Week 26: Mostly Gray

 

This week has brought rainy, gray weather. The leaves have fallen, the temperature has continued to drop, and fog hides the landscape most mornings. Days are short, clients scarce, and responsibilities self-imposed. I have never appreciated the winter so much before moving to Montmirail. After all, my days spread out in front of me, there is a cozy fire in the studio, and spending all day painting, drawing, etching or just dreaming up new ideas seems a profound luxury. I have hardly ventured out the front door this week, and I've enjoyed every minute. I wake up each morning excited to discover what I can make of the day.

We did have clients on the weekend, but they were the kind who are so easy that we hardly knew they were there before they had left again. We glimpsed blue skies and the sun peeking out from behind clouds from time to time, but those moments too were fleeting. We ripped hungrily into various projects, as if we had been starving for just such uninterrupted free days. Before Christmas we have two more trips abroad planned, one to England and one to Germany, so this quiet week was greatly appreciated.

Rick did find time to visit the garden. He began to put it to bed for the winter.  Nothing more was growing except for the last heroic dahlias. What generous plants these are! Giving copiously and constantly between July and November. Last year we mulched the bulbs and left them in the ground, against the advice of Michel and Jonathan. The winter was particularly harsh and we assumed we had lost them all, but in fact most survived. We will probably chance it again this year, even though cold and snow are predicted.

 

Tomato plants dead and gone

The bare bones of the garden

We cut the last blooms for our weekend clients

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One project I have had in mind since last summer is painting a series of cloud images. I have taken numerous photos as the year has gone along. It has been a year of particular cloud appreciation. When we were in Le Havre we saw an entire long wall covered with small canvases of cloud studies. I found them so charming I wanted to make a series myself. Finally, I've had the chance to begin. I painted these on masonite with oils. We mounted them on the wall as they will take several weeks to dry and I need the room on my table for other projects.

***

During our visit to Chaumont-sur-Loire a few weeks ago, we discovered a small shop with a sign "Atelier de Gravure". We were compelled to enter. Inside we found a small room with a small woman sitting next to a wood stove, cutting paper chains with a tiny pair of scissors. All around the four walls were hundreds of etchings, tacked up. The paper cut outs, which she also produces, were pasted to the windows. It turns out the artist lives and works in this minute space with a very small press right in the middle of the room. There was barely space to move around for all the supplies and books. Her work table was under the front window. Since her studio is small, her images are the same, some not more than an inch or two square. She makes little drawings of people, animals and the castle, quite naive, but charming. I was fascinated by the size of her plates, which she showed me. She doesn't bother to protect them with talc or wrap them in paper and plastic. They all just sit in a box, jumbled on top of one another. She told me that she buys her plates at Charbonnel in Paris and cuts them up herself. I had never seen such thin copper. Charbonnel, located on the left bank across from Notre Dame, makes the highest quality etching inks. I hadn't purchased copper from them before, so last time we were in the city, I went there to have a look. I was very pleased with the thin and inexpensive small plates and bought several to experiment with. In the studio this week, I had my first chance to use them. They are about 2" x 4". I have been trying to work bigger, but in fact small is more natural to me. I like to work quickly, without too much agonizing over details.

Wren and Cedars

Girl and Cat

Chair by the Window

They're so fast to ink and print and one doesn't feel nervous about experimenting. If it all goes wrong, it's not as if you've destroyed a large precious copper plate.

***

I also began a series of illustrations for a story Emily is writing, The Very Big Something.

 

Edith Eagans was busy baking bread like any other day

Sadie Stevens was counting chicken eggs like any other day

***

For obvious reasons, I cannot post photos of some of the Christmas projects we have worked on this week, but I did make some package tags which I will continue creating this week. I plan to put them into my Etsy shop. They are cut out of antique postcards, of which I have a huge number.

***

Driving home through the countryside one evening we were treated to an exquisite sunset. It was mesmerizing as the colors, at first brilliant, darkened and clouds floated into ever-changing forms. At first we exclaimed to each other about its beauty and stopped to snap photos. In the end we were speechless and simply enjoyed the show, which we were able to appreciate from start to finish.

Week 19: Dawn and Other Awakenings

Crows watching the sun rise over Montmirail

What glorious sunrises we've been having! One morning this week I woke up to see a group of crows on the rooftop across the Place sitting meditatively in a row, enjoying the spectacle, faces turned towards the rising sun. 

