Week 49: A Game, a Pair of Friends and Three Monsters

The wisteria has come and gone. Now our yellow rose is in bloom. They overlapped for just two days.

We were very happy to have our friends Arnault and Bénédicte come stay with us for a couple of days. The schools are on spring break, so they have some time and included the Maison Conti in their vacation plans. They came with their three boys who they call The Three Monsters. Of course, they are nothing of the sort.

Bénédicte is the oldest daughter of our friends Françoise and Bernard. We met the whole family when James spent an exchange year abroad with AFS, living in Brest during his junior year of high school in 1998. Since then, we have counted them among our very best friends. There are three daughters in the family, who have produced between them five sons. The whole extended family is dear to our hearts. 

Arnault is a nuclear engineer and spent a few days with us when we still lived in California. He has suppliers in Oregon and made the detour to visit us on one of his business trips. We have such a fond memory of sitting with him at a cafe overlooking San Francisco Bay. He was so delighted to be there and kept saying he had to pinch himself to know he was really awake. It was one of those perfect weekends, when you see your hometown newly through the enthusiastic eyes of a visitor. 

The family lives in Nantes. We have visited them there several times. They were spending a couple of days in the Loire Valley visiting châteaux. We ate breakfast and dinners together. While they were gone all day, we worked in the studio.

As a broad generalization, French children are very well-mannered. I will never forget a sign we once saw in the window of a restaurant in the Dordogne - No Children. Dogs Welcome. The owner, who was German, told us that dogs are much better behaved than children. She did mention, however, that of all nationalities she found French children to be the most restrained and polite.

Bénédicte is a teacher and works with disadvantaged children. She tells us that families are changing in France and some of the discipline which was built into the rhythm of family life is beginning to break down.

It certainly has not broken down in their family. It was really a pleasure to have the boys here. Their parents expect them to act politely and remain calm, not easy at their ages. They are a very interesting group. Each one unique.

photo by Arnault

Tanguy is eleven. He is remarkably brilliant. They have let him skip ahead one grade but hesitate to advance him further, even though he is still ahead of his classmates. He has an amazing memory for dates and is good at every subject. He has been reading adult literature from an early age.

photo by Arnault

Cedric, who is nine, may be more of an athlete than his brother. He is also the clown of the family. He is very big hearted and friendly. He was fascinated that I served the butter at breakfast in a little covered dish. He asked me if it was hard to arrange like that. He looked at my display of dishes in the kitchen and told me "bon présentation" (nicely arranged). I found it delightful!

photo by Arnault

Etienne, six, is a character. I think of him as the artist, since when we last visited the family in Nantes, he showed me his beautiful drawings. He is a real charmer. His father told us this story. He asked Etienne to do something and was ignored. He asked him why he hadn't followed the order given and Etienne replied that his mother always gave him three chances.

photo by Arnault

***

If you haven't heard of the game Mölkky, (and frankly who has?) you're in for a treat here. Arnault discovered this game, invented in Finland, and introduced us to it by making us a Mölkky set. It's a throwing game and lots of fun. Arnault made our game from a single wood pole bought at the garden center. The set consists of 12 small pins, cut on the top at a 45ª angle and numbered. The puck is a short length of the same material left without the angle cut and rounded a little at the ends.

The rules are simple. A bit like bowling, you stand up the pins in a big bunch, placing the highest numbered ones on the inside (to protect them).

 

Two equal teams are created. It can be played one against one, two against two or more against more. Each individual on the team gets the chance to launch the puck at the stack of pins from a distance of about 10-12 ft away.

The object of the game is for a team to reach a score of exactly 50 points.  After launching the puck, if one of the pins falls down, the team receives the number of points written on the pin. If someone knocks more than one down, they receive one point for each pin that falls.  This makes it more advantageous to try to aim accurately.

 

The pins are dispersed as they are hit and are stood up wherever they fall, so the pins become further and further apart as the game progresses. If the puck fails to knock any pins down (and this is common) three consecutive times, the game is forfeited to the other team. If a team makes more than fifty points, their score returns to twenty-five, so one must be careful what one aims at.

