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Nantes June 14, 2013

Friday June 14 I went down to Nantes, once the capital city of Brittany, now put into a different district for political reasons. So, who remembers the Edict of Nantes? That was the only thing I knew about the place and I didn’t really remember much about it. And at first sight, Nantes doesn’t look like much fun. But what a misleading impression. People like this in the streets

 

A 19^th century shopping mall

 

And a mechanical elephant 12 meters tall. The coolest thing ever!

 

I had to ride it, so booked a ticket right away as it was just leaving. Once aboard you enter the elephant’s spacious innards

 

Here’s a view looking straight down into its left front leg

And you can go up top and stand above its head. It sprays water from its trunk as it walks.

Up on top you can really feel it swaying.

I went back into the cabin as we approached our destination and suddenly felt liquid on my head. Since sometimes it sprayed the people on top, at first I thought it was water dripping down, but it got stronger. And it was pink liquid. A hydraulic tube had burst and hot fluid was spraying everywhere. The poor elephant slowly staggered to a stop. The attendant wasn’t sure what to do, had to radio for instructions. And that was when we learned the awful truth: in an emergency, please exit through the elephant’s butt.

 

I was sorry I didn’t get to see him walking from ground level, but he wasn’t going to walk again for a while.  Meanwhile, this same place has an amazing three story carrousel:

The theme is the ocean, and the top level has all kinds of things to ride on like boats, flying fish (my choice) and my favorite, this shell.

The operator used levers to rock the shell, which had a small seat inside for a child to sit in. As the shell rocked gently, strings going up to a rack of aluminum flying fish caused them to open and close their wings. All the contraptions had levers to do things (I could make my fish rise and wiggle from sde to side and flap his fins). The second level hung from the first and the fish were deeper water fish. You would get  into them from gangplanks that retracted.

The final level was the abyss. A giant squid with movable tentacles was the coolest thing.

All of these are made from wood carved into shapes and they are all beautiful. Did I mention that Nantes is the birthplace of Jules Verne?  All these contraptions are very much in style of illustrations from his books and carry on his spirit.

Finally, the botanical garden—not usually a place for jokes—had several decidedly odd things. The god of plants:

And last of all, a (ahem) basking robin:

 

Nantes turned out to be a lot of fun. Who’d have thought it?

The next day, Don arrived at the Rennes airport and is now staying with me in Dinan. Back to painting in the next blog.

 

 

 

This will be another short blog post.

I was pretty foolish to be optimistic about the weather in the last post. It has been cold, grey, and drizzly, when it wasn’t actually windy and raining. I have to admit it has gotten me down a bit. Also the French are complaining and everyone is saying how abnormal this is. Well, maybe it will change for the better soon. Every time I go, I end up with wet feet. The bartender here at the Best Western (where I go to glom onto their wifi) said they say in Brittany that they can have all 4 seasons in one day. I think one hour might be more like it....

Since the weather was bad, I have been working in the studio from photos taken earlier on. I did a black and white study of the hurdy-gurdy man who plays on the streets in the old town. I hope to make a color version of it.

  I haven't seen him for days now, and today was market day. Bad weather to be a street musician.

 

Also a view looking toward the end of the steep street  from the port. I am  always happy when I see this view because it means the climb is over!

Yesterday, Wednesday, it looked like it would clear a bit, so I dashed out and went up the river. It didn’t really clear much, but it stayed dry till I finished this plein air piece.

 

Then it started raining hard—lucky me  to have found that brief window.

 

Tomorrow I am off to Nantes where I will stay overnight, then back to Rennes (half way between Dinan and Nantes) to meet Don at the airport on Saturday when he arrives from Dublin.

And as I write this, the sun has been out for over an hour!!! Everyone is looking up in amazement. Maybe this time……

This is just a quick note to say that the fan in this computer is acting wonky. If it goes out, I will not be able to post anything for the foreseeable future. I don't know of any internet cafes in Dinan.... So if you don't here from me, don't worry, I am alright, just out of communication.

