#5 Clémentine du Pontavice - Happiness Therapist

✔️ Your IG account to follow:

@fleurs_d_arles The account of my friend Marie, local and seasonal florist near Arles.

She grows the majority of her flowers herself. She is an artist, she makes beautiful bouquets and arrangements.

She lives with Manu who is a shepherd. We see flowers, sheep and lambs there, I miss nature and its account does me a lot of good.

✔️ Your personal “escape” favorite of the moment:

Doing a “corona chore” with my daughter. We dance like crazy for 3 minutes, very effective!

Doing Iyengar yoga on zoom with my teacher Rajhas who is confined in India but who continues his classes.

Follow the meditations of @lilibarbery or @mathilde_meditation

✔️ 1 podcast to listen to:

Listen to the podcast of the show “ Par les temps qui coursant ” by Marie Richeux on France Culture.

These are artist interviews, they always inspire me!

✔️ Your confinement activity?

Today my job consists of thinking, writing and illustrating books or artistic projects. I work most of the time on personal projects but I also carry out orders for professionals or individuals. I also run a workshop every Monday at the Maison des Femmes de Saint Denis with @olignylouise who is a photographer. We help women victims of violence to rebuild their lives through jewelry, drawing and photography.

Before allowing myself to write and draw I had a jewelry brand for 15 years: HOP HOP HOP. Everything worked very well for 8 years and then the competition started to be fierce. When my daughter was born, I felt fragile and needed help. I participated in a mentoring program with WBMI. I was supported, for a year, by an investment banker to help me move forward in my development.

During this year, I played the game, I opened my e-shop, I worked a lot but I also questioned myself a lot. So instead of developing myself I decided to listen to myself and gradually transform things. The great story in my adventure is that my “jewelry clients” accompanied me in this transformation. This confirmed my intuition and that’s how I started drawing “professionally”. During this period, I met Rebecca Amsellem and I collaborated with the newsletter “Les Glorieuses” which reinvents information on women. Each week I illustrated the societal, political or cultural questions posed there. I then wrote a first book, then a second and a third. I also exhibited my work at Merci and in Dubai at Comptoir 102, in @emmasawko's wonderful boutique. However, above all, I love making jewelry. My remaining stock of HOP HOP HOP material is used today for the workshops at the Maison des Femmes.

When the confinement was announced, I was totally stunned, as if numbed for a week. I had to take care of school at home anyway so I decided to take a deep breath and let it go. I was especially very worried about the women at the Maison des Femmes who live in extremely precarious situations. As soon as I regained my senses, the energy and ideas returned and I wondered how to reinvent myself. My publishing projects continue but some book releases have been postponed. Some of my orders were canceled and the salons I was supposed to go to were also suspended. I try to arrange things differently.

Concerning the future, I think we will have to rethink things, our way of working, of being together, of consuming. Basically, it’s a great opportunity even if it’s not going to be easy because inequalities risk widening even further. We will have to be SOLIDARY.

My mantra would be: Carry your home within you!

In these circumstances, we must first think about people and health. A business does not run alone, it is a team effort. Then, make do with the means at hand, with your cash flow and redefine the lines as best you can, with what you have. Even if this moment of slowdown or pause can be very distressing, it is also an opportunity to take stock, redefine your objectives, your desires, your desires, your vision. And ask for help if needed. It seems to me that this is the possibility of rethinking the functioning of our economy, of creating other models. It is urgent to reinvent ourselves for people and the planet. Everyone can already start this reflection for themselves.

For my activities at the Maison des Femmes, I keep in touch with the women in the workshop, we communicate every week via a WhatsApp group. I also regularly post resources and emergency numbers for women and children in danger. With the leisure school, I offer live musical readings on Instagram. The next one is next Wednesday, April 15 at 11:00 a.m. around my next work on ecology: “What World do we live in? »

Some of my books are freely accessible on the site and there is an activity book around “Girl's or boy's thing? » to download from the My Little Paris website, here .

As my partner and my son are musicians, we decided to organize a concert twice a week on our balcony to thank all the people who continue to work.

My Mister k mantra: TOGETHER STRONGER!

My first instinct when she comes out of confinement will be to take my daughter to school and then go have a coffee at the counter. Go for a walk in the woods and lie down in the grass...

To discover the world of Clémentine, it's this way .