Arnault's team, which included Rick, won the day. I never once hit a pin. The puck is very light and I didn't get the feel for how to aim it. I intend to practice, however, so I'm not so easily skunked next time.

***

I got quite a lot of printmaking accomplished this week. There are a couple of theories about editioning prints which I have heard put forward. Traditionally, an edition is printed all in one go. Some people, however, print small batches as needed. I have handled my editioning both ways, but when it comes to a print that is colored a la poupée, you can't really have an edition of prints which are more or less the same in color and coverage without getting into the rhythm of printing them all together at the same time. The paper has to be the same type, same size, moistened the same so that the ink is taken uniformly. I have a number of plates I need to edition and I have begun to try to catch up with that.  

Cafe Girl is fairly efficient to ink once I get the edition rolling. Each spot of color is put on with a q-tip and wiped separately so it does take time. The plate is small however, so in the course of a few hours I was able to get an edition of 20 printed.

 

Village by the River is a different story. It takes at least 20 minutes to put the color on, as the plate is large and there are lots of details. I will need several dedicated days to accomplish an edition.

 

I did run the inked plate through the press a second time to get a more pastel effect. I like them both, so I'm trying to decide which way to run it. In either case it is fairly complicated to make an edition making all the prints similar.

 

***

Happy May to all! I hope your days are full of colors and flowers.

Week 42: Kings, Artisans, Atletes and Vintners

The distinctive roof line of the castle of Chambord

All of us here had a productive week at home. I continued with my artistic deadlines while Rick completed a handyman project that has been awaiting our attention for quite some time. Farid was content to spend his days biking around the countryside or doing some reading and writing. At the weekend we had a few adventures.

Outside my studio is a brick wall. Let me just say here that after about 200 or 300 years you can fully expect that the mortar is going to start disintegrating...In the before photo below, you can see that there is nothing much between the bricks. I don't know how long it had been that way, but certainly as long as we have lived here. The deceptive thing is that even though it looks as if only air exists in those cracks, for the last three years, particularly in the cold weather, sand has been sifting down and making untidy little piles on the floor below. As can be imagined, this was less than desirable and rather annoying. Rick has now repointed the wall, by adding a new layer of mortar between the bricks. Doesn't it look better? The mortar is made by mixing sand with lime and a bit of water. The water creates a chemical reaction in the lime, which calcifies when dry, making for a nice hard bond which should last another 200 years or so. It's the traditional way. Small things like this can make life seem so much more reasonable.

 wall outside the studio

I have mostly been spending my time painting during the last few weeks. I have covered six canvases with six entirely different styles and imagery. It has been a kind of experiment to see where I can go with this. I do love my printmaking but sometimes I crave simple, bright, unrestrained and thick color (always a big struggle when etching). It was a kind of printmakers rebellion. This week I went back to etching like a repentant philanderer and created a whole group of new etchings both large and small.

  

 

inking bench with some of my current projects

In the end there was only one out of the six paintings that I feel satisfied with. I had meant to make this one much less sketchy and vague, but as I was working along I found myself allowing a lot of the underpainting and drawing to show. I liked its spirit.

at the beach

With my printmaking I always seem to be struggling with how best to add color. It's difficult to do it well. Either you must make several plates, one for each color you want, or if you print a la poupée, (adding colors one by one to discrete areas on one plate), you must be able to be very careful, patient and slow. Not virtues I naturally possess. It is easy to have color turn muddy on the print. I suddenly had a brainstorm for a new technique...this is my second invention for color application with etching. I'm sure others have thought of it, but if they have I haven't heard it from them. When one spends a lot of time meditating or dreaming about these issues, inspiration does occasionally strike like lightning. In this case I had the idea that instead of using aquatint to hold the color, which sometimes turns out rather disappointingly, I could create an image with a great deal of line work texture, giving the plate enough places to hold the ink. This woman in a hat was the image that came into my mind, so I began with this as an experiment. All these colors are added to one plate. I was mostly pleased with the basic idea, although obviously there are some faults. This is simply a hard ground with lots of lines. I plan to see where I can take this technique.