It turns out that beautiful dawn colors are seasonal.  I've been noticing them so much more frequently. It's also true that sunrise is more than an hour later these September/October mornings than it was in mid-summer, so I'm actually up in time to enjoy it! While sipping my morning coffee, like the crows, I sit and watch the sun.

Our clean air and abundant clouds apparently also play a role in the beauty of our dawns and dusks. According to the link above, the idea that polluted air makes for better colors is a myth.

One of our clients this summer, a professional photographer, showed me a simple trick for capturing the colors of dawn with an ordinary camera. And it works really well. You simply wave your hand quickly in front of the lens while taking the shot.

***

I must put in an appreciative word here for crows. They don't have the best reputation in the bird kingdom, but really, they're fascinating and nice to have around town. The crows here stay all year long. During the winter they keep the village lively. In the summer they seem to disappear, but that is actually due to the fact that in the warm months they become solitary while they are building their familial nests, breeding and raising their young. Once the weather turns snappy, and the hatchlings have become young adults, they gather together into huge swarms again of hundreds or even thousands of individuals. They are very social during this period of the year. Who has not enjoyed the marvelous sight of a flock of crows raising from a field in one mass and flying away together in loose formation? Crows turn around our church spire all day long and perch at the highest points. Unlike morning doves, numerous in the village during the summer, crows seem quite clean in their habits.

The swifts, whose evocative cry fills summer evenings, have all left town by now. The song birds have mostly flown south as well.

***

As if in strict observance of the calendar, autumn this week has made its presence felt. Various changes in life accompany the turning of the season. Certainly the palette of colors is radically altered. Our Virginia Creeper is already beginning to turn its beautiful red shade. The hills around are a deep green.

View from the dining room

There is no question that the temperature has dropped dramatically too. After a rather cool summer in California, my friends and family there have suffered temperatures well over 100° this week. For us things are quite a bit different than that. Days are still mild, but nights are chilly.

 We had our first evening fire

In the woods, the colors reflect the season.  Leaves cover the pathways, beginning to create a brown carpet. It seems that both winter and summer last a long time and things stay relatively constant. In fall, (and spring for that matter) each day brings noticeable changes.

Even after a few days, much changes. Chestnuts litter the ground. Blackberries go from plump and red, to deep violet and if unpicked, wither, turn black and fall. Color comes over the forest in a wave, first one tree turns, then another. Each time I take a walk there is more to notice.

For the first time in months I heard the wind in the branches as I took my usual walk through the forest. Acorns fell from oaks and bonked me on the head. A steady stream of little brown leaves detached themselves from branches and swirled around like butterflies.

A recent walk yielded a basket full of forest produce. I think one could live on the seasonal products offered in our little wood. Rose hips, berries and grapes on offer today.

***

Besides tangerines, which are all of a sudden available again in our local stores, another sign of the season is publicity and critiques for all the new events and shows being launched in Paris. Monet is  celebrated in several venues this fall. There is a lot of brouhaha surrounding the painting that is credited with naming the Impressionist Movement, Impression of a Sunrise, painted in 1872. A journalist, derisively named Monet and his friends Impressionists, after viewing this painting. The Musée d'Orsay, which is mounting a huge Monet show at the Grand Palais on the right bank, has managed to get all the major museums and collectors in the world to loan many of their Monet's to this comprehensive exhibition. Of course they wanted this very important painting as well, but the small Marmottan Museum, also located in Paris, which owns it, refused. They said that they too were hanging a special Monet show this year and needed the painting themselves. It's being characterized in the media as a David and Goliath fight.

Impression, Soleil Levant (Impression of Sunrise) 

By the way, if you appreciate Paris, be sure to read the wonderful article, Letter from France, Why I Love Paris in Autumn, by David Downey, author of Paris Paris, Journey into the City of Light (My all time favorite Paris guide book.)

***

Another friend David, from Lafayette, California, where we lived before moving to France, has a house in Brittany. He comes to visit, however, only very occasionally and stays only briefly when he does. He is an architect. This week he was in residence, after two years. He invited us to come visit. It wasn't entirely easy to get away as we still have clients much of the week, but we didn't want to miss the opportunity of seeing him and managed to find a twenty-four hour period completely free.

David's house was built in 1671, although it has certainly gone through some modifications since then. It's built of granite. Each area of France has their individual architectural style and building materials. Local stone was quarried to construct local housing, so a palette of colors was established in each area. In Brittany you have either this sandy brown stone or gray. Blue is the preferred color to paint shutters in the area, so David's house is not typical.

