Atelier Conti: journal making course in France

Looking up towards the village of Montmirail

My blog has been entitled 52 Weeks in a French Village. I began this series of posts exactly a year ago. This is my 52nd week, and time for a change of direction.

As I was considering what my blog might become, a little voice started whispering in my ear. It accompanied me on walks, was there at meal times and often bothered me when I was trying to sleep. The voice became louder as days went past. It turned out to be the whispers of a lovely young woman with red hair and green eyes named Musetta. She was introducing herself to me and asking me to turn over my blog to her.

She seems out of another time, as her wardrobe appears vaguely eighteenth or nineteenth century. When I asked her about this she rolled her eyes and explained that she is not bound to any particular time. She wanders freely from past to present and even into the future. What, I asked, did she intend to publish on my blog? She patiently explained to me that she has a broad range of interests which she intends to share with my readership. "As long," she hastened to add "as the topics covered have something to do with improving the quality and beauty of daily life." She seems to believe that fun, beauty, harmony and craft are of utmost importance. Her favorite expression, she told me is "Don't worry, be happy." From all this, I gather, she intends to offer light-hearted posts on any number of subjects. "And, don't forget to tell them I like giving things away." Starting next week there will be a giveaway as a way of introducing herself. "Of course the entire design of the blog must change." she told me. I knew this. When you come back next week, which I surely hope you will, you will not recognize the blog at all.

Musetta intends to post every week, and sometimes she will require my narration help. She may not adhere to a strict schedule the way I have. I think she's a little more spontaneous than I. We'll see what she has in mind.

Here's her portrait. She's not entirely pleased with it, but she recognizes she has to be patient with me. As time goes by and I get to know her, hopefully I can represent her better. So far I've found her to be very interesting company. She's very cheerful, energetic and just a little bit bossy.

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Before I leave the village of Montmirail, I want to remind you about the wonderful course that my very talented friend Gail Rieke will be giving at the Maison Conti in October called Art Mapping, Invisible to Visible.

Gail is not only an incredible artist, but also one of the best and most patient teachers I've ever had the privilege to work with. So few teachers can really see beyond their own techniques and view of the world to be of real help to others. Gail is one of those rare individuals who is able to understand each student as an individual and knows how to guide them in a direction just right for their own personal needs. The work created in her workshops is highly personal and individual.

Rieke Studios is famous as an inspiring and beautiful artistic space. Her suitcase wall was recently featured on the cover of Where Woman Create. Each suitcase contains a travel adventure/installation.

She creates a working environment full of magic and delight.

Her work sets the heart to dreaming of far off places, time travel and mysterious unseen worlds.

Gail is an expert book maker, creating journals of great beauty as well as practical utility.

She has invented new ways to put bits and pieces together in surprising ways to tell stories and reveal histories.

Form and function work together in her creations to enable expression.

She makes cases, enclosures, wrappers, boxes that are inventive and rich to hold the content of travel experiences.

Her goal in her own work is to capture an event or experience in a luscious object which can hold the original moment. In the process the journal and wrapping, as one explores them, become a new and sensual journey in and of themselves.

It has always been difficult for me to pin down in words the magic that Gail is able to weave in her own work. She is very generous in sharing her techniques and creative processes with her students.

A course with Gail is one of those warm occasions that wakes up the best of one's self.

If you're free in October, I can hardly recommend this course more highly! There are a limited number of spaces available.

A week of rain clouds and sunny clear skies, of hot days and chilly nights. Fall whispers its approach.

Georges spent some time printing in the atelier again this week. I always learn something interesting when he comes. No exception this time. One interesting discovery was made when he set up the press for himself, as I had not gotten around to that before he arrived on Monday morning. He printed all morning and was never satisfied with his results and could not understand what was different. The image was not accepting the ink correctly and there were little while spots all over the finished print. He tried adding oil to the ink, wiping in different ways, wetting the paper more or less and always the results were the same. Finally we realized that he had put the blankets on upside down. There is one felt blanket that goes on top of the print and one thick wool blanket which goes on top of that. The felt of course is tightly woven and the wool is highly textured so with the wool blanket on the bottom, directly on top of the image as it's printed, a texture is created in the warm ink. I had never put the blankets on backwards so I had't considered what an effect that could have.

Georges has a very interesting chine-collé technique which I have never seen anyone else use. He creates hand painted papers which he then glues onto the printing paper as a frame to his printed image. The plate is inked and the glued paper is placed on top, so it all goes through the press in one pass. Leyla used some of his hand painted paper to very good effect on her own swan image. Georges uses waterproof ink (which he purchases at Sennelier in Paris) to create the textures on his paper.

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Georges also introduced me to the photographer Sarah Moon. She does beautiful fashion and art photography often with images that are out of focus and atmospheric. Her color work is particularly beautiful, I think, although she apparently prefers working in black and white. She inspired me to take a couple of my own out of focus images and create some prints of Quinn. I was happy with the results, though of course she creates all her effects in the camera while I used Photoshop.

