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Welcome to this new Gratitude Friday! Feel free to share with me your (partial or full) gratitude moments in the comments; that way I can hold joy for you ✿ (you know that makes me happy to make you happy).

Another Friday is here. How was your week? I hope it was filled with little nuggets of Joy. Collect them preciously, so the memory is then when you need it.

This week, I am thankful for:

• Warmer temperatures
• The opportunity our daughter has to spend a few days in New York City
• Honesty
• Seeing the glass half-full most of the time
• My aligners
• The beautiful unique and meaningful artisanal ring I received from Katie, aka StarNative.
• Books tackling difficult subjects
• Daily creativity
• It was a pain in this ass but I was able to take my first bath in two weeks
• My back feeling less hurtful

Soundtrack for this week:

I told you before, I am a woman of obsessions… My mind is always in full swing going around the same stuff over and over. It is mostly annoying but I stopped trying to stop this. Acceptance is key 😉

Quinn Bouley

I discovered Quinn on Instagram. Her feed is one of the most beautiful that illuminates my Instagram.
Quinn has an online shop where she sells handmade stickers, journal stuff and printables.
Quinn is spiritual and very creative. She shares videos on Youtube about her process and I really like what she has to offer.

Billie Eilish

I feel like I am talking about her everywhere and apologize if it is too much for you 😉
Music is always playing around me, it started when I was a kid. My Mom had to work weird hours and so I was often home alone: silence scared the shit out of me (still today) so I always had music playing or the TV on.
Billie Eilish is currently 17 years old but she knows who she is, she loves what she creates and it is contagious. She is the perfect embodiment of UNAPOLOGETIC to me. Plus, I am jealous that she can get these amazing hair colors 😉
Her music is strange but addictive. And you have to check her music videos 😀 I can’t believe she recorded her first album with her brother (who produces it), in their Mom’s home, sitting on a bed. Yup.

Oil pastels

When I create, I put all my senses to play. That’s just how it is for me. If you know me a little, you know that one of my things is texture. I am always searching for new ways to create it, media to put together to come up with something different.
I use several brands of oil pastels, my favourites are: Sennelier and Caran D’Ache’s NeoPastels. Both are really creamy and come in so many colours. They are very pigmented, too. They are not on the cheap side of the spectrum but worth every dollar.

My 100 Days of Abstract Explorations project

After being part of several Design Teams and not being in one currently taught me some unexpected stuff. I need deadlines, I need structure in my routine, I need projects.
So when Elle Luna announced the current 100 Day Project, I decided to jump in. More on this in this blogpost, and this one. I need the end goal (painting an abstract painting every day for 100 days). And I accept this truth… maybe it’s finally my Virgo side showing? ahah! I am having a lot of fun, and that’s all that matters. I use all the supplies I love and I am doing my best not to run to the store not to buy more Pébéo markers and more Liquitex Gouache (I have two sample bottles of it only)…

My longtime friends might remember that I used to be a very very negative person. It was not on purpose, but I used to always see the glass half empty. I used to be prepared for any bad road something could take (just in case, you know…). Until not these many years ago, I complained about something. I can see it with hindsight now, I must have been one hell of a person to be around (and is probably why I lost everyone in 2003, as friends and family ditched me all at the same time), reaching rock bottom.
I won’t thank them for putting me through Hell. But I understand how they did what was best for them. And you know what? I talk to most of them years after. I did not forget, the hurt is still there, but I forgave…
At 33 years old, going on 34, I have learned to accept this part of me that finds it easier to see everything through a negative lens. I know part of my Essence is made of the same Spleen that filled Baudelaire; but also that it is not the entirety of who I am.

And this is by reaching the bottom that the possibility to rise above appeared.

Yes. When I think about it, I often picture myself in a very deep pool, sinking deeper and deeper… sometimes I see myself just there, at the bottom, in the water… until something shifts and I tap my foot to get above. Rising. I am always rising, eventually. I was talking on the phone with my Mom this morning, about my career choices and she told me: “you’re like me, resilient. And belligerent. I know you will figure it out. I just know it.” and it felt good to hear.

