Simplicité

zinnias et oeillets d'un jardin de la Drôme 

Quelques fleurs du jardin coupées avec soin, puis placées dans un bocal en verre transparent. C'est frais, sobre, élégant. Il faut ensuite attendre un jour ou deux, pour qu'une fois acclimatées, elle révèlent leur beauté.

J'aime la présence des fleurs à l'intérieur de la maison, cette touche de nature dépourvue de tout artifice. Chaque matin je leur adresse un mot doux en signe de gratitude. Puis en les contemplant, je me rappelle qu'il ne tient qu'à nous de faire entrer la beauté dans notre quotidien…

Beau dimanche ;)

Block Printing

Woodblocks and Anokhi garment

I discovered hand block printing while I was in India. And I got totally amazed. In fact, just by seeing one piece of hand block printed fabric I felt beauty all around me.

After this confrontation with beauty, I wanted to know more about these pieces. I talked to the manager of the Anokhi store in Fort Cochin, Kerala. (Anokhi is an Indian company dedicated to the ongoing revival of traditional textile skills). I remember his gaze as I was questioning the technique. He had stars in the eyes. I was touched by this very fine art and so was he. He was very happy and moved to share with me what he knew about hand block printing. He also told me about the Anokhi museum of hand printing in Amber, Jaipur. That's a place I want to see some day.

So what is block printing ? I would say it is an ancient textile art to make beautiful fabrics. It's a hand made process that requires patience, dedication, precision and love. The creative process starts with teak wood. The hand block is carved out of wood to become a printing device. Vegetable colors are usually used for dyeing. This process offers a large variety of colors and patterns. Also depth and glare may result different from one piece to another. In fact, each piece is unique. Sometimes you can see small imperfections, for example a blurry pattern, but it doesn't matter, they make the piece even more beautiful because they carry the quality and the humanity of the people who made it.

Anokhi pamphlet and woodblocks

Here are some astonishing figures…
* A fine block takes 2 days to carve and wears out after about 800 meters of fabric.

* The printer stamps the cloth approximately 1000 times to complete 3 meters in 5 colors.

* The printer may use from 1 to 30 different blocks to complete a garment or a quilt.

* From raw cloth to finished product, an item passes through at least 20 pairs of hands.

Block printing has been inspiring me since then. It stayed in my mind for the rest of my trip in India. In Delhi, right before heading back to France, I found in one of those Indian Bazars, a tiny shop selling only woodblocks. Once again, I felt amazed. They were all different. Big, small, heart shaped, rounded, squared… All absolutely beautiful. I wanted to get some but I did not know how to proceed. The young man working there told me "just let you heart speak". And that's what I did. I came up with six woodblocks. In the small basket he had given me previously, I could see harmony. So I bought them all.

Back to France, I've been using them once in a while, on fabric to make clothes and on paper. Actually it's great on paper. You can personalize a card, an envelope or even a notebook. When I use them I feel like a child for the process is so simple. And it gives me the opportunity to see clearly how beauty and simplicity are connected. Enjoy this magic from India ;)

Anokhi and Fabindia fabrics

Hors-Série Kaizen

Il y a quelques jours, je suis tombée par hasard (y'a-t-il un hasard, d'ailleurs ?) sur le hors-série Kaizen n°5. J'ai immédiatement été saisie par le titre "Pour une enfance joyeuse". Puis en feuillant les pages, j'ai découvert une revue soignée, au ton bienveillant. Elle propose de nombreuses clés pour ceux qui se sentent concernés par les notions de maternage proximal (attachment parenting en anglais) et de parentalité positive (un art de vivre en famille).

Un vaste panel de pratiques est présenté selon une répartition en quatre parties, chacune correspondant à une tranche d'âge particulière. Toutes sont reliées à la même question fondamentale: quels enfants laisserons-nous à la planète ? On y retrouve par exemple, une présentation de l'haptonomie, des conseils pour l'allaitement, le portage, également une approche originale de la diversification alimentaire, un travail sur le décryptage des émotions, et des réponses scientifiques à la fameuse question: faut-il laisser pleurer un bébé ? La dernière partie sur les enfants de 3 à 6 ans aborde le thème de l'école et des activités sensorielles en accordant une large place à la coopération, à la créativité, à l'autonomie. Ceci pour vous donner un aperçu !

Pour tout vous dire, j'ai été émerveillée par cette revue. Même plus que ça, je me suis sentie nourrie et rechargée avec l'envie de tester ou d'approfondir certaines pratiques. Je craignais une certaine redondance avec le livre de Catherine Dumonteil-Kremer, Elever son enfant autrement. (Très belle ressource également). Il n'en est point. Les thématiques sont peut-être les mêmes mais le point de vue de Kaizen apporte un éclairage nouveau. Bref une lecture qui fait du bien et qui donne envie d'aller de l'avant !

YOUTH by Samuel Ullman

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.

Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.

Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.

Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being's heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing child-like appetite of what's next, and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the infinite, so long are you young.

When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.