Painting life with passion and essence...

I created myself a new banner for my etsy shop and thought about doing this
for money, to include this to my art business.

I want to learn more to be as able to work in graphism as I am with traditional art.

So if you are interested in having a new banner for your blog, shop or if your website or blog needs a new design, feel free to ask me and we'll see what can be done :)

I want to thank Darcy for this,because she made me believe this could be done.
I had that thought earlier but didn't trust my graphism enough, I was too awkward.
But in a few months I learnt a lot on photoshop and I've improved my skills.

I also think it depends on our moods, emotions and the way things feels in our life at a present time.
I was feeling too dark lately to see the best in me or my skills, my potentials.

So thank you Darcy for reminding, thank you to all my loved ones and dearest friends and supporters, especially at flickr, you all make my day, you make me stronger and you help me remember I really am a Human being, in the deep sense of it.

I hate to feel disconnected from humanity, as if I were so cut from the whole world in my secluded existence.

I dont complain, I love solitude and being alone at home.
But I still dream to have a dear friend with who I could just walk out in the hood and take pictures, laugh, admire the landscape, the little detail of the beauty around us, breathe where we still can breathe, a sister who could be like me, loving simple things and deep things too, seeing the poetry of this life, of nature, of any kind of art, the poetry of emotions, the beauty that can be felt, touched, grabbed ,seen in every little things,every aspect of our life.

That's why I can be pissed at people when they say comment at my work" oh why are you always so SAD?"
they talk as if they knew me which is so rude!
and writing sad in big shows how they have a fear or problem with this emotions.
sorrow sadness can be beautiful, it reminds us our humanity, that we can need others, and being able to express and feel unashamed to cry is something important to me.
it's being free to be.

And adding stupid things that I want to receive just favorable comments is ridiculous crap because saying this as nothing to do with my art, it's just a rude comment from someone who just cannot read my work and assume they can read my mind.

They don't see me.
I'm no dark nor mysterious woman, I am a real woman.
I'm not haughty or self assured, I assert my soul, sometimes I sound loud and big mouthed but I defend what I stand for and there is a line that has to be respected or you're out, that's all.
if that should make me appear like a so proud arrogant bitch then so be it.

comments like these in fact just makes me want to write" of course I'm a self centered arrogant artist and I just want the good comments please so behave, that's exactly who I am :)"
but some people wouldn t understand the humour and irony.

My loved ones they know me better.
I doubt and trust my soul, it's my balance, the path to spiritual growth.
I wont stop asserting my soul.
I dont even give a shit if somebody feels uncomfortable with this or think "oh she's so proud"
screw that holy crap!

why in this world are we so allowed to say how much we suck, how bad we are, how ugly , how insignificant and all, how on earth such things can be so easily tolerated in our world and also found so touching, ooooh sweet lamb, she hates herself, gonna empathised!
whereas it's really cruel to be this way towards our self.

Our soul is our precious, the light to show us the way, if we treat it bad, then we'll remain longer in the dark, is that a clever way to live our so short life?maybe shorter than we think, we never know what tomorrow is made of.

we never allow others to say they love themselves, for this and that, they are proud because they can do this, they think they are beautiful, intelligent, funny and so forth why?
is it our own discomfort and doubts and insecurities that make us act this way?

That's something that shock me in our society!
And I really hate it when I go back to my self loathing self because it's unhealthy, especially when I support my sisters and brothers out there with true empathy and focusing on their beauty, the best in them.





Anyways when we are artists, we really have to believe in ourselves or magick cannot happen.
We have to be dedicated to this demanding light inside us, to be scattered around in colors, in matters, in papers, in visual poems.

Somehow Art is my religion.My saviour.












I love my girls,my paintings.
how they come to me, sometimes like such a solace.
Only others painters,other artists can understand this feeling.

Sometimes with stress of all the things that are complicated in this world/life we feel hopeless, like things are adding to one another and the situation gets heavy and you wonder how it will go on...
I worry about the future, I hurt about many things,not only related to me or my navel.
smile.