Keep your fingers crossed, think nice things in the direction of my computer, and I will keep going as long as I can. Maybe everything will be alright....

 

 

As I write this, Monday evening, the sun has finally reappeared for the first time since Friday. What a relief! I was beginning to think Dinan was the sort of place that had a week of summer every year, and that it was over now. Of course, there’s no guarantee that it won’t be back to rain and cold tomorrow, but I’m being optimistic today!

Sunday morning, grey and cold, I set out for what has become a morning ritual—the walk to the bakery. It is about 5 minutes away and opens at 8 am. In this picture, it is hidden a bit by the white building, but it is at the old bridge at the foot of the steep street up to the city.

 

Remember the photo of the ice cream place?  Very nice, but I can walk by without hestitating. Not so the bakery:

 

And here’s what I come for nearly every day:

 

So, let me expound a bit on French bread: Zut alors!! Sacre bleu!! Mon dieu!!! Holy Cow, man, is it good!!!

Walking back with a big baguette (the stereotypical French bread that looks like a baseball bat, but tastes infinitely better) in my hand, still warm and aromatic, I know what bread should be. I try, but can not resist biting off the end on the way back. I guess that speaks ill of me—I never see anyone else carrying a bitten off baguette—but I can not  it. It whispers to me, eh, you, go ahead, just a leetle bit! No one is looking... Either the French are made of sterner stuff than me, or else, poor things, they are blasé about it, having it every day of their lives. If they ever had to eat Wonderbread,  maybe they’d realize how good they have it. And baguettes are only one of the many (MANY!!!) delicious breads and bakery stuffs available every day.

Well, back to painting. I finished up a small watercolor of men selling baskets at the market,

 

Then went out for a walk. It was afternoon, not nice weather, but a lot of people were walking along the river.

 

I went further than I usually go downstream—in fact to the next village, Taden. Along the way, I found the house I want to live in, and its garden. Separated from the river only by the dirt path along the bank.

A bit further and I found what I wanted to paint—a blue-ish field of grain (oats? Wheat? I’m not sure) on a very overcast day. Colors were subtle, but beautiful.

After I got back home, I made a cup of tea and finished off that baguette with some rhubarb jam (another bit of heaven!). Ah, France!

Now that I'm settled in and painting, there won't be as much to write about. But I will continue to post every couple of days.

 

Thursday’s market was wonderful for sketching, buying vegetables, local strawberries, wonderful local radishes, etc. But not a place I could set up and paint in. So, my first studio painting here, done from sketches and photos.

Friday, I thought I would go to Cancale—remember John Singer Sargent’s painting Oyster Gatherers of Cancale?—that’s the place.  It meant getting up at 5:30 and all was well until I was about 5 minutes from the house and remembered I had left the radiators on. Well, going back meant I would not make the bus, so I stayed in Dinan, and it was a good thing. The morning on the river was soft and grey and I found a wonderful spot on the other side of the river to paint.

 

In the afternoon, I was working in the studio, when I heard a lot of commotion outside the window. These guys were painting the stripes that mean pedestrian crossing.  I was impressed by their huge wooden stencil (it took two to move it).

Not long after that a huge storm blew in. Monsoon rains, thunder and lightning. Power went off and on in my house! 

Today  is cold and windy. I went out to paint in the afternoon but I was cold and there were a lot of unruly French children acting up. Oh well, not every day is a painting day.

Earlier, I took a break from my painting and with a cup of tea in hand, stepped out and sat on the little bridge by the tiny creek that flows on the side of the house. Here's how it looks from there. You can see my place, and the harbor, and in the distance, Dinan is on top of the hill, at the end of the very very steep medieval way up. Beautiful....

