One Story Told Twice
Written by Alecs Kakon
Photos by Jenni Fellegi
Intuition and insight are two words that are commonly connected with artists and the creative mind. Clio is no exception. Seeing patterns and parallels in her life, a short chat brought deep self-reflection to the surface. Currently working as a professional artist , Clio always knew that standing in front of a canvas, paintbrush in hand, was where she felt most comfortable, confident, and safe.
Born and raised in Antwerp, Belgium, Clio comes from a tight-knit Jewish community, not unlike the one she is now a part of in Montreal; a community where everyone knows everyone and nothing can be kept private. So, when at 12 years old, her parents decided to get divorced, she was faced with the public scrutiny of friends and schoolmates knowing all the details of her personal life. With strong conviction and a righteous moral compass, Clio could not accept the chaos that had become her life, and decided, with the referral of a close friend, to up and move to England where she would attend Carmel College boarding school for two years. Although Clio qualified this move with the word “escape,” I believe her decision to flee was an intuitive uproar her body felt on a sensorial level, one she could not quiet. While most young children might feel stuck and negatively affected by the throes of parental dispute, Clio was able to transform her pain, and the destabilizing effects thereof, into a positive experience. Allowing her to see more clearly and trust her instincts, leaving home to attend school abroad was one of the first transformative moments in her life; one that would inform her decision-making process invariably.
Jumping forward nearly 20 years, when asked what the most pivotal moment in her life was, Clio describes the unhesitating time she broke off her engagement to her now-husband. Drawing upon her childhood experience with chaos, she ruptured her own turmoil by fleeing yet again. As the pattern of her past started to reveal itself, Clio remembers, “Everyone knew our things. Everything was public, because we live in such a small community. But I had to break it off anyway. I had to figure things out myself.” Knowing that everyone would have an opinion on her decision didn’t stop her from running off. She needed time to pause as she felt her life was going in so many directions; she needed to pull back to get a grasp on the bigger picture. Wedding planning, family feuds, and other noisy details, as an artist, Clio knew all too well that that working too closely on a piece always requires a step back so as not to lose sight of the whole.
A brief, yet momentous breath, is what allowed Clio to refocus on what her relationship meant to her. It was a crazy period for Clio as she took to living in her studio where she worked as a painter. Spending a few tumultuous weeks apart from her now-husband left her in a state of instability yet again: How did she really feel? What did she truly want? Being forced to feel her emotions on a deep level is not something that Clio does easily, and so, as she did as a child, she allowed her instincts to guide her. Like a force she could not deny, she was hit hard with the realization that her life had to be joined to the man she loves. “Something took over me,” Clio explained, “I had to be with him again.” The two decided to marry on their original wedding date, with less than 2 weeks to actualize the night of their dreams. The symmetry in Clio’s life is visible as the two paths run alongside one another: one of a child running away, the other of a woman running away, both on a quest to find stability, tranquility, and the space to be her true self.
Looking back on her earliest visit to Montreal in 2006, Clio remembers meeting her husband the first night she arrived. Clio recalls returning to Antwerp and telling a close friend that, as though with a sixth sense, she had met the man she would marry. Lo and behold, that sparkly intuition has always been a guiding light in her life as eight years into a marriage founded on friendship and equality, Clio and her husband share a life built of love and trust, and have filled their home with a beautiful family replete with two young children.
Knowing where we come from in order to know where we are going is something easier said than done. For some, taking the time to reflect back on certain pivotal moments can feel anything from freeing to jarring. For Clio, a meditation on transformation gave her grounds to understand that her method of stepping back to feel what is going on in her body and become conscious of inner truth is one of great compulsion. With an interesting life of travelling, living abroad, everything from boarding school to fashion school, squatting artist friends, booze, and tattoos, Clio says that security is not a feeling she had claim over as a young child, not financially or anywhere else in her life, but as a grown woman, Clio has cultivated a talent in her artistry that has brought her to professional security. She co-owns her business Canvas Candy where she reproduces art on a large scale for businesses and individuals both locally and internationally. She follows her motherly instincts in her tender approach to parenting, and she champions for her equally talented husband in his business. Nurturing her life and those around her with her strong sense of calm, Clio is rooted in the happiness her home life provides. And so, as she has now found security and safety in the family she has built, a physical fleeing no longer mediates her intuition; her paintbrush now provides her with the escape she needs when in search of her truth.
