A long but always colorful path
Ideas are born from associations of fragments of life. As in dreams, where all the elements seem at first sight totally disjointed, we end up realizing that links exist and that nothing really happens by chance.
Color has always fascinated me. Color charts make me dream.
Even as a child, I took great pleasure in tirelessly emptying my artist's case of colored pencils, markers, pastels and paints, in order to create a new visual composition each time featuring gradients or contrasts. It has never left me.
Since then, many areas have caught my attention, with color always being present, like a common thread linking my various learnings, experiments and skills. Color in all its forms as an inexhaustible source of inspiration, research and discoveries.
I am never satisfied, knowledge is nourishing.
A dual artistic background at the origin of Garance & Rhubarb
I graduated in applied arts with a BTS in visual expression with a communication space option (La Martinière-Terreaux, Lyon) then I passed a degree in visual arts, focusing my research on the theme of "Color, material, color, light" (Faculty of Arts, Amiens). Finally, I passed the competitive exam: the CAPES, with an art major.
I've been a teacher since 2005, my heart of profession is based on the transmission of knowledge but also of values. Regular meetings with artists from various backgrounds are an invaluable opportunity. Some combine techniques and textures such as ceramics with weaving or work around raw nature and plant fiber, while others experiment with the power of light and colors, the fragility and strength of botany.
At the same time, during all these years, curiosity pushed me to practice photography and video, validate a professional training in interior design with a landscaping option, discover dance and the stage arts, travel and remain speechless in front of a breathtaking nature with infinite colors. I embroidered, crocheted, sewed, wove, knotted… with an ever-growing passion for working with wool.
But what to do with this ever-growing baggage, the small, neatly arranged case of colored pencils that has become a huge trunk in which everything is mixed together? It was in the middle of all this “cacophony” that the desire to naturally dye threads appeared. Could it be the conductor who, with the tip of her baton, would direct all the instruments of my life towards a new melody?
It was undoubtedly my meeting with Michel Garcia, a master dyer and an extraordinary trainer, that propelled this little idea to the rank of a real passion. He reinterprets, updates and transmits, with his own panache, a fascinating heritage from past centuries that fell into disuse for a time but which today's concerns, particularly ecological ones, are bringing back to the forefront.
Getting closer to the material, touching it, discovering and rediscovering it, transforming it to give life to a timeless, colorful and joyful universe, tinged with a pinch of carelessness, a zest of innocence, and a good dose of humor.
Gwenaëlle
