La Vie Creative

Send us Fan Mail Marie- Caroline de Bourbon-Siciles, aka the Duchesse de Berry was born in Naples the daughter of the Crown Prince Francis Duke of Calabria and Marie Clementine of Austria, niece of Marie Antoinette. At the time of her birth in 1798 Napoleon was charging his way through Italy forcing the family to flee to Palermo and later pushing them into Sisily.  Marie-Caroline found her way to...

Send us Fan Mail Jay Swanson is an author and vlogger over on YouTube where he shares his daily life as an American in Paris, including tips and tricks on visiting and living in the City of Light. His latest book, Sea of the Unknown: Monsters and Mishaps on my Journey to Paris tells the story of how he wound up in Paris, got torn away from it, and managed to fight his way back. It's recently...

Send us Fan Mail It’s a big day today for Paris History Avec A Hemingway podcast! It’s the 50th episode! It also happens to be my birthday and the same number. When trying to decide who we would talk about for this epic episode it was almost impossible. Then it came to me, it had to be about something in my favorite place to spend a day, the Musée du Louvre.  The Louvre is filled with thousands of...

Send us Fan Mail Brandi Sea is an award-winning Creative Director, Design & Brand Strategist, and passionate observer with a Bachelor's Degree in Graphic Design. In addition to her design talents, she uses her 20 years of experience to help fellow creatives map out a plan to "discover uncommon inspiration" and produce more meaningful work. Brandi believes that every designer des...

Send us Fan Mail Heloise, the name that may ring more of a bell as Heloise and Abelard. A couple is known as the French Romeo & Juliette long before Shakespeare would write the story.  Heloise was born around 1092, it is unsure of her actual birthday and can swing into the 1070s depending on what you read. Heloise would spend most of her childhood raised by her brother and at 11 would be sent...

Send us Fan Mail My name is Camille Roux dit Buisson, I was born and I live in Paris. I grew up surrounded by art, with my parents who were passionate, and especially because my father is an art dealer who started collecting Jacqueline Marval (1866 – 1932)’s work from the 1980s. He took me to Drouot and the Louvre des Antiquaires (where he had a gallery until the 2010s) all the time, which started...

Send us Fan Mail Last week we shared the story of Djuna Barnes and you can’t have Djuna without the story of Natalie Barney,  Natalie was born in October 1876 in Dayton Ohio to a very wealthy family. Raised with an appreciation of art, music, and culture from a very young age they spent weekends in museums and author readings.  One reading while in New York over the summer took a young Natalie and...

Send us Fan Mail Franco-American artist and photographer Kali Vermès started making terrariums to satisfy both her green thumb and creative impulses with one activity. The microcosms she creates, under the moniker, Grow Little , are carefully conceived tiny, verdant worlds. Born in Paris, Kali grew up in an apartment filled with hanging plants. Her Russian photographer grandfather grew pear trees...

Send us Fan Mail Djuna Barnes, the woman who mingled with the Lost Generation was born in 1892 in New York and would leave her mark in Paris.  Born into a rather different family, her father had two wives and would later marry Djuna off to his second wife's brother. Shortly after her mother had too much she took her kids and left for New York. There Djuna began working as a writer for the New...

Send us Fan Mail BIOGRAPHY International award-winning Artist Stephanie MacKenzie is a vibrant talent. Multiple layers,  brilliant colors, and intricate designs unite through storytelling and blended archetypes bringing lush dimensions to her work.    ABSTRACT ART Immerse yourself into a high saturated universe with Artist Stephanie Mackenzie. Intense color and vivid brushstrokes are created throu...

Send us Fan Mail Support the show 🎨 Join my 2026 Tour of Christmas in France  https://tourwithabsolutely.com/celebrity-tours/christmas-in-paris-with-krystal-aka-miss-paris-photo-your-american-photographer-abroad/

Send us Fan Mail Amy Kupec Larue has been living, working and traveling in Europe for 30 years. Her passion for flowers, plants and the French Art de Vivre led her to a career that beautifully combines her wide knowledge, keen interests and vast experience with gardens. Since 2005 she has been guiding individuals and groups including the Pacific Horticulture Society, the New York Botanical Garden...

