by Arnaud | Nov 19, 2014 | People Pics
” I work in this five star hotel and I carry the luggages from the boat to the reception then to the rooms of the customers coming from all over the world. I also prepare the towels every morning on the beach, and I am in charge of the masks and fins our customers use to snorkel around our small Motu island.”
Why did you decide to work in this hotel? “I was working in the mountains all day long with my brother, climbing in the coconut trees to get the coconuts and extract the copra, this was very hard work. With copra we manufacture here in French Polynesia, coconut oil for eating or for cosmetic industry.”
Samy is a very friendly polynesian I met on a small private island in the lagoon of Bora Bora. Samy is happy not to work in the plantations anymore, his life is easier, obviously less exciting…
by Arnaud | Nov 17, 2014 | People Pics
” I lived with my family her in Tahiti when I was four years old, then we went back to France, my Dad was working for a construction company. As an adult I decided to go to Papeete for several weeks, I stayed there eleven years, but working here was not easy, my boss did not help me to be promoted as he initially promised, and then this woman was harassing me, I was in love with her, that did not work out; I went back to “la Metropole.”
When I asked Samuel why he was coming back to French Polynesia, he showed me his flip-flops and said “for that!’. He was smiling but seemed a little bit wistful, with high expectations about this new life on these islands in the middle of the Pacific ocean.
by Arnaud | Nov 15, 2014 | French in the USA, People Pics
“I have always dreamed of adventure, I have always wanted to come to the USA, and Texas was the image I had of that country, the cowboys…people are cool here, there are relaxed, in the USA no ones judges you on your appearance nor the way you are dressed, unlike in Europe. Every year at Christmas I put the Rodolphe’s Red Nosed Reindeer horns on my huge Ford, and people like it! I am pretty sure that in my previous life I was an American, born and raised in Texas. ”
Chantal is a french mother of five kids, she is full of kindness and generosity, always so optimistic. Chantal’s dream is also to travel all around the world, not knowing where she would be going the day after.
by Arnaud | Nov 12, 2014 | French in the USA, People Pics
” I hope that people visiting the exhibition will be sensitive to “the story” we are trying to tell them, that they will be feeling emotions while discovering the variety of the creations we are presenting to tell that story. This is the story of “Art in Motion”, full of speed and modernity over the ages. Art is like a big balloon, full of emotion like the one this little girl shared with us while visiting the gallery today with her Mom; she had a candide look, and seemed to be full of admiration watching the creations of Calder, Miro, Spelletich, Elliott, Snelling…”
Why did you decide to come to San Francisco to open your art gallery? “SF is a city continuously reinventing itself, everything here is simpler, free. San Francisco is a city always in motion”.
Jules generously shared with me these last weeks the great opportunity to put images on the conception of his gallery and the preparation of the exhibition he will be showing tomorrow. Just like the exhibition’s creations, Jules is a masterpiece, always “in motion.”
by Arnaud | Nov 11, 2014 | People Pics
“My aspirations were to be a writer, but I soon found myself drawn to making sculpture and paintings, which I have done from an early age. I was influenced by travelling in Europe as a child, from seeing great cathedrals and museums, to the festivals in the small German town I lived in. Because my father was in the military, we visited many of the military sites such as the Maginot line and the ossuary of the Verdun memorial, which remains one of my most durable memories from that time. There’s nothing else like it in America, to see a monument that shows the insanity of war so clearly.
Is there a link between what you saw at Verdun France and your creations? “I often credit these experiences as the origins of my interest in mortality, which sometimes makes its appearance in my artwork. Art to me has a power to bring us truly alive, completely alive, and because of this, offers a clear location to consider the possibility of death. The memento mori tradition in art is long: to remind us that we aren’t going to live forever and should make the most of the time we have. History is a death of the shaping moments of our times, and too often, these moments become buried and we no longer look at them. I prefer to seek out the forgotten and ignored, bringing them back into awareness so that we have greater perspective on our own lives.
Marshall is a young artist of the San Francisco Bay Area. I liked his vision of a link between mortality and arts; Marshall’s creations will be presented at the Jules Maeght Gallery in SF, along with others artists like Pol Bury, Alexander Calder, Kal Spelletich, Tracey Snelling, but also Joan Miro, Kristie Macleod, Clovis Prevost, Herbert Snelling, Vassily Kandinsky…his peers….
