Me, building
It has been almost ten years since I bought my house with my friend Yves. He lives on the ground floor, with her husband, I live on the first floor (or the second floor, depending on how you number the floors).
I plunged into my photographic archives to find the main stages of the renovation of my apartment, a renovation that makes many people laugh because it lasts forever. It must be said that, if at the beginning I put time and money into it, it is because it was in my mind urgent to make the place habitable. Too much plaster for my taste, too many partitions, an anemic bathroom, and a large and promising double room, which I thought it was at the time, would allow me to build my photo studio.
Things have been happening in ten years. Starting with a gradual slowdown in the efforts put into the refurbishment of each of the parts. I went there at first with the money from the sale of my condo, then I got stuck in a line of credit. Then, the life that follows its course, the pieces that do not succeed.
However, I can say that the big stuff is done. The observation is that I found the volumes that suited me. When I look at each of the pieces, I can tell myself that I was the one who sculpted the space, an exercise that was certainly unconscious, carried out over a small period, with more or less happiness in terms of finishing. Sometimes I feel like I’m doing old with new, or "new-old".
The apartment is too big for me. I don’t live in the large living room yet, which remains to be completed. I’m missing some doors. I can’t decently invite people who don’t know where I could sit them. I don’t have a TV either.
If I have found volumes, they are not totally appropriate. They may be when I have to sell the house. But this, we’ll cross this river when we get there. I’m not making a plan. Maybe I’ll take the picture again one day. Maybe I’ll set up a secretary in the big room and write a great novel. Maybe a companion will come with me or maybe I won’t do any of this. I read on Confucius, Socrates, and Buddha, many walls of silence could end there.
However, I promise myself to create an album on the various stages of construction. This work deserves to be documented if only to prove its value to appraisers! God, I’ve worked hard and I’ll work again! What if that’s all it is, building? It’s a form of prayer, isn’t it?
It passes the time, it leaves a trace, that’s all I know how to do.
