The Voice

Invitation to join an Amy friends group following the TV show The Voice. It's been three years now that this group has been gathering together in front of the television at photographer Marc Attali's place on Saturday nights.  

Amy joined them for last years 2013 series where a man with a extreme stutter, won against all odds. 

A meal followed by four hours of shouting, dancing, singing along, commenting on cosmetic surgery, singing abilities, choice of song and judges eccentricities. A glorious cacophony ! This night, the three judges are picking their teams. In these competitions they sit looking away from the singer. Only listening to the contestants "voice".  If they like what they hear, they push a button and their chair jerks around to face the singer . 

If more than one judge "turns" then they each have to explain what they think they can do to help the singer improve or bring out hidden qualities and so advance in the competition. 

Judge Mika

Each judge chooses 15 singers for their group. Each judge will have a kind of co-coach : Kylie Minogue, Gerald DePalma...

The Franch Canadian "Garou" 

They then choose two, sometimes three of their team to go up against each other in what are the "battle sections" of the competition. After each battle, each judge chooses who they want to continue working with. They are looking for singers that the judge thinks have a possibility of winning the entire competition. And it's brutal. 

The women, judges and contestants alike all wear the shortest of dresses and the highest of heels. Either that or the tightest of jeans. The gentlemen all wear stuff that looks like they have gotten up late and had to rush out to catch the bus, throwing on a leather jacket over their tee shirt and jeans. Hair mussed up. All of the guys except judge Mika, a dandy if ever there was one.

No one is very old with the exception of one judge...who seems like quite a father figure. It is he that takes a chance on the guy singing Nessun Dorma from Turandot...as well as one of the older contestants singing a Barbara Streisand song about being a woman in love. 

The father figure, Florent Pagny, is frequently a target. One contestant sung a hit song for a former girlfriend of his, Vanessa Paradis. Florent? He remained rock solid looking straight out. Emotionless.

Judge Florent Pagny

Another young man took the challenge of singing a song written by Florent . But he didn't do anything with it, styling it just like the original interpreter . Mistake. Not chosen even by his hero! But take heart ! He's all of 16 years old. There is still time to work on his voice and return another year. because return they do. 

One woman failed this part of the competitions two years ago. This year she came back 30 kilos lighter, with a new outfit and haircut chasing her dream.

So to take  a very long story short...Last bus home. Here it is 3 am and I've watched Rose Fortunes, all of her in the 2013 Israeli X Factor competition competition as well as the best X factor auditions on you tube...I'm just bowled over by what I've heard. No kidding ! These folks have out of the ordinary courage. Us ? the Amy friends ? We are meeting up next week and the weeks after for the brutal "battles"'  semi-finals and the grand finale.  when France's The Voice of 2014 will be chosen. And I can't wait. Certainly the most fun I've had in quite awhile. It's been positive and she must have loved this, our Amy Ami being surrounded by this happy, demonstrative crowd. 

An Amy (Ami) Friend : Artist Lin LiLing

Last November in the month after Amy's passing, her friends met. We tried to look at things in a positive way. Celebrate living as we remember she did, especially in her last two years.

It was a confusing and difficult time. I felt a bit like I'd been hit over the head by something very, very heavy. Each day trying to get energy to work. Something was always coming up to remind me of our lost friend. Finally, I decided it might help if I could meet some of Amy's friends. There were many that i had met only for the first time at her funeral.

One was the artist Li-ling Lin. Like Amy, Taiwanese born but now thoroughly Parisian. I ran into her one night at Paris Store, an Asian supermarket in Belleville, at the meat counter. I'd heard she was a painter but didn't know her work. So when she said I would be welcome to visit the atelier where she worked, I jumped at the opportunity. 

Li-ling assisted Amy with her knitwear sourcing company and had known quite a different Amy.  It wasn't all that easy to recognize my friend. She said Amy worked alone most of the time. Seven days a week. She helped Amy with various dossiers for her knitwear sourcing on Saturday afternoons at Amy's office in the 10th arrondissment.

 From our conversation, one thing that I came to understand about Amy was just how single minded she was when in "work mode". She almost didn't see, couldn't see anything other than her job. Such is the difficulty of starting your own business, working for yourself. But there sounded like there was some lightness in their Saturday afternoons!

Li-ling described how they would put on cd's of Jay Chou, a Taiwanese pop singer, turning up the music really loud and singing along! Unabashedly romantic and classic pop! It all sounds like quite a happy moment. Wouldn't you have wanted to join in with them?

Li-ling said perhaps if she had discovered more of her creative side, this could have carried her through all of the ugliness of her divorce, the sadness of her lung cancer. Something to consider.

Looking onto the Place St Michel 

Place Saint Michel 

Li-ling's atelier is but a few meters from the very center of Paris, right off the Place Saint Michel. Passing through two heavy doors, down a long corridor and back out into an inner courtyard, you see the open door of what was an old stable with several paintings outside. 

Paintings of these amazing women! Tattooed, or with some very contemporary detail (sunglasses!) yet resembling the portraits of Francois 1er's mistresses in the Fontainebleau style. Really striking. And I have to admit, the power of this work and of this artist was totally unexpected !     

                                                      Unlike the portraits of Francois 1ers mistresses, these women are very different. Their nakedness is not enticing, nor languid and sensual. These women have a surprising directness and frank strength! 

Seeing these portraits has made me wonder what Li-ling's experience as an Asian woman has really been here in France? She is obviously someone with strong character. Nothing submissive about her whatsoever! But I'm a little unsure of myself and it seems slightly indiscreet to be asking such things of someone that you have only just met.

So I opt for the biographical information: It's been more than twenty years since Li-ling's arrival in France. She has had several shows, both here and in Taipei. It's difficult. I get the feeling the interest for all things Chinese in the contemporary art world doesn't yet extend to women artists ! 

I came away from her atelier thinking how exciting it was to see work like this. It's highly personal, of great quality, Li-ling Lin's work certainly deserves wider recognition.

I certainly recommend reading this article by Fanny Lasserre on Li-ling Lin's painting. It offers a good overview.  You should visit LinLiling's website . And thanks to our friend Amy for "introducing" us!

-Amy friend in Paris