Mick Micheyl

Paulette Michey, grand daughter of Jean-Baptiste Tournassoud, is ALSO known under the pseudonym of Mick Micheyl, an artist with multiple and astonishing talents: painter, acrobat, theatrical performer, song writer, interpreter ("Un Gamin de Paris" won the French song grand contest/award in 1950), and finally today a sculptor of steel (drawing with an electric grinder on steel, a technique which makes it possible to express movement).

Mick always acknowledged her debt to her grandfather in the formation of her mettle, spirit and character. Kindheartedness which everybody is prompt to recognize in the grand-daughter is the most beautiful homage to the memory of the one which many continue to call "the Major":

"In 1922, he is grandfather and until 1951, he teaches me the great laws of the joys in life... when a little girl, beside him in the dark room, I could hear him telling me: "look at the image appearing ". And I would rise on the tip of my toes... Later he had specialized in the photography of animals; it is him who taught me how to draw, how to watch the dogs and the horses. He took me along with him through all the large stud farms of France, and very proudly, I would carry his bags of plates. Unaware of it, he was preparing me for my acrobatic career... it is him too who taught me how to bowl, to choose the good wine and to be always in time... It is still him who made me return to the Beaux Arts School of Lyon, the first step of my first career - painter in 1948... Then I went to Paris with my songs but he made me swear that I will take again my brushes (which became electric grinders) and later I obeyed.

On the day before he did his last shot - he was 84 years old - he was still standing in his darkroom in front of the hyposulphite baths to reveal his last images... in Montmerle-sur-Saône, where he was born and where I engrave my steels with this same happiness to live and to love all beings and things.

I want to pay tribute to him and to make sure that he is not forgotten ".