Adventures with Wendy and Margot

snowman drawn by Quinn

Here in France we're still shivering. In Australia things are a bit different. Our printmaking clients and now friends, Margot and Wendy from Melbourne, like to come to France in January, leaving the hot Australian summer behind and heading right smack into the middle of European winter. They stayed with us the first year we were open, doing printmaking for a week in the studio, and they have come every other year since. This week brought them back to us again.

 

They certainly got what they bargained for, arriving in France on the day of the huge snowstorm.

photo by Wendy

Walking around the snowy village is very picturesque.

 

photo by Margot

Mid-week the weather warmed up significantly and the snow began to melt quickly.

 

 

There were blue sky moments, when one could take a genuine sunbath and really warm up. There were also moments of rain.

 

Throughout the week, Rick kept the home fires burning.

 

Margot's preferred occupation was reading next to the chimney.

 

Early in the week, Rick took Margot and Wendy down to the Loire Valley to have a look around. The goal was to gaze out over the river. Amboise has a lovely view.

 

Standing in front of Leonardo da Vinci's house in Amboise. Photo by Margot

View over the Loire River from the château at Amboise. Photo by Margot.

looking out the window at the château at Amboise. Photo by Wendy.

After these few more recreational days, Wendy got to work in the studio. She had it in mind to create a series of small plates inspired by the snowy landscape. She has a wonderful little notebook which she carries with her constantly, sketching ideas, thoughts, germs of projects. She uses her camera as a sketch book as well, just as I do, capturing fragments, reference material for images to come.

I really enjoy having printmaking friends in the studio. I love to see how other artists develop ideas and create their images. It was an extremely pleasant week for me.

 

Photo by Margot

Margot acted as consultant and sounding board for Wendy's ideas and images. Each one was thought through. They are a highly successful team!

 

Ideas began coming quickly. The only question was how many of them Wendy would have time to realize before the week was up. The snow became the overriding theme for Wendy's plates, but other sub-themes emerged, such as a very sparky little dog in a coat.

 

I really liked the rhythm Wendy got into. The plate size she chose was just 6 X 9 cm (about 2.5 X 3.5"). She would do her drawing in her sketch book, then transfer it to her plate, etch the plate and then take a proof. She would make any necessary adjustments at that point before going on to her next image. She was able to create 8 little gems before the week was out. 

At the end we printed up all the plates in a marathon session. Rick was obliged to go off to Paris for a day so he trained Margot as his apprentice and the three of us cranked out almost 40 prints in the space of a few hours.

Wendy inked up the plates.

Margot managed the paper.

One of Wendy's images required a great deal of patience to prepare. She had cut out small strips of thin metal which she arranged on one of the plates before it was printed to create an emboss.

Margot, like Rick, is meticulous and exacting, which is what is required to create a clean and well registered image.

 

The press is cranked.

And here's what rolled off: 

First a snowy hillside with trees on the horizon. One version with blind embossed areas in the snow, one version without.

 

Next, a snowy little village under a night-time sky.

Here's where the little dog begins to appear - a woman holding an umbrella walks by some shops in Paris. They are each making little tracks in the snow. It was hard to photograph these images in a way to really show their charm, which was in the tiny details. Can you see the falling snow? The sausages hanging in the butcher shop window?

Here's another woman walking through the Tuileries with a dog very much like the one above. Obviously these images are printed in one color, but I swear I see the little dog's coat as red plaid.

The pièce de résistance was this last set of four plates, developed separately, then put together to become an enchanting view out a window onto a snowy Paris street scene. Do you find the dog again? Each one works individually but it was entirely magically when we carefully arranged them together and ran them through the press for the first time. This was the original idea, of course, but no one really knew how well it would look until the very end. 

What a successful week!

Margot and Wendy left this morning for the next part of their French adventure. This time they are staying for 11 weeks on the continent! It was such a pleasure to have them here, they're very easy to have around. There's some talk of them returning before they to go back home. Wouldn't that be nice?

