APRIL
2022
APRIL 22 — MAY 6
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Today, A Few Things That Caught My Eyes.
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About Last Night.
A poem in my notebook about last night.
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A Postcard.
I bought a postcard on Sunday
in a market in Porte de Clignancourt.
It shows the image of a woman
and there were three of them,
in slightly different positions
and slightly different gradients.
I wanted the three but the man was stubborn about the price,
so I ended up only taking one,
in a way to annoy him.
To stay firm in my word
that I wouldn’t pay that much for the three of them.
Although I still think I should have bought the three.
Maybe I go back there next weekend.
I think it’s important that things
that were once put together,
stay together.
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Laundry.
My laundry hanging in my house.
In a way, I see no big difference
between my work and any type of fresh laundry
hanging from a balcony of a building.
Both enrich the space.
Laundry has an even bigger effect
because of the smell it leaves.
In this case, I used to do my laundry —
Marseille soap and orange tree flowers scent —
makes me feel in summer back in Portugal.
Where everything smells of possibility.
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Work In Progress.
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Mathematical, Actually.
My last couple of days were very technical.
Mathematical, actually.
I was introducing myself to the possibility
of weaving gauze fabric,
which is a very specific type of fabric.
I had to learn from old pdf documents
that I found on the internet.
I tried to translate it,
and mount the threads in my loom accordingly.
Weaving can be something so intangible.
At the end of the day, the loom was the first computer.
I struggle to fully understand it.
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In Fact, A Love Letter.
I achieved something yesterday
that I was dreaming about for probably a year,
and it inspired me to write a letter to my loom.
It seemed like it was the only way
of expressing the excitement
that I felt at that moment.
At first I thought I was just putting in words
what I felt.
Later I realized that it was,
in fact, a love letter.
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Contrasting Geometry.
I started making gauze,
and decided to put it on top of colours.
As always… for that I drew with oil pastels
and ended up creating very organic shapes.
It feels like — because now the fabric
is so grid-like, it needs
some contrasting geometry.
I will always put things contrasting,
but it was funny that on this same day
I ended up going to Brancusi’s Atelier near Pompidou,
and spent a good time drawing.
Only 10 min walking from my house,
and I must say, in a beautiful spring day,
where you feel the soft wind coming through your t-shirt
when you walk.
Only those 10 min and I was in the best place
in the world to think about organicity.
Brancusi turned stone into something so light.
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Light To Transparent.
I want to turn things light too — transparent.
One sentence that I am sure will guide me
for the next weeks:
“Light enriches our perception,
capturing movement on the surface of the material
at the confines of the form.
This movement reveals a ridge
or blurs a contour
in a constant process of becoming.”
The weather here is beautiful,
and I am feeling like something from nature too,
listening to my needs and my gut.
It is a beautiful time to be here.
I am taking care of myself.
MAY 2022
01
About Light, And Night.
Today my day was about light.
My nights are an extension of the day.
It seems like some things only become clear at night…
in spring nights of course, not winter ones.
Last night I found out a bit more about my work.
I had forgotten some of the reasons why I was here.
It was only by confronting old ideas that I found the way…
I guess when you don’t know where to start,
you start at the beginning.
Somehow wherever we go, we get influenced by it.
I love how that always works out for me.
I picked up the fruit boxes the other day,
just out of curiosity of what I could do with it.
Obviously I saw them as structures to hang my work on,
but had no idea how or why that was important.
I remember that my first interest in coming here
was due to my long interest in stained glass windows
and its effects on space.
I actually applied to the residency
with a project about the ‘vitraux’.
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More Light, More Colour.
Today my day was more about light and colour,
which brought me back
to a more primordial chase of my work.
I am feeling very interested in oranges and reds.
When I draw these stains of colour with my oil pastels,
I always get very intrigued
by the nuances of orange that I am creating.
It almost strikes me in the stomach,
just by looking at it.
I found a song called Vitrais,
that I enjoyed very much.
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Connections.
Yesterday I remembered that in Paris
there is a brand of tea
that has a very special type of tea,
made of orange leaf,
and I want to find it again.
Maybe it is all the orange that I have been using
in my drawings that makes this happen…
“To emphasize its thing-ness. Light.
It’s not like other things.
You don’t shape it like clay,
you don’t carve it like wood.
It’s more like sound.
So you make an instrument that produces it
the way you want.”
— James Turrell
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Let Spring Happen.
I discovered Jardin des Plantes on Sunday,
after a long walk around Ile Saint Louis
and across the river to Jardin Tino Rossi.
I contemplated for a very long time
about this one tree.