There are many things that make me cry: like watching on tv a mom of 40something having a serious disease and having to find a home family for her four children, talking freely about her death and just caring for her babies not to be separate, how moving that is...
I empathize so deep with others pain at times, it overwhelms me.

I also can cry for joy, good sweet empathy, that's a feeling I adore.
sharing others happiness.
That is also something I need and admire in other human beings out there.
I cannot bear the ones who cannot derive joy from their friends smile, happiness, bliss,success...

In fact with time I have stopped trying to deal with that.
I just don't understand the lack of good empathy.
It just feels so good to share others' joyitude:)


(poem that goes with this)
I'm breathing trying to remember something that never happened.
The silence on the beach, I hear the lullaby of the waves from afar in my autumn nostalgia of a summer that never was.
It's the noise of dead leaves that I hear under each of my steps, the noise of my heels on the pavement and the insidously painful sound of your silence.
The real one. The silence in between each of your words. The silence in between each of your moves.
Then I recollect images, the warmth of color and the sand under my undulating body like an inviting waves.
You never dared to imagine my ripples but I know you did.
I understood that silence with time.
You made me understood this soft sound that pains my heart so much.
Then the fog dressed my skin, I could remember all these caresses of zephyrs.
Sighing remember remember our summer never happened.
My eyes full of tears just said the deepest truth about it.
No why anymore.
Not even a because.
Nobody's fault.
We're both sorry and I'll ever be more for you than for me.


****
solitude, impotence makes me cry.
isolation.
Or feeling noticed when I really feel so lonely.
It's very comforting.

In fact people cannot imagine, how just a smile, a hello and sincere concerned how do you feel these days, is meaningful.
I am moved by humanity and that is what matters to me.


(poem that goes with this)

But I wanted to know you
Drenching my feet to the waters of your soul
Listening closely to each of your waves
Maybe sinking too always deeper and further in another universe
Keeping shells in my pocket where infinite was written
But we forgot the power of the tidal waves
we forgot the hurricanes and the tiniest grain of sand
Each of my rains gliding between your fingers
And the resistance of the walls under my white horses
The window blew all these tortures of written meaning
My eyes cried all the read senses
Undulations of cruel sounds it's too late it's too late
whatever it may be it'll ever be too late at least for me(...)

Kindness makes me cry. beauty too.
I am lucky to be an hyper sensitivity being because it makes me feel more aware of the beauty around us.
Even in the negative feelings there is beauty hidden.

I was wondering what words am I most comfortable with when referring to my spirituality?
Believe,faith,growth,path, unison, connecting to like minded souls to share and imply growth and spread energy to one another.

I am feeling closer to my faith right now and I need angels around me which is why I painted an angel.
it does not mean I am religious.
I am just spiritual and in fact I'm not into speaking about religion, most of this talk sometimes get nowhere.

My spiritual awakening was more tangible to me following my artist path because I could see how everything was connected.
There is Light and Love spreading in my art,it is not just an art business, it's not just doing something to earn money, to me it's beyond this.

This is surely why it's not easy to live as an artist, I have a very hard time talking about marketing and how to promote how to make things work.
I'm ambitious in the things I have many ideas and dreams, but it's all bursting with passion and especially to be real connection, real creation not just a way to be rich ^___^ though I'm pragmatic and really hope to make more money with my art and skills next year because I need to be able to keep going.

I would really die spiritually if I have to do a daily job and not be the artist I have to be.
Money problems suck!

I really would love to be a Life Empowerment Coach and Personal Growth Facilitator, I do believe in this, in my potential for this, my good listening, and my being able to understand others, sometimes I wish I lived in the Usa for these things because here I don't think people care about such things.

I have this easiness to sense a soul and to grab someone's talent, see their own spark and what great things they can do.

Oh yesterday it was thanksgiving, so I hope all my American friends had a very nice time with their loved ones!

If I had to write the things I'm grateful about lately well I'd say
Love of course in everything, in friendship, in art, in lasting or ephemeral connections.

when we meet someone it's always teaching.