 

 

 

Bliss was getting up late (7:30) and making coffee and eating French bread with rhubarb jam, French butter, eggs, and some fig yogurt. And taking my time, puttering around, organizing things. By the time I finally got around to going out to paint, it was after 10:30!! Having no idea where to go (well, I had some ideas, but I really wanted to see what was down the river), I set out from my house and went left past the big factory that makes wooden boxes of the kind strawberries come in. I need to get inside that place and paint it, I think, but don’t quite know how.
Anyway,  a short walk and there is a wonderful spot on the river with a small creek coming in, and a big castle like mansion on the hill. I had to paint it.

 

After lunch at my place, I walked off in the other direction. About 45 minutes upstream is a small village called Lehon, where there is a lock and a huge old abbey.

It is unbearably pretty, with a lovely bridge.

 

I painted in the abbey cloisters. The abbey was once a very important place, and was started in the 13^th century. It fell into disrepair and has been largely rebuilt.

The village was full of young people painting en plein air—turned out to be an art class that was through a door in the cloisters. As I painted I saw them all come back.

  She's across the river, painting color studies for her class.

 

The  next day, I set my alarm for 5:30—I wanted to get out and paint that same spot by the river in the really early morning. This is how the harbor looked when I stepped out the door at 6 am:

 

There was a beautiful blue mist on the river, but it was cold!

I shivered and couldn’t wait to get back to my warm kitchen and have some coffee!

 

In the afternoon, I decided it was time to see the house of the woman responsible for all us artists staying here,  Yvonne Jean-Haffen. A very friendly young woman who speaks French faster than is humanly possible welcomed me in. I explained who I was and that I really wanted to paint in the garden. She let me go, after warning me that they close at 6 and I might have to jump the wall or something (she is really hard to understand!!!).

The grounds are beautiful. Not Monet’s garden, but what is?

 

  These are the steps up to her house; that's my bathroom window.

 

 

I painted the side of her house decorated by one of the ceramic statues she made.

Tomorrow is the market up in the main square! I am planning to be there when they start setting up.

 

Dinan,  June 3

 

The early train (7:30) from Paris got me to Dinan by 11:15. The French highspeed trains are a marvel, but not cheap. Meeting me at the station were Anne and Jeanne, two women who are connected with the Grande Vigne, the name of the art museum that  houses artists for a month in the small out-building (called, happily enough, La Vignette).

The gate on the right leads into the small house (with a ladder leaning on it) that I am staying in. THe big one above is the museum/former house of the Jean-Haffner the artist who started all this.

 

The minute I saw it I thought, this is so COOOOL!

So, here is the house, room by room (I omit the bathroom—it is not terribly interesting except for a very old tub).

   The Studio, from the window

  Studio again, small but serviceable

  the kitchen, after shopping

the stairway to upstairs bedrooms

the small bedroom

THe big bedroom.

After showing me around the place, they offered to drive me up to the supermarket where I sort of went wild buying cheese, bread, fresh veggies and fruits,  etc.  After my lunch (of bits and pieces of all the above items), I went up to the town. I am living down on the river not far from the harbor.  Here is the view from my front door (almost). 

Actually, I am a bit further away from this scene, but I can see it!

 

There is an incredibly steep and long street that was the medieval route from the harbor to the town, lined with ancient buildings. And one was an amazing ice cream store. But I had just had lunch, so only the colors attracted me. (But I had to promise I would come back and eat some tomorrow to take a picture; you know where to find me in the afternoon!)

 

 I walked around the town and marveled at it. It was never damaged in the wars and is very well preserved. All the time, I kept thinking, this is SOOO cool! Here’s a view from the ramparts looking down to the harbor and the oldbridge. Follow the river back and I am living where the white arrow is.

 

It is SO COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!

Vernon & Giverny, May 31, June 1 2013

 

It is not so far in distance from Auvers sur Oise to Giverny—both are north of Paris about 40 minutes on the train. In psychological distance, between Vincent and Claude Monet, the distance is incalculable. Compared to Vincent’s tiny attic room in Auvers, Monet’s house is palatial (heck, compared to my house, it is palatial!!). After a rocky start, Monet became known, respected, collected, and by the end of his life (1926) he was a legend. People came from around the world to paint in Giverny, to be in his aura.  So I had to go too.