Even if we stayed only a brief time, we wanted a glimpse of the ocean before coming back home. David accompanied us, stopping over at Maison Conti before his flight back to California. The three of us hopped into the car and on our way back eastwards, swung past a few of David's preferred coastal locales. La Trinité-sur-Mer is a base camp for international sailboat racing. The port was full of huge trimarans. Personally, I prefer the old-fashioned sailing vessels, of which there were also plenty,

Down the coast a short ways we got a look at the open Atlantic and waved to all our friends and family across the wide sea.

***

It rained the entire time we were in Brittany. I was gratified to return home to clear skies and another beautiful sunset.

Twilight comes early these evenings--it's dark by 8:30.

Week 11: Workshop, Festival and a Glowing Landscape

Hollyhocks in the summer garden

This very busy week began with Atelier Conti donating an etching course to Montmirail's Medieval Celebration. This year, on week days before the actual weekend festival, there were five workshops offered, a different craft activity each day. We took Monday. Samuel asked me several months ago if I would be willing to do it and I can hardly ever say "no" when Samuel asks. He devotes so much of his time to Montmirail, where, incidentally, he no longer even lives. His efforts (with a very small band of helpers) have elevated the festival into a major summer event in the area and I believe that ticket sales for this one weekend must finance most of the rest of the year's activities in the village. He is tireless in his commitment, besides being a charming, soft-spoken guy, and so when he asks for something from me, I try to accommodate him - even if my inclination is to resist, as it often is. So he stretches me.

I told Samuel that we could allow eight people maximum in a course here, as we have no more stools than that, and eight is already slightly unwieldy. I left him and his staff to disseminate publicity to attract participants and the tourist office to collect the registrations. I didn't know until just a few days before the class, that it was fully booked. Since I would have to give the course in French I must prepare the lesson very carefully and be quite organized in the way things would go. I don't think in French, so it means I have to do all the thinking in advance and translate it! When the time came for people to arrive, I felt pretty solid about how I would handle it, as it was all down in my mind in a most methodical way. I had chosen a project (we would make a family coat-of -arms, un blason) and I would take the participants through all that was required step-by-step. We would work together and follow each activity simultaneously. Normally I allow workshop participants to pace themselves, but in this case we only had two hours and no one in the course knew the first thing about etching.

Unfortunately Murphy's Law took over from the get-go. Apparently there was contradictory information published. One place announced a start time of 3pm (which was what I was planning for) and another for 4pm. Only half my confirmed students arrived on time. My program was timed down to the minute, so immediately I was in improvisational mode and the students were all décalé (out of sync...sometimes the French language just expresses it best). Some embraced the project as presented, some just improvised.

Several people who had not signed up arrived and told me there was no announcement that registration was required, and would not accept my explanation that all the spaces were taken. One woman simply sat down, uninvited, in a late student's empty seat and began working. Another, with her 2 year old child in tow, always a bit underfoot, just stayed and watched until I relented and handed her a plate to work on. 

Just as I had things settled down and rolling forward,  about eight children, and their parents poured into the studio. They insisted that they had read there was to be a children's class of some sort. They didn't even know what the purported course was supposed to be about. Where had they gotten this idea? I put this question to Samuel, who had shown up to take photos along with a journalist and the village historian. He had no idea. Perhaps we need a village proofreader? Some neighbors, seeing our doors standing open, chose this moment to arrive and engage Rick in a long discussion about art and printmaking, in effect getting their own mini course in the other room while I was trying to direct my assigned students in the tasks I had planned out for them. 

In the end etching won the day and everyone, with the exception of the woman who had not signed up in the first place, created beautiful images and were very happy with the process and their results. It didn't exactly go like clockwork, but it did go. I simply surrendered to the chaos and was amazed and relieved that it turned out so well. In the end I think we created a couple of etching converts.

students discovering dry point--look how concentrated they appear

students inking and printing their plates as Samuel, in red, looks on

some results

***

We had a lovely couple from Australia staying with us during the beginning of the week. Lindsay and Peter have been traveling around Europe. Peter is a watercolor student of a woman artist I've met over the internet and she wrote me that she was sending Peter to have a look around for her. It is particularly nice for us when our clients spend a few nights here. It gives us the opportunity to get to know them a little bit. They become friends.