A few years ago (2015?), I decided it was time to invest in myself and to find my people. I was in Hannah Marcotti‘s «Magic Making Circle» class. In this class, Hannah put the emphasis on the art of flipping. You take a negative thought that is bothering you, and then you find a way to switch it to something positive.
This is something I try to teach my daughter. Something I wish I knew how to do when I was a teenager.

It is not easy work. There is no switch you can pull so it magically shifts. But I do believe that the magic resides in the process as much as in the positive outcome.

We hear everywhere that there is no light without darkness. I say a big FUCK IT to this. Yes.
I am a big believer of the power of positive thinking and of wishful thinking. However, don’t tell me my life can change just because I desire it. With experience, I now know that desire without concrete action is nothing but energy put to waste.

How art helps me shift

I will usually take refuge within my art journal. Between the covers, I feel safe to express whatever needs to be addressed. I can do whatever I want without the need to share everything. I let the pain, the hurt, the anxiety go within layers upon layers of paint.
Also, creating my Nixies is a huge relief in general. They are not planned out. I learned to surrender to my emotions as soon as I step inside my ArtCave. I sometimes start simply by stating something like “Please, help me release XXX through what I will be creating today” and let it go. My most precious artwork was born from a deep place of darkness…

As I told you at the beginning of April, I embarked on The 100 Day Project this year.
On week 2, we had a long painful power outage. My ArtCave is located in our basement and it was about 10ºC (about 50ºF) inside our home. So let me tell you: no matter how badly I wanted to go paint in there, it did not happen for five days.

On the positive side

• It forces me to stretch my creative muscles
• I need to work on not boring myself
• It’s okay for me to explore new color palettes
• I have no pressure, or almost none
• I will end up with 100 paintings in the same series: to me, that’s huge!

On the less positive side

• I do feel bad when a day is skipped
• Some days, it’s like I am just repeating what I have already painted
• I am afraid to get bored eventually
• what the fuck will I do with 100 paintings?!

Some favorites so far:

Happy Sunday!
I feel like this blogpost will go well with my Soul Whisper (eh, I am going all in with this one in 2019!). I will be sharing 10 things about me. You might or might not know that about who I am, I am curious to know how many you are actually aware of 😉
Okay… here goes:

10 things about me:

1. I got my first tattoo when I was 16 years old. My Mom gave her consent after I went ballistic about it for more than two years. And she was in the room, bombarding the artist about hygiene question, the whole process. I now have seven tattoos. It is not the end of it though!
2. I got married at 19 years old. My husband actually proposed to me after 2 weeks of being together, but he officially asked my Mom after that. We are still much in love after nearly 16 years together.
3. I started my studies to become a psychoanalyst, to be a cooking chef, to be a French ASL teacher and a French/English translator. I finished none of those. That’s my one regret in life.
4. I suffer from misophonia. The fact that there is a name for that shitty thing that put my Mom and me in many fights over shared meals proved I was not crazy…
5. I started art journaling in 2008 and mixed media around 2009. But first, I was creating home décor with collage and textured stuff.
6. I was raised Catholic, went to Bible studies and got as far as the Confession. But a major life event threw me off the Catholic wagon. Then, I turned to Buddhism, and I discovered Wicca when I was around 12 and it shifted my perspective on life and on Humanity. I used to hide it from my Mom but once she knew, she was cool with it as long as I drew protection before every magical action. I created a forum dedicated to white magic that became quite big in the francophone community. Now, I am not a Wiccan but a regular Witch with a belief system of her own…
7. Dirty under nails gross me out. I am a messy mixed media artist, so…
8. I am obsessed with the Moon and anything happening in the Sky and outside of Earth.
9. One of my love languages is giving and receiving gifts. If I offer something to you, don’t doubt it comes from a place of deep appreciation.
10. I started writing in a diary since I was 7 years old. I still do my best to write every day but do not feel awful if a few days pass without it. It is partly how I process. I have had this Mémoir idea since I was 23… When my daughters ask questions about my past, I often tell them “the answer is in one of my diaries… you will know once I’m dead” 😉

Tell me something about you that could surprise me