No. 38: Clotilde Chaumet
Park Hyatt in Tokyo, Noguchi lamps, PLF House, sound healing and painting.
Clotilde Chaumet is a Paris-born and based yoga & sound meditation teacher — and an all-around cool girl with great energy. Clo’s practice integrates all of her favorite things: paint, music (usually R&B but also Brian Eno), travel, color, design and cooking. This summer she’s hosting a retreat in Rio centered around both yoga & design (spots are open!) and a yoga & Italian cuisine retreat at Casa Lawa with Chelsey Forbes. When she’s not in Rio or at her home in the outskirts of Paris (more on that below), Clo is at Aux Crus de Bourgogne with her handsome boy, Tijani, or down the street from her flat at Mary Celeste enjoying a negroni, oeufs du diable and chocolate cake. From Clo —
I. a practice
I was born with musician parents and completely grew up surrounded by the piano and non-stop CD playing at home. ALL. THE. TIME. My parents would have friends over and play all the instruments together, sing, and enjoy life. Music has always been part of my life and very soon turned into my first and biggest source of inspiration. Everything has always started from music for me: lifetime projects, big steps, vision, etc. I wish I had learned the piano with my dad; that is the only regret of my life. This said, I recently started to take classes, and I am super happy about it.
I have also been playing my beautiful and cool crystal bowls for 3 years now for my sound healing classes, and I am in love with them. They are my boys, my music band. Each bowl plays a musical note and is an instrument. The healing part of them is incredible as well. A sound bath deeply restores our bodies and turns the nervous system back to parasympathetic, where we can unwind, de-stress, and heal on a cellular level. We always end up high and stoned, feeling so great, so free.


II. a home
I co-own a mid-century house that was an old horse staple 45 minutes away from Paris that took us 2 years to renovate. This A-framed home is a land of peace in the forest, so close to Paris. The whole renovation was a long process, but we really had in mind a precise vibe we wanted to create and design through carefully curated pieces of furniture and specific materials. We kept most of the original materials, wood floor, tiles, marble or even handmade furniture we worked on to renovate and give character to. We were even able to find the bathroom tiles back to the original artisans in the middle of France. Pretty special. Colors are an essential part of the house as well, and some stand out pretty well on both levels.
Anytime I need to solo-myself and recenter from Paris energy, I take that short but beautiful drive there with Tijani, my dog. The house has 2 huge open spaces where you can turn the music loud, feel the nature smell, sit on one of all our vintage designer sofas to read books we collected for almost a decade from many travels, do yoga, workout followed by infrared sauna (we have a little gym and a sauna !), cook or go for a long meditative walk in the forest. I simply adore this home. We also rent it for day shoots for brands and editos.




III. a hotel (and film)
When I turned 16, I moved to Santa Barbara, California, alone and spent a year there. That was the moment I discovered Lost In Translation by Sofia Coppola, and it was love at first sight. The movie resonated with me and stayed with me so much. During this year, I met Hitomi with who I became very good friends. Hitomi was from Tokyo, Japan, and invited me to come and stay at her family house.
At the end of my Californian solo year, I felt like the straight travel back to Paris was very deep and I decided to transition with a 7 days stop in Japan. I have been there before, but staying with her whole Japanese family in Tokyo was very unique and special. I precisely remember the first morning there. I woke up absolutely jet lagged, not only on timezone but on life. I had just lived alone one year in California and I was now there in Japan. Alone, at 17 years old. I had just woken up, and I looked through the window, literally wearing a T-shirt and my underwear. This could not have been more Lost in Translation. And so I felt lost, but for a reason, it felt like this was a pivoting moment in my life.
Last year I travelled back to Japan and got incredibly lucky to spend my birthday at the Park Hyatt in Tokyo, where the whole movie was shot. What was even more incredible is that nothing has changed or been touched since the movie. I could walk, experience, and look with my eyes at all the movie scenes’ details. I swam in that iconic high-floor pool, tried the jacuzzi at the spa we see in this so cool scene in the movie, slept in the same designed rooms, had drinks and food at the iconic New York Bar… Everything was so special, and I will remember this moment for my entire life. This hotel has such a particular vibe, almost haunted, but in a very interesting and great way. I still think about this very often and this experience floats in my mind to this day. From my extremely solo, nostalgic but very spiritual self at 16 to being able to live in this space for a few days at 33. It was very interesting how at 16/17 and at 33, I was at the same transitional moments of life, always with this essence of that movie. Crazy.




