A journey of all colours!What an adventure! Since Inge Sell asked me to come and work as art therapist with her dear villagers, sixteen years have passed. These have been more than sixteen rosy years indeed; they have been sixteen years of stories from all realms of colours. | First about red. Red was there in the energy of each of the villagers.
An often boiling, hard to canalize energy, but always
simmering with passion, love, humour in excesses that have
led to so much capacity for personal investment and to so many
unexpected discoveries through our painting sessions.
Red was also present in all these dynamic gestures that
have created the eccentric flowers the fire spitting dragons
the flamboyant sunsets, the wild autumn leaves and the
heart of those knights rescuing princesses. Red lived in their
sometimes virulent intensity but also in the joyous vitality
of our workshops. Red were the hearts on Valentine's Day,
but red was mostly there because we could fall in love with
the activity of painting and, fall in love with each other.
Then blue. Blue was there for all those infinite skies, for all the marvels of the
seas and for living through all these moments of bottomless
sorrows. The soul "blues" have helped us create new spaces
and forms where we went to protect and console ourselves,
hand in hand. The blue then deepened and carried us into the
night, towards the moon, towards the flying witches of
Halloween and towards the interiority of Christmas where our tiny
lights could glow.
And then green. Green was there to nourish, calm and reassure us. Green we
observed, as season after season went by in cycles,
to discover and enrich ourselves from all the nuances and
diversities of nature. Green in which sometimes, we fell asleep, a
bit lethargic and we then called to the rescue, all the colours to
awaken us. Then emerged all the plants, the trees, the animals
and their guardians, us. | Then of course, yellow. The yellow was there for all the suns we made that illuminated
every thing and continue still to push away the obscurity from
our universes. Yellow in all its stages from shimmering to bursting,
softly awakened our spirits or sometimes, too strongly excited
our nerves. Yellow was there for the crowns of kings,
the harvests in the fields of gold, the spears of lightning
in the skies and for all the sudden bright ideas and
inspirations we had together.
And all the other colours without exception came to support this extraordinary adventure. Orange brought us its
warm expansive strength through slashes of laughter, joy and
even anger. Violet allowed us to become more serious and solemn
when we needed it. The earth colours like Sienna, Olive and Ochre
gave us the experience of the incredible possibilities of tones. And,
our studies of art history and copies of masterpieces also put us
in relation with our past and have initiated us on how at different
epochs, we lived with colour and forms.
But it was in discovering the play and the profound links which
exist between all the colours that we have discovered the profound
links in us, between all that exist and between us.
Sixteen years of intensely coloured weekly encounters with the villagers
of Maison Emmanuel have allowed us to share so many discoveries,
so many artistic, human and spiritual experiences,
that I say thank you with an immense gratitude.
Marie Chartrand
Art Therapist
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Workshops 