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We had some California friends as clients this week. I used to work with Ann at a private school in Lafayette. Her daughter Laura is studying theater and went to the same school as my own children, who are also both in theater, so we have a lot in common. Ann is showing her daughter around Europe before Laura goes off to study at RADA in London, one of the preeminent theater programs in the world. Ann also invited her 85 year old father to accompany them since he spent some time living in both Italy and France when he was younger. As he said to me, any place on the Mediterranean feels like home to him. Ann was actually born in Marseille, which is where they headed after spending several rainy days at Maison Conti. Larry is first-generation American born of Sicilian parents who met Ann's mother while stationed in Italy after WWII. I picture them in their rented villa below a sunny Tuscan sky as I write this.

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I have lately had the enormous pleasure of planning out the Wonder Wander Workshop with Gail Rieke which will be given at Maison Conti in early October. Gail is a collage and assemblage artist who specializes in travel and journal creation. Her studio is itself a work of art. The creative responses to her numerous travels are contained within beautiful old suitcases. They become a kind of interactive sculpture as she mounts them on the walls of her home gallery. Each case contains a separate experience, beautifully arranged which reveals something special about a real place and a specific time.

During the three days of the workshop, participants will make three book forms. The first will be a kind of prototype of many ways to bind pages together in a unique travel journal. The second will be a book for holding collections of things we discover. We will take walks together in order to respond creatively to the landscape around us. We will draw, take rubbings, photographs and collect bits and pieces we find along the way to put together into a unique travel memory. The final form will not necessarily be a typical journal. Our ephemera can take many forms. The most important aspect of the project is to imbue it with personal meaning and creative response to our individual experiences. Gail has many unexpected ways to put these disparate pieces together into a coherent whole.

We will discover many unique ways to collect and bind our travel journals together. Gail has led many trips to Japan over the last several years, but this is her first European adventure. There are still a couple of places available in the workshop if you would like to join us. Pleasures of all sorts are guaranteed!

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One of my favorite printmakers on Etsy is Andrea of Starkeyart . For Jos' birthday I ordered one of her incredible prints which arrived this week. I just love the colors and her delicate, precise drawing. This is a reduction lino print, which I find almost unbelievable. Rick did a beautiful job of framing it. It will be a bit of a wrench to give it away, but luckily I can visit it anytime I like. Jos loves trees and Andrea has some wonderful images of landscapes and trees in her shop. She also has a blog which I enjoy following.

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Last summer around this same time, we had a lovely German family stay with us for one night on their way to a vacation on the Brittany coast. We were very happy to welcome them again. This time they came bearing gifts, two bottles of German wine which we fully intend to enjoy at the first opportunity. Wolfgang seems a passionate advocate of German vintners and explained to us that when buying German wines, which he insists are as good as any made in France or California, one must be sure to look for the eagle logo on the neck of the bottle. This insures that the wine inside is made of all the same kinds of grapes from the same location and not a mixture of grapes from hither and yon. Of course that means the wine is of the highest quality. You need to look closely at the eagle logo as there is apparently an imitation that tries to pass itself off as the real deal. Wolfgang and family will be revisiting us on their way back home in three weeks, so it is incumbent upon us to give these wines the taste test and report on our experience.

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The week ended in a big way with the village Éclade de moules in the Place outside Annette's. Mussels are arranged on large planks of moist wood, covered with seaweed and grape vines which are then set ablaze. They cook quickly, popping the shells open, and are served straight from the coals on the plank. Annette sets up rows and rows of chairs at long tables under a huge tent and people come from miles around to eat the mussels with French bread slathered with butter. That's almost all there is to the meal, except for a piece of cantaloupe with parma ham to start and an apple tart with cheese to end.

We had invited our good friends Jonathan and Renata to join us. Bertrand, a neighbor from the first place we lived in France happened to call us that morning so we invited him too.

I don't think I've mentioned either Renata or Jonathan in twelve weeks, which is odd, since we count them among our dearest local friends. There is a reason, however; we see them so very rarely these days. For this I only have myself to blame. I introduced them and it was the most successful match-making I have ever accomplished. Renata happens to live an hour away, so Jonathan, who has a house just a few doors down from Anne and Christine, is hardly ever in town anymore.

We met Renata when we bought our first house near Alençon. She's Czech and was friends with the woman who sold us the moulin. Renata was like a little bonus that came with the transaction. She became our guide, our friend, our helper, really our angel when we knew very little French and were orienting ourselves in a new country. She took us to Prague a few years ago and acted as our personal tour guide. She is always cheerful and patient. We've felt so lucky to have met her!

We met Jonathan when he appeared at our door as we moving into Maison Conti. He offered to help us with the construction that was necessary to create our Bed and Breakfast. He is generous and talented. Without him I don't think we could have managed at all. He was essentially our roommate for the entire first year we were here. He was our Montmirail angel, so naturally I thought of conveniently arranging a meeting between the two of them. Suffice it to say that sparks flew, puffy pink clouds manifested all around and we simply stood back and watched. That was a couple of years ago and they still seem positively radiant together.