I am grateful to have sebastien in my life, for his support, his understanding and the fact he's bearing with my being so up and down not always easy to live with, I am lucky he always finds a way to make me laugh out loud.
I know I need his support for me to keep growing as an artist, I need his love and his trust in me.




I am grateful for the ones who will always stay by my side come what may.
I know who you are.
Thank you for this.
thanks for the sunbeams and the smiles.



I am grateful to the fairies and the angels in my inner garden.
I'm grateful for all the poetry muses, thank you thank you for coming to me so I still can write even when the ink of my soul dries.



I am grateful for all the things and souls that inspire me.
Grateful for the advice ,messages,kindness I receive from wherever they may come.







The key remains there: in self acceptance , self understanding and self improvement.

Namasté my friends!
now please make today count, offer a smile to another one, offer an ear, an hug, a kiss, a compliments, it's free and spreads so much than whatever we think/see.

"when I create art I never suffer"(Anais Nin)

it would be good to find a sunbeam on the road today but there are days we cannot deny the way we feel inside.


On days like these I feel more disconnected than ever.
And Goddess knows how many efforts I've done to reach out,to connect, to enter, to understand,to learn, to decipher, to apease my soul...

I keep on oscillating between my positive thinking, the fact my Hope, my Faith heal me...and my forest of shadows where I'm dwelling for too many days in a row.

I know what really scars me deep is the fact I discard reality, its sordid fade taste, it's all so substanceless, insignificant at times...

I mean I hear and see people's life in the real world.
Their lack of passion, their lack of meaning.
their suffering too.

When I paint I don't suffer.
When I make art I am alive, I feel it.
Then why do I paint so slowly lately?
Fatigue,insomnia,worries, not being able to concentrate for too long.






God knows how I managed to paint a smiling girl:)
Guess my smiles are still there inside.
I did smile today in between tears.



I give maybe too much importance to my mood and thus I get myself manipulated instead of reacting at once and deeper.
I know I can do that.

I so understand my desillusionment and my love for this life, I know it should not be opposed but dealt with acceptance.






I guess I also spend more time when creating a painting so I work more on details and think about who is she, what does she has to say,how it's gonna have meaning.
I feel good to see the fact my paintings are growing, being more detailed and more alive.
I mean I'm only painting since almost two years
I began with painting over the pictures of my self portraits and then in March 2007 I let go and just tried!
I decided I had procrastinated long enough.


I'm making less collages and totally stopped the little vintage fairy girls
I needed to go further and I really feel now that I've forever been a painter but honestly I still feel very shy about it and I know I will keep on growing and developping my style.


On another subject I've been wanting to try again and see if I could connect to French people so I joined a community of people who love polaroids online.
I was really shocked at their rude attitude.
I remember people telling me they've visited my country and talked about the rudeness and the not welcoming ways and I must acknowledge that perhaps there are jerks everywhere sure, but even myself everytime I tried to get to know people here, to have this opportunity to talk in my mother tongue, I got really unpleasantly surprised.

I'm not saying all French are rude and total assholes but I met a lot of narrow minded stubborn or misogynists ones.
I can compare with all my English speaking friends,two of them are French but they are really different.

I am not sure if it's about the language or just a bad coincidence, but it's been now 5 years I've been using English more than French and I'm a lot disappointed from the lack of connection I can have with the people here.
Of course I know saying this will make me sound snob and whatnot, I don't really care now.
I love France, I am not just a French woman, I am a citizen of the planet first, I am not an ambassador of my country at all.
I don't care about these things much, I'm just saying that in my life I've been quite disapointed in my relationship with French people.

I believe in a way I am still hoping to make French friends here and now, but it's really scary the violent, rude and agressive rejections I've received from French men and I am not sure why.

I am lucky my love is an exception!
Still it's always a big disapointment to see people not being real humans.
It's not about being loved and naivety of everyone should feel at home but I don't understand insult for free and people making you have to justify.
This not right and there is no meaning in this.

It reminds me my teenage and the need of others to break another one because they are bitter, angry and frustrated about their lives.
For the more I think about it there's no pleasure in being rude or mean to another person.
Maybe it's all about Karma, what goes around comes around.