Australians have a world reputation for being easy-going, friendly and active. Lindsay and Peter certainly lived up to their national character. We had a great time with them. They took Rick's tour of the Perche and sat in on my etching course which they characterized as a bit like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. (Of course this was from my own point of view, which they related to as they watched. I don't think the participants experienced the class as at all crazy. They were very focused on their tasks.) Lindsay and Peter had been to London, and the South of France and were on their way to Paris, so they appreciated a little country break. They enjoyed a rambling walk in the woods. It is winter where they come from. We "met" the rest of their family over meal-time conversations.

Peter and Lindsay from Brisbane

***

I had a little bit of time in the studio for myself and continued experimenting with my new color etching technique. I'm not quite there, but I made some progress.

Village Scene

 Lunch at Marc's

***

Rick reminded me that I forgot to tell a good story from last week. Even though we haven't seen Quinn all of this week, I have to go back and relate a little moment from one of the last times we did see him.  He turned a year and a half at the end of July and is beginning to communicate in a wonderful way (in three languages!). When we took him into a church recently he saw a crucifix. Jesus was portrayed with eyes closed, arms outstretched and head slumped over onto one shoulder. Quinn contemplated the image for a few minutes and said "dodo" (nighnigh).

***

Dawn on festival day

Montmirail is a very quiet little village, which people who live here like just that way. Thus it is that we have to collectively grit our teeth just a little when once a year 3000 people flood the tiny streets and turn our sleepy town into a 48 hour reenactment of the Middle Ages, albeit with amplified music, something the Middle Ages did quite well without.

Saturday morning dawned idyllic, promising weather neither too sweltering, like the first year we were here, nor rainy like the succeeding two. At the Maison, we were full with exhibitors, a journalist and another couple who had come all the way from Australia to attend! Apparently they are Medieval buffs who celebrate their own festival at home and like to see how others do it. Australia was well represented this week at Maison Conti.

It's difficult to recreate the Middle Ages in our time and place, even when our place is a village scarcely changed since. I don't think we can really imagine how differently people during that epoch of history experienced reality. They lived in a world without electric light, without clocks, or easy communication. A  typical medieval peasant had little experience beyond his own village for his entire rather short life. The bells of the church defined his daily routine and his seasons were governed by nature. Church doctrine, interpreted for him by a priest, defined his views of life and death. Of course he neither read nor wrote and couldn't have gotten information in written form anyway. There was little scope for individual thought. It was commerce, the ability to make and sell things, that released him from slave-like feudal commitment to an overlord. That was one of the most significant corners western culture ever turned. I suppose it's appropriate then that the fete gives so much space to vendors.

Most of the commerce represented authentic Medieval crafts and often the artisans gave fascinating demonstrations. These are folks whose job is to travel from fair to fair. Other stands offered things never seen in the Middle Ages but which were at least finely crafted handmade items. There was one rogue seller who seemed not to have been properly vetted. A rotund man installed himself right outside our gates on Saturday afternoon, set up a boom-box on a wooden folding chair and proceeded to demonstrate the making of brightly colored plastic rope while his CD looped a French song from the 40's about a little fat man. His repetitive music was in direct competition with the Medieval pipes and drums being played over the loudspeakers (which were attached to our house, just outside our windows). The man was dressed in a floppy red hat and did a touch-shuffle, touch-shuffle step in time to his anachronistic music as he wound his plastic rope. None of us could quite understand where he had come from, but his indomitable spirit kept him touch-shuffling long after most of the other vendors had shut down for the night.

Images from the festival:

model castle maker

 

sausages anyone?

Place du Château, products of every description

 

stone cutting

 black-smithy

armor maker

 

 medieval costumes

 juggler and musicians

 (my favorite) stained-glass artisan showing how shapes were "cut" using a heated tool to crack the glass

The most anticipated part of the festival is the "Embrasement du Château" (the illumination of the castle), basically fireworks, which are arranged to look as if the castle is under attack. It is one of the most beautiful, and definitely the closest display I've ever witnessed. It goes on for about 15 minutes with wonderfully atmospheric music and a short narration to accompany the booms and flashes.

 

***

Village calm has been reestablished in Montmirail. All the tourists have gone back home. We anticipate another busy week of full rooms and happy vacationers from around the globe. France, Canada, England and the U.S. will all be represented.

Golden glowing sunset over the castle of Montmirail