girl with a hat

For this village scene below I used another idea for adding color. I made one plate with aquatint areas to color a la poupée and another plate with the line drawing. I made this one several months ago and have never been able to print it entirely to my satisfaction. I tried it again this week using another new technique. I passed it through the press twice, allowing the colors to become very pale by the second pass. I like the more subtle colors.

village by the river

I also made a series of eight tiny little water birds with the idea of puting them together into a book. Each plate is 2" square and each bird got 2 plates, one for the drawing, one for the color background. Here are a few from the series. They were a lot of fun to create. I do rather like working small.

common loon

snow goose

swan

***

Farid was very keen to go to a basketball game in France. He has an interest in understanding how the European basketball league functions. He represents a young American player who will soon become a pro. Apparently college basketball players from Europe (think Tony Parker and Joakim Noah) are routinely scouted for American professional teams, and American players are hired to play European basketball. It turns out that Le Mans has a very nice big new arena and there was a game being played there this weekend. Rick and Farid got tickets and went off to enjoy some French basketball.

The home team, Le Mans, was playing Limoges. Apparently both teams had several American players and players as young as 19 and as old as 35. Farid heard the coach speaking English to his team and apparently the score was called out in English as well. The stadium held approximately 3000 spectators and they estimated it was 2/3 full.

 

team line up. Players were from all over the map

Farid was impressed with the quality of the venue and game. He had seen a basketball game in Barcelona but reports that the French version seemed more professional to him.

 Farid watches the action

We've never attended a sports event in France, so this was a treat for Rick. It's great to know we have such a nice venue close to us. And it turns out they're constructing a football stadium in Le Mans as well. I guess soon we'll be on the map for some top quality sports teams right here in our own backyard! In the basketball contest, Le Man's team was the winner.

***

Farid had never been to the Loire Valley, so we took him to see the most famous château of all, Chambord. It's quite a pleasant drive south from Montmirail to the valley. The further south we traveled, the more signs of spring appeared in the landscape, a garden full of daffodils in bloom, fruit trees abloom in various shades of white and pink, bright yellow forsythia, all a week or two in advance of our area.

Rick and Farid in front of the extravagant Chambord castle

Chambord was a hunting lodge for the kings of France. It was reconstructed in the 16th century by François I with design help from Leonardo da Vinci, who was his court guest at the time. This is the biggest château in France and one of the most ornate.

Chambord castle reflected in the river

We shared our visit with few others. Early spring is an excellent time to visit the Loire Valley castles, especially if the day is fine. Our day was neither too cold nor rainy, however we didn't see the sunshine. A gray cover kept the landscape rather somber and atmospheric.

We all agreed that a walk around the grounds was more appealing than a tour through the inteior of the château, so we followed a path which lead around the back of the castle, following the river and branching off in many directions. There is a huge forest surrounding Chambord, as in old, and we really enjoyed the scenery and stroll.

 

an ancient bridge on the grounds of Chambord castle

***

What is a visit to the Loire Valley without a wine tasting? California has some very fancy wineries and wine tasting is a favored activity for tourists and locals alike. Here in France the wineries are often more humble, but I wouldn't say the same about the wine itself! In my opinion, nothing beats a nice light French red, and the Loire Valley is the home of some of the best quaffers.

Vines in Cheverny

We passed by a winery we knew in Cheverny. They make both red and white and we tasted two of each. The whites are crisp and dry, the reds light and easy to drink. We bought a case with some of each and headed back home just as the sky opened up. It rained all evening, sometimes in torrents, but we had a lovely peaceful day behind us and a nice glass of wine in front of us.

The boys pontificate on one of the whites

***

This afternoon we head for Paris. We'll show Farid some our favorite corners. Later in the week he'll catch his flight home. Meanwhile Jos' one-man show, The Art of Laughter, opens at the Rond Point Theater, one of the nicest in Paris. We all have tickets. More on all that in next week's post.

 

Larger than life advertisements for Jos' show are on kiosks all over Paris