Curiosity Index No.1 LEMON
Dear Friends,
Almost a month since I left Minneapolis. It feels unreal to think that I don’t have my beloved studio to return to. This is not one of the regular trips to visit my aging parents and friends in France, this time I am back for good and not feeling the joy I had anticipated.
I don’t have to tell you the story of Spring Finn and Co, as all of you are my friends or clients who became dear friends. Over the years SF&Co allowed me to create products and a life style studio that became my media, and the way I met you all. Day after day, you made me feel appreciated and valuable. You all were so curious about the products, the studio, my story; such encouraging words, emails, notes I received from you. Your enthusiasm made me move forward daily.
I am a glutton when it comes to art, culture, film, music, beauty, food or design. My daughters and I take our curiosity for a walk daily and spend a little portion of our day researching, reading and sharing links; images, quotes or discoveries rotate through our text messages or emails.
Now, I would like to open our small world to yours and share some of the things we love and care about, once a month. Of course it will not be as seeing you around a cup of tea, at our live jazz , or our open studio days. But it will keep us connected, at least til you can visit me in France, one day, soon.
This is the first CURIOSITY INDEX, and I am using our SF&Co mailing list. However, if you are not interested, please do unsubscribe.
LEMON is the first Index’s theme. Is it because the harvesting season lasts from about now until December or the color of the sun desperately needed in rainy days in Paris? Also because I fell in love with Yuzu in Japan and dream to take a Yuzu bath at the winter solstice, maybe just an excuse to gather some things under a title, create some sort of order...
I love the song Lemon by the French-Lebanese musician Bachar Mar Kalifé. It has a hypnotizing effect and poetic lyrics. He has many great songs, my latest favorite is the lullaby he recorded with the beautiful Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani.
The 2003 Venice Film Festival's choice for Best "Upstream"Film was Vodka Lemon by the Kurdish film maker Hiner Saleem. The story unfolds in a Yazidi village during the cold winter of Armenia after the Soviet Union's collapse. We are brought into the life of Hamo, a retiree with a pension of $7 per month who meets Nina, a widow at the graveyard who works at a Vodka Lemon booth...
Unfortunately I could only find an italian dubbed version with Italian subtitles.
Michel Pastourneau, historian and Professor at the Sorbonne who also holds the chair of Occidental Symbolics at the prestigious Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, has written several books on colors translated around the world. Yellow, History of a Color was published in 2019.
An intriguing speaker, he is interviewed in this video by Arte about Yellow - the least favorite color of Europeans - which symbolized subterfuge and betrayal at the end of the Middle Ages. For English subtitles, please click on settings icon (bottom right).
This is the work of the Ghanean artist Serge Attukwei Clottey who reminds me of El Anatsui also from Ghana. He uses recycled 20-25 litter yellow containers, originally imported from Europe containing oil they are endlessly reused to carry potable water by those struggling with the country’s shortages. He integrates narratives of migration, consumption and cultural coexistance in a movement he calls "Afrogallonism."
Here is his IG account.
Also, so much joy is embodied in Niki de Saint Phalle’s Bloom Nana Jaune that you may want to have a closer look at.
And as a final Amuse Bouche, a jewel by Vasily Kamenski, Russian futurist poet playwrite and artist.
Tango for the Cows is a book of poetry printed on wallpaper.
Since no letter to a good friend should leave without a Post Scriptum,
PS. Soap making in Nablus (Palestine) found by Nina, is a concentrate of the beautiful gestures accomplished by man during production.
Thank you for your time, please don’t hesitate to comment and open up your world to us.
A très bientôt-
Talin