I don't take it personally , it's not pleasant sure, but it's not about me or the person I am ,it's about the image I convey, because how could someone hate me when they don't know a thing about me?
It's only the image they see of me, something that reminds them their own limitations or frustrations and thus I annoy them.

I also know my big mouth does bother people.
It's ok.
I have a hard time to shut it up when someone lacks of respect towards me.
But I can handle it better than before just that during a phase of doubts it's not helping much to have people out of no reason telling you meaningless and agressive things about your work.
Besides I really think we are no one to judge others work.

There are artists I don't like but I won't allow myself to say this is crap because it's absurd.

I am not snob I am not into rejecting or downplaying people and to set things clear I don't have anything against French people, I just noticed an aspect of their character but as I'm knowing and having the best around me, the ones who see the best in me when I'm doubting and putting everything in question I know I am blessed.

I have also sold artworks to French people but the more I work, the more I see, my work gets more attention by the Usa and foreign people.
It still kind of saddens me not to feel "welcomed" here but I guess I'm getting used to it.
I will still try to find galleries who will want to believe in my paintings or phoetry.
I will keep on trying to find people to work with for books and such.
I would just love to illustrate childhood books for an author, maybe it'll happen sometimes or I'll write mine ;)

I want to do more artist collaboration, independent projects that could open doors to greater horizon.

I am very often disapointed about the fact relationship with others are so untrustworthy or very fleeting, people don't take the time to get deeper and create a real bond, this is not something that surprise over the years but I am constantly surprised by like minded companions, fellow artists down here, who can have a human eyes on others and a word of support.
It's something that reassures me to know there are other artists out there who can also feel isolated at times and lack of understanding and connectedness with people around them.

Perhaps the distance does not really matter when we find soul closeness with others.
That's surely why internet is a great medium to link souls alike.
We attract them and we have this possibility to be in contact.
It may be something strange but I have real conversations with my friends who lives away from me, it's not mere chat, it's real friendship.






I'm also working again with digital collages.
I'm a photoshop addict,I love to create poetic design...



I've also visited the Château de Versailles when my parents came for a weekend.

Here I am the polaroid addict :) playing in the park of le Château de Fontainbleau.
I'm into castles this year :-)


that was a poster in Brussels street, I thought it was inspiring


my new camera :))


I guess I'm very fragile with my mood,I'm trying to go on,not like chin up and denial;)
but trying to find more understanding and bring more growth through this.
Days like today are very difficult but I'm undulating between highs and lows, I know where to find some smiles to balance my moments of sadness so I'll be fine.
I'm still very hopeful and I still have so many things to learn and to do so I cannot just give up now right?

Namasté my friends!

Let go, sing out loud & dance with all the Goddesses,sorceresses and sprites within

I do know it's exhausting me when I take the time to make a bloke that cannot get my work shut his mouth.
it's a waste of time.
useless.

After all there will constantly be people who will say your paintings are crying way too much.
I remember with a smile my beginnings in mixed media art.
It was all naive, innocent,cute and mostly smiling art.
I used vintage images and mostly children that I turned into fairies.

At first I wanted to do what I admired in others with my own touch.
I wanted to reveal the power of my Fae child and I used the power of dreams, what can connect me to Innocence.
to the realm of Purity.Hopes.



This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
... Wishing: In gladness and in safety,
May all beings be at ease.



Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty,
medium, short or small,


The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born —
May all beings be at ease!



Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.


Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings;

Radiating kindness over the entire world
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.


Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding....
(la metta, Loving Kindness Prayer)

that really is a prayer that I love.
Something I want to keep on spreading.
But I also think sometimes some people should get a kick in the butt for the way they dont respect your soul or say or write things with no sense at all showing how much they lack of empathy.
But yet perhaps they just cannot enter and get our souls.
Yes we should not care.

For after all this will always happen.
being misread.
being misinterpreted.
being labelled.

It's alright.
we are still who we are.
we are not the eyes that look at us.

We are our soul.
In time of deep melancholly that is what remains.
we are our soul.
Thus we are not alone therein.
never.
always.



