In 2022, I had the opportunity to participate in a project of a coach friend of mine Nathalie Sauvé, that has asked a few writers to offer a written reflection on life transitions for her newly started magazine "Naltitude" vol. 1 Vivre un transition" (Live a transition).
My participation in this project, was based on my own experience of life transition in 2018, when I left my bread and butter clerk job at the Université de Montréal's libraries to go full time creator and artist as a self entrepreneur.
Here is a basic translation in English of this article. The original French version is available through the link below.
"The Blue Hour"
"For fourteen years, I worked evenings in one university's libraries. I survived with a lump in my throat at having to confine myself to a schedule, a hierarchy and heavy protocols. My stomach churned at the thought of working for others. Always doing everything for others, never listening to myself! For me, evenings were "work" and days were "life".
"Life" consisted of drawing, life consisted of assembling Japanese papers. I let the cranes soar in indigo skies studded with golden stars. I created galaxies of ink punctuated with red scales. I fashioned variations on the azure of Delft porcelain. My fingers continuously stained, I gorged myself on ultramarine, moods and words. I lived at my own pace, gloating until dusk, until the transitional hour, the blue hour, the hour when everything turned upside down... In the evening, I had to go to work.
Then, four years ago, I put an end to "work" the way some people put an end to their lives. In one fell swoop, I cut the umbilical cord to dental insurance and the stuff that butters the bread. At 45, I jumped into the abyss of a life without savings. Carpe diem! To hell with the permanent world and accumulated retirement! "Self-employed" was a delicious name that I let melt on my tongue with delight. My life became the present moment.
This eternal moment is the only thing I know now. Gone was the future that so many people were preparing for in the anguish of lacking. I stopped weighing, counting and worrying myself sick. For once, I've chosen myself, I've decided to "artwork".
First, I traveled through the grey of the North, on the high cliffs licked by the sea spray I'd been dreaming of since childhood. Then, back home, I chose to feed on absolute, to drink in the freedom I could only serve. I gradually came back from the slumber of so-called "adult" life. I've finally brought my gagged inner child out of the closet and started laughing after so many dreary years.
Learning and creating are the only things I've ever known how to do. I consumed what little retirement I had accumulated, continuing to create harmony and beauty. I've also created a virtual stall on the world's great web, where I release my golden birds and galaxies of ink, to beautify the world and make ends meet. To work is not to laze about. I've never given so much of myself and my time. But to work is to believe in what we are and what we do.
Today, I sip my bergamot tea and create pottery and collages every afternoon. I don't always know how I'll pay for paper, glazes and rent, but trust and faith that I won't lack for anything are my faithful accomplices in this living studio. I can once again savor the magic of the blue hour and starry skies. I dance to Bach or Gardel in my studio of joy. I get drunk on light, savoring the moment.
I've chosen myself for the first time, I've chosen to embody a different world. A world where I give as much as I receive. A world where art and harmony rule over my administrative board. A voluntary simplicity, assumed and more than amazing...
On the day of the great leap into the abyss, I trembled, I cried and I feared. Since then, I've never regretted a thing. Every day, life feeds me and I offer it everything. It's uncompromising to become who I am. It requires loving yourself more than convention, more than the false beliefs that say you'll be stripped naked.
And even if we do find ourselves naked? Isn't that the only valuable gift we've ever received? The one that kneads us like clay, the one that gives birth to ourselves? What more beautiful adventure than that of transmuting our fears and our chains?
Then we find ourselves, like children, laughing, confident, finally unshackled...
To all those who are afraid to jump..."
(2022) The Blue Hour in "Naltitude", no. 1 Vivre une transition
(2022) L'heure bleue dans "Naltitude", no. 1 Vivre une transition
What inspires my writing?
I have a passion for, and was trained professionally in dance, visual arts and in the interpretation of the symbolic meaning of images, as an iconographer of ancient art.
Through my intuitive inner journey of self-rediscovery of the last few years, I realized that I am a starseed, with an Altean soul matrix. I am part of a collective consciousness named the Mella collective, which constitutes my soul cluster.
The Mella collective, which includes my twin flame named Eriel, is of high frequency and always offers invitations to see things from a different perspective, in all kindness, benevolence, humor, simplicity and high vibrations.
It also inspires my creative work, such as my writing, travel photography, ink drawings, Japanese washi chiyogami paper art collages, as well as my harmonizing endeavors, Creative Intuitive Transmissions (CIT) and inner guidance communications.
Art and iconography of ancient Egyptian textiles. Coauthor Abigaëlle Richard for: "Coptic textiles of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts"
In 2007-2008, I had the opportunity, as a doctorate researcher, to do an internship at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA), as assistant curator for Dr. John M. Fossey curator of the “Archaeology and World Cultures” collection now "Arts Of One World".
During this internship, I participated in the research and iconographical analysis of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts' (MMFA) collection of Egyptian Coptic textiles, in order to produce a catalogue in collaboration with Dr. Wendy Landry and Anne-Laure Rameau, Dr. Beaudoin Caron and Dr. John M. Fossey.
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Collection of Mediterranean Antiquities, Vol. 4: The Coptic Textile series:
Monumenta Graeca et Romana, Volume: 24
This catalogue of the Coptic Textiles in the Collection of Mediterranean Antiquities at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts provides a detailed analysis of 64 textiles from both historical and weaving practice points of view. This approach provides a fuller understanding of the cultural situation in which such textiles were produced and circulated. Dr. Landry’s experience of over 40 years of weaving and scholarship highlights the elements of knowledge and skill held and applied by weavers in Antiquity.
This perspective complements and expands on the focus on imagery usually provided by art historians regarding textiles of this period. This catalogue shows how much more cultural information can be accessed when the technical, economic, and practical character of both production and use are adequately integrated into the study of material artefacts.
After submitting my doctorate (Ph.D.) thesis in 2011, I had the opportunity to present my research at the Montreal chapter of the Association for the Study of Ancient Near-East's (Association pour l'Étude du Proche-Orient Ancien) 2012 colloquium at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQUAM).
Below is a basic English translation of the introductory text to this research in French, which consists of an iconographical analysis of ancient Egyptian artwork found in the context of tombs of the New Kingdom tombs.
Votive representations for the "Lady of Life": iconography of New Kingdom Egyptian earthenware bowls
"Using examples drawn from his iconographic analysis of New Kingdom Egyptian earthenware bowls, the author presents the major symbolic themes of fertility and rebirth in the afterlife, typically found on this type of ceramic and intrinsically linked to the deity Hathor ("Lady of Life"). Through an analysis of the formal and symbolic transformations of these iconographic motifs, the author discusses the historical, ideological and socio-political factors leading to representational transformations. This approach will enable us to grasp the dynamics underlying the maintenance and subtle transformation of the Egyptian representational canon (canon codified by the state and theologians, adoption of foreign motifs, religious transformations, etc.)."
(February 7th, 2012) Abigaëlle Richard. Votive representations for the "Lady of Life": iconography of earthenware bowls from the Egyptian New Kingdom, presentation at the Department of History of the Université du Québec à Montréal, Montreal
(7 février 2012) Abigaëlle Richard. Representations votives pour la « Dame de Vie » : iconographie des bols de faïence du Nouvel Empire égyptien, conférence au département d'histoire de l'Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal
Download the full ebook of the presentation in French: