I’m not trying to create. I’m trying to stay
alive when what surrounds me becomes too
intense for my body.
The storm rumbles in the distance, the wind rustles through the
leaves, the air hums; something is
approaching.
Under the table, I can hear it, but I can’t see it; that’s often worse.
It stings my skin, it scratches my scalp.
The world becomes too big.
My body reacts before I can
understand what’s happening. The storm is still
far away and yet I can already feel it in my skin, in my
head, in that tension that precedes the noise.
So I pick up a fluorescent pink pen.
I draw.
I’m not drawing the storm. I’m drawing from
what it triggers in my body.
The sheet of paper sets boundaries for this sensation,
which itself has none.
I sketch, I look, I sketch some more. My
attention shifts between what’s happening outside, what
my body feels of it, and what appears on
the paper.
The world around me remains vast. The
sheet has edges.
I can observe what appears within it.
The storm continues. I carry on drawing.
As the drawing takes shape, I no
longer experience the storm in the same way. The
noise, the anticipation, the tension are still there.
But their hold over me is changing.
The drawing frames a perception that was spilling over
in every direction.
That is how it protects me.
Find Juliette Savaëte on her official website: www.juliettesavaete.fr