I made this painting of Demeter protecting Persephone till she's no more inside her for a book project with Ruth Eichmiller and Kristin Hoffmann.
I hope this project will work, I hope it will bring its fruits.
But for now, it does.
It inspires me and it's teaching.
it's opening things, it's easy for me to relate when reading it.

I believe many things could be related to that Demeter/Persephone's pain.
When we dare give birth to something, and put it out there.
make it real.
give it life.
face it.
We cannot protect it anymore.
it's no longer a secret.
no longer inside.
you feel so weak then.
And your baby can dive in the underworld.
The way things are.

I believe every downfall has new things to bring, new horizons to open,so I don't fight to deny my state.
Not happily bleeding but I kind of know the process now.
Or should I say the procedure?
to endure.

I often have my strange moments of ecstasis in chaos.
Some kind of reaction that is totally the opposite to what I've learnt, how I feel etc.
It's strange, but honestly I prefer to laugh at it & enjoy.
It's just like clowns are funny but the ones who hurt the most for sure.
It's good to laugh, it's perhaps healthy to be able to laugh at oneself.
why, we should not even take our pain too seriously?

Depression?
well the more I think of this the more I agree with doctors who says there is no chemical imbalance tests.
and anti depressent are fucking up the body and have sides effects.

Being depressed is a part of life.
It's the dying of illusions.
It's a path towards spiritual maturity.


Title: Oh my love oh my coward!



title:you left with my words you thief!











A girl was asking what do I think when I paint those things?
well I really love trees on the head because I've always compared the spirit with a tree, growing branches, having dark roots, some can be cut, some has to be cut, but we always remember where we come from & our flowery branches never denies or dark roots
we're as one.
at peace.
no struggle for nothing.

Anytime I begin struggling, I say" what's the heck? you're meant to be a positive thinker how can you go back to the underworld?how can you be so melancholic again and why so much dark art?"

I breathe. I think.I pause. And I know.
I just have to do what I have to do and to be what I am, who I am.

It's okay with me.


It's okay to be who I am.
I can also handle it in my friends.
The fact they can be so alive, playful and smiling, so enthusiastic and full of youth in their soul and then fall again and be so depressed, and silent, and need time on their own...



This world truly lacks of depths, lack of empathy,emotional communications , I believe us artists are here for this!

That might sound self assured or pretentious but I don't mind.
I know who I am.
I know why I'm here for.
Sometimes I just forget and sometimes I ache my feet because I'm not wearing the right shoes or no shoes at all.



title:How long this godawful blood leaking in my chapel?

At the first raw
invisible guest or just empty chairs
contemplating my fate
This coffin of photographs with dust and grain
Black and white just like the core of the core
I gaze at the photo when suddenly I am submerged
At the edge of my eyes
leaking blood in my little chapel
Hosanna
My eyes can not feel a thing but this suffering
A moment
Thought it would be the snow on this numb ache
I am seized by the blessing
And I choke under my smile such an ancient smile
Feels like centuries away
My body shakes with the sobs
my soul feels so old
Then the sketch of a sad smile
Trying to sip back a taste of that moment
Impossible to recollect all those butterflies
My net is pierced everywhere
Thus the rain again bleeding from the walls
why didn't you sit down next to me?
Why couldn't I feel the light touch of your hand?
I know I know it would have killed me now(...)



I'm in a strange phase of my life.
I want to believe this will just be nothing at all.
But I've studying love, relationship, enticement and how it all works.
I'm not saying I know it all.
But I've seen processes,how easy people can be flirtatious.
I still cannot explain the detail that grabs a soul and make it fall in love that you grow some kind of faith towards this person.

I believe somehow it is the connection,closeness of souls and the giving receiving balance.
balanced devotion.
Something rare.
Does that mean I believe in Love?
it's like asking to I believe in Happiness?

All these things would take hours to detail, to go deeper inside them.
I would often say I want something I can't believe in.

I've had depression,I've overcome desillusionment.
Do I want to face it again?

I partly believe that this life is made of Blissful moments and those have to be lived with awareness.

Découvrez Sarah Slean!

