The Scratchy Bikini Effect - La Gazette #11

Hello friend,

Memory is rarely tidy. It’s often stitched together with strange textures—like that swimsuit I wore as a child, a knitted soggy thing that itched like crazy and but lives on in my mind as something golden.

There’s a photo of that summer, full of salt air and long shadows, and somewhere in it is the seed of Orange Hills. Not in form, but in feeling.

That’s what I call the "scratchy bikini effect"—when something seemingly small or imperfect holds so much of who you were. And when a painting captures even a thread of that feeling, it becomes more than art. It becomes a keepsake of self.

Look around you. Is there room in your home for a piece that doesn’t just fit the space, but feels like it remembers you?

Memory Assignment: Unearth the Ordinary

1. Think back to a moment from childhood that was imperfect—something itchy, messy, strange. But somehow… it glows.

2. Close your eyes and bring it back. What do you see? Smell? Hear?

3. Then, browse through art—not with logic, but with your body. What piece feels like that memory?

4. If one speaks, spend time with it. Don’t analyze. Just be.

Write a few words. Sketch it. Name it, if you can. You may be surprised what finds you.

The soul doesn’t archive its stories alphabetically. It sends them back to us through art, texture, and colours.

And sometimes… through a scratchy, soggy bikini.

Orange Hills was shaped by that kind of memory. Maybe there’s something of yours hidden there too.

Thank you for reading.

From a very hot French summer with love,

Marion V-W.