste en 2002 dans son studio et chez lui ici a NY, et de l'observer a l'oeuvre... nous n'existions plus dans l'atelier tamise, le temps y etait etrangement suspendu.
Il est difficile de tracer son travail sur le net car il est hautement protege par les copyrights, mais ce lien vers le site officiel  est probablement le moyen le plus simple de se familiariser avec son personnage, aussi complexe que son travail.

Textured like Fall

Fashion week has finally expelled its last bits of creations this week in Paris, after a New York-Milan-Paris triangle marathon. And here are (my) winners in the ready-to-wear category;
Or may i call it the would-love-to-have-this-in-my-wardrobe category. I tend to favor fall/winter collections over spring/summer because of the feeling of layering, snuggly textures and this year's explosion of vegetal, out-of-the-woods inspired colors, especially found in the super-chic Carolina Hererra's pieces as well as J.P Gaultier's for Hermes.
I know we are about to welcome Spring but that's what fashion always does to us, seasons after seasons: making us crave something we thought we never wanted or needed again...

Carolina Hererra FW08


Marni FW08


Hermes FW08


Malo FW08                                                            Rick Owens FW08


VLP FW08                                                              Vera Wang FW08


Derek Lam FW08                                                Carolina Hererra FW08

La semaine de la mode s'acheve a Paris avec prestige. Elle presentait a l'accoutumee les collections de l'automne/hiver a venir des grands noms de la mode europeenne, et succedait a celle de Milan & New York.
J'y a fait mes choix dans la categorie pret-a-porter. Meme si je reve en ce moment de printemps, il n'y a pas de mal a se faire du bien a contempler ces degrades d'oranges, d'ocres et de marrons, et surtout a se dire qu'ils n'arriveront qu'a la saison succedant la prochaine!

Indie*Gem

Recommendation of the week: Syd Matters A whisper and a sigh.
It made my day as i received it in the mail after much anticipation. My first impression was that suddenly everything became half-shiny/half-rainy in a very sweet way. This (french) man's sound is a gem. Beautiful melancholic ballads woven on electronic and acoustic instruments. It feels like a trip to a soft dream or something...
This album was actually released in 2002 and other beautiful things happened since i'm sure. I can't wait to hear more of him and his enchanting band.

 

 

Merci nico pour avoir souligne cet artiste aux talents magiques sur ton site. J'aime, j'aime, j'aime!
Syd Matters A whisper and a sigh. Me l'ecoute en boucle...