And I am aware Happiness is not someone or the fact my life could have begun.
My life is.
And I am.I am. I am.
what is it to exist?
to be looked at? heard?loved?seen?
I am.

And I do this for me too.
And everyone should love themselves too.

Découvrez Sarah Slean!

Awake your goblins
Don't you hear the sound of sorceress
don't you hear the witch has awoken from her century slumber
Hear her moans in the woods
Like forgotten incantation that warm your insides with a threat
awake your little devilish girls for the feast on crumbs
We're gonna celebrate our bruises & scars
It's our Omega juice
Bleeding much more than so called truths
No intruders in our tree hangers delights



while dissecting the ladybirds we finally could read their mind
Sonnets in between wings
I'm so sorry I killed the ladybirds while wanting to get rid of the spiders
Crawling all inside her
And then my arsonist burnt each letters unsent
Each glow quietly burried no chant no funeral for her Poem
Only a strong fire
But the flames began to glide their own agony
Fall was there with the dead leaves books of memories unsaid
The black holes in my eyes could not utter the hatred
As tangible as the sheer cowardice to live in words
so she only cut an 8 on my heart
I should be healed by now
The blazing nonsense was circuiting in my veins
Erasing each sigh of you each step each sound
Did you exist she asked me in the night
Of course not you were but a fiction
Another page in my diary
Another corpse in my coffin heart

**********************************

So in my new Fall.
collapse of soulquakes.
rivers of tears.
I am alive.

I feel pain, I do.
It just makes me another human being just like you right?



I am free of fears today in this painful ecstasy because I feel, I can touch my strength and how much I can resist to pain.Maybe it's my illusion.Maybe it is real.
I may fall
But it's okay.

I let go.
I'm ready to let go.
Today I let go.
The fall is soft.
I am protected by my guardian angels.

I can feel the air on my skin.
I can feel the peeling of memories lived or unlived.

I'm not fighting.I'm not waiting anymore.I'm not asking. Not begging anymore.
Not my role to make others act the way I want them to.
Not my role to make others understand what they cannot comprehend.
Not my reason to live to complete another or make them feel alive.
I let go.

I stretch my arms in this fall.
I'm like a cross but I'm weightless.
Nothing to bear anymore.
naked. body+soul.
Real.More vulnerable as ever.
but not scared.
I embrace my incompleteness.
I celebrate my imperfection.

I let go.
And I heal myself in this.
I will live through this.
I will rise up through this.

And it's okay if there is no hands to catch me so I don't hurt myself.
It's okay if there is nothing and no one.
I fall and I feel.
It's okay if I'm alone.
I know this by heart.

I won't allow this to make me bitter.
I know myself I'm always stronger.

And I'm a true sincere and honest lover.
and I will love her.
My inner lover
I will feed her.

I'm all I need today.
This is my own fall.
I'm not a victim.

I just am being realer as ever.

I may end up living on my own.
I may never belong.
I may never get married.
I may never get pregnant.

I am still belonging to this minority.to this circle of sensitive souls who wants to create,inspire,give,love and share always.
The empaths. The ones who works with light/love.
The ones who still cares and can find beauty and wonders in the little details of this life.

I am married to myself.
satin and silk.
I am pregnant of art.
my babies are : poems, paintings, all this giving to the world that can hear.
And the ones who need to read this.

I don't need to be beautiful in your eyes.
I don't need to be half loved.
I don't need to be desired.
to be.
It's okay if I'm unwanted.

I don't need to need.
In this fall I catch up my independence as a woman.
My mind's strength.
I'm never alone when I decide not to abandon myself.
In the name of love
is constantly misused.

No one has to suffer for Love.To please everyone.
Love is no sacrifice.
This is pure crap poetry for your lonely inside goth baby.
There should not be a price to pay for true Love.
And if in the balance love is more suffering, you got to let go.

I'm letting go.
I'm healing.
I'm falling.
And it's alright.

It's the path to begin a new spiritual growth.
That's why I gave birth to: Ma sorcière.
a new persona.
She's gonna show me the way.




ani di franco, asking too much