He posted a huge Welcome
colored on the facade of the Orly South terminal, drawn with chalk angels in the streets of Paris. From Andy Warhol to Lady Gaga, from Madonna to Katy Perry or Vanessa Paradis and her Snoopy jacket: since the 1970s, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, 75, has been making stars parade. He even dressed… a pope.
The chasuble adorned with multicolored crosses that John Paul II wore for World Youth Day (WYD) in Paris in 1997 was him. The very daring bands, decorated with the colors of the rainbow, on the backs of 500 bishops: his work too! Brought before the million young people “gathered around spirituality”, These liturgical outfits, signed JCDC, are today part of the treasure of Notre-Dame. They also sealed its fate with that of the Parisian cathedral.
Exorcising “the solitudes of childhood”
Spotted at the time by Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, he says he arrived at the archbishopric with his sketches and his colors under his arm. The colors, he explains, “of the rainbow, kidnapped in Normandy”, from the windows of the austere Catholic boarding school of Mesniėres-en-Bray (Seine-Maritime) where he received a strict education with iron, almost military discipline. “I was six years old. There were only three color sources. The stained glass windows, the castle coats of arms, and the rainbow”, sign of a happy omen, he perceives, explaining that he sought, throughout his career, to exorcise “the solitudes of childhood”.
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This prism is the one “of the flag of peace, of the sky which connects God and men, that of the people of tomorrow, and also of the LGBT community”, he exposes to the episcopate, affirming outright that he will not have “no other proposal”. It does not exist “copyright on the rainbow”, then recognizes the cardinal. “You use color as the cement of faith,” congratulates John Paul II. It’s a consecration! “From that moment on, my life changed,” says the artist, a jack of all trades, Catholic, admirer of Constable Bertrand of…
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