Send us Fan Mail Berthe Weill was a French art dealer who played a vital role in the creation of the market for twentieth-century art with the manifestation of the Parisian Avant-Garde. Support the show 🎨 Join my 2026 Tour of Christmas in France  https://tourwithabsolutely.com/celebrity-tours/christmas-in-paris-with-krystal-aka-miss-paris-photo-your-american-photographer-abroad/

Send us Fan Mail Sonja Bajic is an illustrator and artist well known for her geographical maps, visual identity, and the search for the best in every day and every process. And illustrating that. Living and working in Paris, Sonja believes in sustainability and a better tomorrow and shows this in her work and through her educational activities. She is the author of several books and projects deali...

Send us Fan Mail The list of mistresses of the kings of France is long. For Louis XV, sandwiched between two of the most famous kings might be best known for his many lovers than for the man himself.  After Madame de Pompadour who we have also talked about, Madame du Barry definitely left her mark on Versailles and a very young Marie Antoinette. Jeanne Bécu was born on August 19, 1743, in Vaucoule...

Send us Fan Mail Beowulf Sheehan is a New-York based photographer of figures in the arts and humanities. AUTHOR: The Portraits of Beowulf Sheehan , a collection of portraits of 200 writers from 35 countries with a foreword by Salman Rushdie, was published in 2018. THE AUTHOR PHOTO: Portrait Photographer Beowulf Sheehan on a Life Capturing Writers , a short film by Claire Ince and Ancil McKain, was...

Send us Fan Mail Born on March 16, 1822 in Bordeaux into a large family of artists. Her mother Sophie Marquis married Raymond Bonheur who was also her drawing teacher. Raymond painted landscapes of Bordeaux and portraits and instilled a love of art in all his children. As a child when Rosa was struggling at school her mother used her love of drawing to her advantage. Asking Rosa to draw an animal...

Send us Fan Mail Who is Doni Belau? Who is Doni Belau? An inveterate traveler, I’ve been to nearly 70 countries (and counting). I come alive when I travel, when I’m exploring, and when I’m seeing, tasting, and feeling something new. I love to help other women experience this sensation as I truly feel it helps us see a larger world of possibilities within ourselves. Girls’ Guide to Paris & Beyo...

Send us Fan Mail Artist Eva Gonzalez may not be as well known as her fellow female impressionist artists but she should be.  Born on April 19, 1849, in Paris, her father Emmanuell Gonzalez was a Spanish novelist and playwright and her mother was a trained musician. With their creativity handed down to her at a very early age, she was drawn to painting and sketching.  A chance meeting through artis...

Send us Fan Mail Marina Khorosh is a writer and copywriter living in New York City. Originally from Russia, she spent her twenties living in New York, after which she moved to Paris to study at Institut Français de la Mode. While in Paris, she launched a blog called Dbag Dating to share her Parisian dating exploits, which soon earned her a role as a writer of a French girl style column for Vogue.c...

Send us Fan Mail Jeanne Antoinette Poisson was destined to be the mistress of the king. As a child, her mother took her to a fortune-teller who told the young girl that she would one day hold the heart of the king. From then on she was called Reinette, little queen. Her mother set out from that moment to raise her to be a mistress and hired the best teachers to educate her in art, dancing, and the...

Send us Fan Mail As a fifth-generation Texan, Sumner Hargrove began riding horses bareback at her family’s ranch at the age of three! She went on to do her undergraduate degree magna cum laude at Mary Baldwin College in Virginia in English Literature and Philosophy, followed by a master’s in Public Policy and Public Finance from New York University. She then worked on Wall Street as a municipal bo...

Send us Fan Mail Martha Gelhorn, born in St Louis in 1908 to two parents that wanted much more for their daughter than the role women were to play at the time. Her father George was a doctor and her mother Edna was politically active in the suffrage movement and also served as a president of Bryn Mawr. Her father pulled her out of school as soon as he learned the nuns had covered the pictures of t...

Send us Fan Mail Janet Skeslien Charles grew up on the plains of Montana. She spent two years in Odessa, Ukraine, as a Soros Teaching Fellow. She has taught English, French, and Creative writing in Ukraine, Montana, and France. She enjoys reading, spending time with family, and researching her new novel.  The backdrop of her debut novel MOONLIGHT IN ODESSA is the booming business of email-order br...

Send us Fan Mail Anne de Rochechouart de Montemart may not jump to your mind but her great grandmother does. While you would think the great-granddaughter of Veuve Clicquot would sit back sipping her family champagne and counting all her money, that wasn’t the life that Anne wanted.  The apple of her great grandmother's eye, they would remain close her entire life and would also inherit the b...