Our neighbors

Sunday, August 19th

There is so much life in this quiet little french town.  This morning while I was nursing my cup of coffee, so I could sit on the porch just a little bit longer, my tree gazing was interrupted by the rustle of leaves.  I very bright orange squirrel had decided to come down the trunk to check out my breakfast.  Just as soon as he arrived he scurried away, because refreshingly enough the wild life here is actually wild and, therefore, timid of people.  There is also a rather impressive rooster who serenades everyone in the morning and again at the end of the day.  I believe he is the one I saw at Monet's gardens next to his big old house.

traces of a painted rooster, hidden on the back of a door, in a forgotten house

A few mornings later I was lazily enjoying another cup of coffee and I heard a trashing above and to the right of me.  The trees were actually moving, it was the biggest turtle dove I have ever seen.  No idea what he was after, but he made a very nice intro to the distant viola I then heard.  The musicians from the annual music festival, Musique de Chambre à Giverny, had a few days before become our newest neighbors.  They took to practicing in the garden, hiding behind the hedges.  At the end of the week we were lucky enough to catch the first concert at the Église de Giverny (where Monet makes his final resting place).  The space, with its arched ceilings, had great acoustics and the performance was beyond my expectations; a song that stood out in my mind was a vocal piece in German by Beethoven.  I left the church with my mind cleansed and still.

Rouen

Saturday, August 18th

We all went on a day trip to Rouen.  It was a strange city, the historical capital of Normandy; hot and abandoned by the locals for summer vacation and where lost souls and run down people sleep in parks.  It has impressive churches, including Notre Dame Cathedral, painted many times over, many times of day by Monet.  Rouen was where Jeanne d'Arc was burned for heresy long ago.  I stood outside the Notre Dame awhile and looked at the front facade of Monet's paintings, it wasn't lit, so it wasn't the right time of day but its sculpted details were endless.

We wandered and eventually ended up escaping the heat in the cool interior of the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen.  I was impressed by the scale of the grand pieces of which they had many, but I was more inspired by a few small treasures I took the time to study.

Gros Horloge (astronomical clock)

 half-timbered street

boxing rabbits, charcuterie

Route, effet de neige soleil couchant, Claude Monet

(my now favorite Monet painting)

Femme nue allongée, Eugène Carrière

Goupil

Friday, August 17th

I started a self portrait today.  It was back lit with the bright green of a sunlit Pavlovnia tree; the view from outside my bedroom window.  I feel at home here at the Terra residency, my view in Brooklyn is much the same.  The big house we get to stay in, "Goupil," is cozy.  It's surrounded by a maze of hedges, gardens and other residency houses.  As a result it feels special and secret even though the tourists park right outside the hedge every morning.  And when they leave again, like clockwork, around 6 every evening, our patio and the entire town beyond becomes a peaceful new world.

My painting was not going well, and when I had painted myself into not seeing, I walked out onto the grounds and lay on my back in the grass.  Something I do not have the luxury of doing in New York.  I watched the trees above in the fading day.  One was dark from the sun leaving it and the other was still the bright acid green of my painting.  I saw when I looked beyond, high in the sky, countless tiny sparrows diving in front of the clouds.  I watched them for some time and then I went back to my easel.

Another day, another landscape

Thursday, August 16th

I went up on another hill this morning, the tall hill guarded by the white horses. It was so hot when I got to the base I plopped right down and did a quick study of a farm well surrounded by unmown grass. After I walked up with my bike, because it was too steep, I looked below at the town rooftops and acid green hills.  The trees were dark and warm in their shadows and the distant harvested farms were dusty orange.  I had breakfast under the trees and peered down at what I was going to paint next, I was content.

Then I road my bike around the flat trail that went around the top of the hill and down onto the bike path all the way to Vernon. Where I locked it and wandered; looking at the collection of art at the Musée de Vernon and then at the Collegiate Church of Our Lady (which was bombarded through the ages by wars from the Revolution to World War II, and as a result, has striking modern stained glass windows). 

(section of) The Cabbage, Blanche Hoschedé Monet, Museé de Vernon

Baudy's

Wednesday, August 15th

I returned to "Hotel Baudy's" tonight, early evening, and sat in the fading sun and drank a glass of wine while I watched the people and petted the owner's dog, who was at my feet.  I had been here years ago.
When I got off the train from Paris the line was too long for Monet's garden and I had no idea where I was so I walked down the road and an old, stylish man had beckoned me into what looked like a tavern.  He told me to go see the garden through the back door.

Baudy's is no longer a hotel, but has the memories of one.  It was the residence that the American artists claimed when they came into town.  The Baudy's provided a place with room and board, garden and studio; a place so welcoming that they never wanted to leave.  So they stayed and did their work and Giverny became an artist colony.

 Little Dog, Cafe, Ivy Hickam, ballpoint

I said goodbye to the little dog and walked down the street.  Watching the light fade on the buildings, I too never wanted to leave.

The Hamlet

After first week's crit, leaving Le Hameau

The studio area the Terra Foundation gave us for the two weeks is called "Le Hameau." The studios are said to have a lot of soul.  They are rich in history; Lilla Cabot Perry, Frederick Carl Frieseke, Mary Wheeler, and Richard Miller all painted here.

"Lady in a garden," Frederick Carl Frieseke

The interior of my studio is always cool inside because of its thick walls.  It has an old fireplace and touches of paint from previous residents. I've contributed gesso marks to the floor and a large branch from a berry bush cut and left by the gardener.  The gardens hiding to the right of the building are a little wild; not too perfectly kept and lovingly overgrown. 

Giverny

Tuesday, August 14

Today I rode up a hill with a borrowed mountain bike to the edge of a farm field.  I could see little houses and valleys below.  On my way I met two horses, one black, one white. Irritated by flies in their eyes they kept nodding their heads at me.  I patted their warm brows.  A young French girl, who must have stepped out of a painting, walked over to me calling out the horses' names.  She was rosy cheeked and wore a dress the color of the sky.  I spoke to her in my broken French and she patiently waited to understand.  When I said "Je suis Américain," she smiled.  She lives in a house down the way.  I wished I could paint her.  I said "À tout à l'heure" and hopped back on my bike.

An attempt at a landscape was made farther on up the hill.  A sweaty brow and spilt water decided when it was done. I had fussed with it too much and the lights were muddied.  But with renewed excitement for watercolor and landscape, I decided I would try again the next day for I'm out of practice in plein air and I knew that's how the day's painting would go.