IV. a few lamps
I consider my Noguchi lamps my daughters. They are the most incredible, confident pieces of delicate paper, but they are so enormously present that you cannot miss them in a room. And I like that about people and furniture. Discrete but can’t be missed. I love them all, and I love that they are all beautiful in their different shapes and forms. They really are sculptures and are so perfect. They inspire me bodies, a classic vibe, but crazy at the same time. I am so inspired by them.
My first one was a present from my grandmother for my 30th birthday. She got me the Akari H which is so incredible. I then purchased 3 for the PLF house at the Nogughi Museum in NYC and 2 more for my Paris apartment I found in small designer shops in France. My dream is the Akari E. I want to be able to purchase it but also, and this is very important, be able to offer it the right space and spot to be the center of the room. Akari E is quite huge but I know one day this will happen. : ) I am actually currently working on a project to create a room just for them. Let’s see how it goes…


V. another practice
Among many artistic traits and passions, my mom was and still is not a painter because she does not sell her art, but she paints extremely well and often. Seeing her made me very early look at colors in a different way, and I really think that I developed with time a certain analysis of colors like you normally would with science. I see colors as chemical experiences, and they are very rational and precise to me and my senses. I am not sure if this is making sense, but they give me a lot of sensations.
I would eventually paint with my mom when I was young, but dropped that habit while growing up. I restarted painting during the lockdowns and even more one year ago. I never really know what I paint but I know why. My painting comes from a need to work around colors in order to express an idea. But it really is very rational to me which is funny because I am so not like this. I am not rational or science-oriented AT ALL. I am bad at anything with numbers and don’t have trust in down-to-earth ideas. But with colors, it is different. Really feels like colors are my alley and space to be rational in the world, and it feels good.




~ bulletin ~
los angeles
On view: Andrew Kerr’s Mitty Mag at Matthew Brown Gallery. Maia Ruth Lee’s hold shimmer wind at François Ghebaly. Chang Ya Chin’s Stories of Stories at Half Gallery. Ryan Sullivan, Sebastian Silva, Roberto Matta: All Things Are Changing in All Dimensions, JB Blunk, and pascALEjandro at Blum. Phil Davis’ Chorus at Fernberger. Vanessa Beecroft’s Broken Arm at Wilding Cran. Camille Claudel sculptures at the Getty Museum. Clare Woods’s I Blame Nature and Coco Young’s Passage at Night Gallery. Bella Foster’s It was a Dark and Stormy Night at the Pit. John McAllister’s Sometimes Splendid Seeming… Stellar Even.. Ripping at James Fuentes. Ed Ruscha’s Now Then at LACMA.
new york
On view: The Tulip Room at The Future Perfect. Lindsey Adelman’s A Realm of Light — a collection of oil lamps — featuring Sarah’s panels at TIWA Gallery. Simone Bodmer-Turner’s A Year Without A Kiln at Emma Scully Gallery. Dubuffet x Giacometti at Nahmad Contemporary. Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion at the Met. Second solo exhibition of French-American artist Niki de Saint Phalle, featuring five works of her late-career Tableaux Éclatés, at Salon 94. Alessandro Twombly’s Etruscan Painting at Amanita. Andy Woll at 1969 Gallery. Kazuyuki Takezaki’s Before Spring at 47 Canal. Lauren Quin’s Logopanic at 125 Newbery. Sedrick Chisom’s … And 108 Prayers of Evil at Clearing. Frank Lebon’s One Blood at Entrance.
paris
On view: Ida Ekblad’s Strange Freedoms at Max Hetzler. Nick Farhi’s Réverie at Stems Gallery. Sanya Kantarovsky’s Teachers and Students at Modern Art. Cindy Sherman’s Film Stills (1977 - 1980) at Skarstedt. Matisse’s The Red Studio and Ellsworth Kelly’s Shapes and Colors, 1949-2015 at Louis Vuitton Foundation.
Affection Archives is a weekly look into the archives of yours truly (Arielle Eshel) and humans I admire. If you’d like to add an event to the bulletin, DM on Instagram @affectionarchives or reply to this email.