Greetings everyone,

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything on this website’s blog section.

I have to say that I share news more easily on social networks such as Instagram or my professional Facebook page.

But lately I have been sharing my creative process much more on another platform: Patreon.

This choice is both a revolution for me and the result of a long reflection that started long before my official installation as an Artist.

Patreon is a funding platform dedicated to content-makers and artists (musicians, artists, writers…). It allows artists to receive monthly voluntary and optional support but on the basis of an exchange as opposed to a one-off donation on a platform such as Ko-fi.

This is because when you take out a monthly subscription with an artist on Patreon you receive exclusive advantages in return, whether digital or material.

By taking out this subscription, you become the “Patron” of this artist, hence the name Patreon for this platform.

As far as I am concerned, I only have currently opened 3 levels of support so as not to offer services beyond my possibilities and thus respect my commitments.

Once a certain level of support has been exceeded, I will be able to offer more interesting counterparts for my “patrons“.

This is what I am proposing as I write this blog post:

I chose to open a Patreon for material reasons but also for social reasons:

• Social networks are nowadays corrupted by algorithms that only make visible what is consumable, saleable and already known/fashionable.
  Despite subscribing to an artist’s feed on Instagram or Facebook, you are not sure to get notifications of his/her posts. On the other hand, you will get a lot of useless ads that you will have already seen 100 times.
  Artists are constantly fighting against these programs, whose rules are constantly changing. They have to pay for “promotions” to stay visible. Sharing on the Internet is becoming a race for visibility as it moves away from creativity and spontaneous sharing.
  On Patreon I can share my works, works in progress, creative process, inspirations… without being swept away in a flow filtered by an arbitrary and mercantile algorithm.

• The book market in France does not allow authors to make a living from it (I won’t go into details but I might as well say that you work more than 10 hours a day for a pittance: 3% per book), so you have to find other means of expression and income.

• The RedBubble shop kind of media allows you to sell prints and goodies, which is an interesting way to express yourself and share your work. Alas, the copyright is hardly more consistent than in the paper edition and it is impossible to really offer a qualitative overview of the creative process.

• The sale of originals and commissions are an opportunity to produce original works of art, but people sometimes do not have the funds to buy a unique piece for more than 60€ or 100€.

Today most illustrators do not live from their art, they are obliged to take on a day job as a supplement… which prevents them from working properly (creating requires a lot of time: conception, testing, creation, editing for printing, communication…).

There is still the Income of Active Solidarity, but is it a life goal?

We could also give up our Art and go to the factory or to an office.
Many do and I’ve been doing it for 20 years.
But I doubt that people are satisfied with a World without image, without colour, without entertainment, without beauty and without joy.

Lockdownt has shown us that reading, watching films, series, listening to music, watching a beautiful work, a beautiful drawing does good to the soul.

Art offers us a window on the elsewhere, a breath of oxygen essential to our intellectual health. Who would want a world without artists (dancers, musicians, singers, acrobats, actors, graphic designers, painters, illustrators, writers, poets…)?

To support an artist is to consider that we all have the right to leisure and Art.

From 3€ per month, you can support an artist, discover the behind the scenes, learn more about his creative process and his inspirations, see a preview of his latest works, videos, get discounts on the purchase of his works and even receive a reproduction or an original at your home on a regular basis.

So don’t hesitate any longer: come and visit my Patreon to make your own idea!