Week 12: Short Escapes and Other Adventures

 Le Luart, a beautiful estate entrance we pass on our way to Le Mans. It has always intrigued me.

Even if Montmirail is surrounded by countryside and taking a vacation from being on permanent vacation could be seen as redundant, from time to time I get the urge to hop in the car and discover a new corner of our world. Such was the case at the beginning of this week. We took only a few hours out to discover some wonderful new places. We had an idea to ride the tourist steam train which we've heard about for several years, but have never taken. Unfortunately our adventure started late in the day and by the time we got to the station, we'd missed the last train. No problem, we simply continued on to the charming Village of Montfort-le-Gesnois with it's picturesque Roman bridge.

We walked along the river Huisne, and enjoyed others enjoying the afternoon. A fisherman, kids swimming near the waterfall, people sunbathing, biking, strolling.

Part of the path we took went through a beautiful forest which is habitat to flocks of nuthatches, a blue-gray bird with black eye patches and apricot colored bellies. They forage for insects along the trucks of trees or find nuts and berries. They receive their English name from their habit of wedging their food into nooks and crannies and hacking at their catch with strong bills to break it into manageable sized morsels. In French they are called sittelles, a name given to them by the ancient Greeks.

On our way back we stopped at the Château de Pescheray for a peek around the grounds (185 acres) of this public estate. Rick had attended a meeting here last year and wanted to show me what I had missed. There is a cafe in the castle park where we sipped a Perrier before having a walk around. The chateau is known for it's ancient boxwood trees, prized by cabinet makers for it's hardness and close grain. The castle sits at the top of a little hill with a commanding view of the surrounding countryside.

Pigeonniers (dovecots) were introduced into France by the Romans and were built to house hundreds of birds at a time. Pigeons were an important form of protein in the Middle Ages and their droppings also provided a sure source of fertilizer for crops. After the fourteenth century it was illegal for anyone who was not of the noble classes to build a dovecot and the size was restricted according to the rank of the owner. This estate was obviously owned by someone of  high class as their pigeonnier is quite large. Each niche would house a bird. The wooden arm swings around so that the ladder can be positioned to reach any hole.

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Leyla returned this week to do a bit more etching. She's become enamored of the process and is starting to be quite confident. Her father tells me she doesn't want to leave for her vacation by the sea but would rather stay and do etching at Atelier Conti! On Tuesday she came on her own, and I worked with her to produce another etching and to introduce her to lino.

She had chosen an image by Matisse of a simple line drawing of a swan which she used as a model but didn't trace. She then used a soft ground varnish to embed mint and bamboo leaves to create a beautiful texture. She printed it in blue. It turned out beautifully, I think.

She made a charming lino image as well which she experimented printing in several colors. I liked it in black.

While I was working with Leyla, we had a large group from the nearby area arrive in the studio for a brief tour and explanation of our etching process. Rick was thankfully available to do the presentation.

***

Emily and family are off for an extended vacation next week so we took one other short break to visit them in Paris before they left. We wanted to see Quinn. We took a train ride outside of Paris and had a picnic on the more bucolic part of the River Seine. Quinn couldn't quite wait until we got there so his lunch was on the train.

Less than an hour away from central Paris you can find sleepy villages just beside the river surrounded by forest. While Quinn slept in the stroller the rest of us spread out a meal on an old port on the banks of the river in a pretty little town named Thomery. We walked to and from the train station to the river though the forest.

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I more or less finished another two plate experiment, this one a Parisian street scene. Color applied a la poupée is printed first and the line drawing is over printed.

 

 ***

We had another marriage in the village this week at our local church. Both the groom's parents and the couple themselves stayed at Maison Conti.  When the young man called to make a reservation some months ago he requested that his room and his parents' be as far away from one another as possible!

After the ceremony the newlyweds were carried to their reception, just outside of town on a caleche, a horse drawn carriage. The horses were, of course, Percherons, for which this area is famous.

 Tomatoes found at our door when we came home from Paris. Another garden gift from Martine.

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

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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

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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.

 

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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