I was staying in nearby Vernon (the train is direct from Paris, Gare St Lazare which Monet painted often). Crossing the bridge over the Seine, past this wonderful old mill,

It is about a 4 km walk on a pedestrian path to his house. A beautiful walk on a sunny day and it has become so!! Hooray! (though still not as warm as June should be).  Views along the way, looking back to the old church in Vernon, were wonderful,

 

  but Giverny beckoned.  I did the walk twice, and the second day I spent all day in Giverny, painting, seeing the museum, etc.  I was a bit disappointed in the museum, which used to be about the Americans who painted there. People like Robinson, B utler, Frieseke, Metcalf, etc. Now, they had a few of them on view, but it was mostly given over to a temporary show of Paul Signac. He’s no slouch, but there is something a bit too formal and contrived about his pointillist style, and it became too much after a while.            

And, as it happened,  June 1 saw the opening of an exhibition of pastels by l’Art du Pastel,  a European organization.  I ran into 2 people I knew (at least by name) at the show!  But I was there to paint, myself. I had done one on the way into town where the path leaves a field and enters Giverny

 

Later, I climbed up part way on the hill behind town to paint a view over the town church, where Monet and family are buried.

 

But Monet’s gardens are the prime place. There is a nice garden behind the old Hotel Baudy, which was the hotel for many Americans visiting before WWI

but compared to Monet’s it was a weed patch. I have never,   NEVER,  seen anything like the flower beds behind Monet’s house. It puts any botanical garden I have visited to shame.

 

 

I’m sure the local nursery loved him when he tooled up in the spring. “Bonjour M. Monet!” “Bonjour, Joe. One thousand of those red geraniums, s’il vous plait. And maybe 700 blue iris, if you got ‘em.” “Mais, ous, M. Monet! I’ll have Josh bring ‘em by tomorrow!”

OK, I know, it didn’t work that way. But the size and extent and density of the garden means he had a lot of help with it. And I am not even thinking of the water garden with the famous water lilies.

It was super crowded both days, but here’s a nice thing. Artist’s can get a special ticket, so we can stay on for two hours after it closes and paint!. Wonderful! Everyone has gone home, it is peaceful and quiet, and I had a great time.

By the time I walked all the way back to Vernon I was dead on my feet, but what of it? Painting in Monet’s garden is a dream come true!

 

Now I am back in Paris for a night, heading off to Dinan in the morning. I am not on the boat, but in a cheap, but good, eco-hotel near this lion.

Since I have been away one week now, I had a hamburger for dinner at the Indiana Café. Since I am in Paris, I ate it with a knife and fork.

 

Gray, rainy and cold. Not great painting weather, not even good weather to walk around and enjoy the city. It was not too bad when I arrived from Auvers, but quickly clouded up. I took a bus from the Gare du Nord across town to where I am staying: on this boat in the Seine.

It is a wonderful accommodation, with a lot of room and I am the only person on the boat.

 

The owner, Mme Sophie Hachet comes in the morning with breakfast. She is a very interesting  person—author of several cookbooks, spent six years sailing from here to New Caledonia on a sailboat. She intended to circumnavigate theworld, but after all that time at sea, wanted to go back to France.  After settling in and learning the ropes of things on the boat (such as the composting toilet—she is very environment conscious)—I took the Metro to the center of town to meet Debra Joyce Dawson, my artist friend. She led me to the Sennelier art supply store, a place I’d overlooked in earlier years and we spent a lot of time oohing and aahing. Debra discovered these tiny feathers on bamboo sticks for using with ink, and had to buy one.

I went for the larger sort and got one of these white ones, which has a pointed quill to draw with. I will order a powdered wig next week to go with it!

An evening in my favorite Irish pub in Paris followed with my artist friend Shane who lives here in Paris, lots of art talk, etc, and pouring rain outside. I didn’t get back to the boat till nearly midnight.