By very long, I mean 1 hour.
The light was striking it on very lime-green leaves,
making it glow!
I love when this happens with colour.
I drew the tree.
That tree gave me so much back.
I came across Jardins des Plantes on my right.
What I found most intriguing
were these Black Tulips
that were meticulously planted in one of the flowerbeds.
I analyzed them and had the feeling
that was the first time I was looking
at such black coloured flowers.
From now on I will remember the black tulips
as one of my favorite flowers.
Somehow I felt very related to them.
In the maturity that they were insinuating,
as well as the long wait
that they seemed to carry within them.
Another thing that struck me
was the blossomed Almond tree dancing in the wind,
in its light and white way of dancing.
Like a lighted being, innocent and pure.
Observing spring happening
is always a life lesson somehow.
I think we observe nature mutating,
and whilst the same happens to us,
we look inwards.
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What Opens The Way Is Darkness.
I found this sentence from a book
in celebration of John Berger’s writings,
talking about the cave paintings here in France
that were discovered 10 years ago,
in a cave completely sealed by rock,
which conserved them to be exactly what they were
when they were done.
“They were for the dark.
They were hidden in the dark
so that what they embodied would outlast
everything visible
and promise perhaps survival.”
— John Berger
This inspired me very much
on the continuation of my thoughts on light and matter.
I started to think if my work was itself
like cave paintings…
If it was in the light or in the dark.
The stained glass steelworks
and their reflection / projections
are only being seen in the darkness.
My weavings more and more transparent,
allowing me to see what is behind.
The organic shapes I have been drawing,
and the ones I am drawn to in nature.
Like my heart-broken time
is a time of reinvention,
of conservation of myself.
Like the almond tree in its delicacy
of being so fragile,
and the blossom of the black tulip,
assured and nourished.
06
i.
Like Water.
It is mostly street life that informs my work.
This is why the relationship
between what happens in my day
and the results in my work are very connected.
Yesterday I had a very nice moment
when I was out and about.
I walked home all the way from Pantin
to my house in Le Marais,
by the canal, following the water.
I myself felt like water,
fragile in its form.
It felt like if someone wanted to trespass me
they could.
I walked along it and felt calm.
If I was like water,
I was going to act like water — fluid in its way.
I walked slowly, not concerned
if people would think I have nothing to do.
I passed by two girls trying to open their beers
with a house key,
and thought that, in case of them being locked out
the house later,
I would offer my lighter to get them open.
I laughed at myself.
I had my hair down,
and I felt like the wind was my friend,
because of the way it made my hair locks
dance in the wind.
At least I could feel touched.
I was alive.
I kept walking and saw great things.
Buildings, people, the sun was strong,
and my mind as well.
I passed by Republique,
where I stopped to contemplate the swing dancers
that always gather there on good weather days,
to just enjoy each other’s moves.
I looked at it with my moved soul.
Decided to come over.
Ask how I could learn.
Like water I was embracing the fluidity
that it is destined to.
Lucky me — they were starting a beginners class.
They were just waiting for more people to join.
There I was, without much warning,
dancing with a stranger
in one of the biggest places in Paris,
waiting to be loved.
Afterwards, my pair went away,
and I stayed dancing with the advanced people.
It was so nice — they would make my body spin and jump.
It was like everything was forgotten for a bit,
and there I was,
firmly convicted of beauty,
on top of a hill, holding peace.
After that I came home, with a smile.
A child passed by me on his scooter and shouted:
“Bon soir Madame!!”
I replied and watched him going away
with his little legs and high speed.
That left me with the biggest smile.
ii.
Like Life Itself.
…because all of the good things in life are simple.
Today I decided to stop cracking the puzzle
of weaving all the types,
and just have a reward out of it.
I cut in half some of the fabrics
I have woven on the past month,
and started combining them.
I was very happy with the result.
These pieces I am working on
should not be about
the feeling of light hitting colour.
But should be the feeling itself.
Like stained glass windows
are not about the object itself,
but about the sensation that they produce.
Likewise the smell.
Likewise dancing.
Like a lot of things in life.
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Olfactive Journal
Windows Cry Neon
Perfumer — TBA
Palette pending.
02 / 2024
Series Statement
Over fixed periods, we invite artists to keep a diary with us — through audio, text, video, image.
They share textures, thoughts and experiences from that time.
At the diary’s close, our perfumer creates a fragrance — not as translation, but as portrait.
A period in the artist’s life,
filtered through another’s attention.
The scent becomes an anchor, but not for preservation.
For return. For continuation in another form.