The next day just rained on and off.  I didn’t have much ambition, and an afternoon appointment at Roche pastels was about all I was up to. Isabel Roche  (l) and Margaret Zaimont (apologies if I got names wrong in any way) showed their wonderful small shop and we shared pastel talk for a while--very enjoyable.

 

Earlier in the day, I had wandered from the boat a little upstream and discovered the Cemetiere des Chiens, a cemetery for pets started in 1899.

It was  sad but beautiful place to wander in the drizzle, and suddenly, I came upon the grave of Rin Tin Tin! Yes, the famous movie star’s last resting place, with flowers on the headstone left by admirers.  I pictured weeping dogs carrying bouquets in their mouths placing them on the stone and nudging them with their noses into place.

There were a lot of Fifis, Chou-chous and other pets. Several had very sad and moving epitaphs. Emma, a dog who died in 1900, was remembered by her owner with the words “Faithful companion, and only friend in my sad and aimless life.” Even sadder was this one: “1915-1929 Here lies Dick of the trenches, faithful companion, who was always my only friend . (there’s a bit of a theme going on here, eh?) His life was a domestic ideal and his loss plunged me into weariness and despair. His memory haunts me; I miss his presence. Remorse envelops me, I find myself helpless to fight it. Now, completely alone, I believe in nothing. My life has been  murdered.  He was loved by his mistress, and that alone makes me happy. “

Gloomy  thoughts on a gloomy day.   To end on a more cheerful note (sort of) I give you this graffiti I spotted near the Pompidou Center:

 

I have been in Auvers sur Oise for the last two days and loved it! It is a lovely small town alongside the Oise river, just north of Paris .

 

I am certainly not the first to find it charming—Daubigny, Cezanne, Guillemant, and most famously, van Gogh, all painted here. Van Gogh died here, and that really put the town on the international tourist map. It almost  seems that they should change the name to Vincentville, since his image is everywhere. 

I have mixed feelings about all this vincentomania.  He  had  a miserable short life. Now that he has become one of the top five painters known around the world, he is Auver’s greatest natural resource . They have put up reproductions of his paintings at the places he painted, which is very interesting and good. But they are also selling Vincent tee shirts, coffee mugs, puzzles, etc. His image glares down on drinkers in a local pub where I had lunch. 

Yesterday I saw a group of school children being shown the outside of the last place he lived, the Auberge Ravoux. During his life, he was bedeviled by children calling him names, throwing stones at him, etc.

In fact, he had constant problems dealing with others, and was always lonely and an outsider. One wonders what he would have made of it all.

The first day here was beautiful and sunny.  I would love to have painted but with hardly any sleep on the plane, I was pushing 24 hours of being awake.  All I could do was walk around a bit, take some photos, and then sleep. The next day was cold, rainy, very grey. C’est la vie!

I found a dry place under a bridge and painted in the morning.

After lunch, I headed up to the cemetery to see Vincent and Theo’s burial place. At the top of the hill, there is a vast expanse of wheat field—Vincent painted those memorable wheatfield paintings, maybe at that spot. Clouds were churning and the gate to the cemetery was across the field. I set up to paint and after about half an hour, felt a drop. Turning around, I beheld the blackest cloud of the day headed my way.

Hurriedly packing up, I  made it  over to the cemetery and shelter. Vincent and Theo are buried side by side with just plain headstones. After all the hoo ha in town, it was striking to see how quietly simply their graves are.  Since I have been reading the big biography of Vincent that came out a few years back, I feel like I know him (and Theo) a bit, and that brought more to this visit than one usually gets at the grave of a Famous Person.

 

After dinner (a wonderful Morroccan tagine) I walked back up. The clouds were clearing by then and the wheat fields were lush green and beautiful. As I looked across to the lonely cemetery, a small rainbow graced the sky.  I’m  really glad I came to Auvers.