Sunday, March 25, 2007

Conclusion

After leaving France I spent two days in Seattle with my friend Bunny. She got a new puppy Elvira. A french bulldog. A tiny little black thing with tiger stripes on the back end. She is adorable and a good addition of the McLeod-Olson Family. I was to take pictures of the girl but with jelag and stuff... I didn't. We managed to get to the Boarding House for lunch in Issaquah, an ultimate favorite where we had Turkey sandwiches with cranberry relish and their famous egg spinach salad with poppyseeds vinaigrette and of course their must have apple crisp that is the best in the world, above mine way above. Are your mouth watering like mine is?
Then we got to visit the Bellevue Art Museum. They were showing the Jewelry of four Israely women.http://www.bellevuearts.org/exhibitions/current/womens_tales/index.html Very interesting designs with simple materiel. Moving writings about their motivation to create.
Then a nice room about the Pilchuck School of Glass. How they got started, etc plus a narative slide show by Dale Chihuly.
An exhibit of William Morris an amazing glass blower with great opaque glass technique. http://www.bellevuearts.org/exhibitions/current/william_morris/index.html
Barbara Cooper from Chicago was showing some interesting tree trunk reconstructed with thing layers of wood glued together. Very feminine in the shape and twist of the trunk. Sensual for sure.
There was also quite a large exhibit of turned wooden bowls and such. Beautiful pieces but really large gathering of one subject. http://www.bellevuearts.org/exhibitions/current/turning_wood/index.html It was the collection of Jane and Arthur Mason.
The building is wonderful in it's architecture and the stairs are very easy to climb. I enjoyed that sensation of assending in a circle around the large room. Like embrassing the place.
The next day we had lunch in Belltown part of Seattle close to the Pike Place Market. A wonderful bakery shop where we had a pizza and a glass of wine to keep us happy for the rest of the day. We met Don, Bunny's husband accross the convention center at 800 Pike's for the exhibit of "Bodies". That was amazing and a must see if you are in Seattle right now. With a process invented by a german doctor in collaboration with the Chinese government this exhibit shows how our body is as pretty and intrecate inside out. Being a fiber artist I have new techniques to try now that I have seen what our nervous system and vasculary system looks like without the flesh around. Not gross at all the bodies look more like plastic than real. Just fabulous show.
Anyway I got home yesterday and I spend my day in pj's and took a long nap. 10 hours of jetlag takes me about three days to get back on track.
It has been a wonderful trip and I hope that you have enjoyed coming along with me on this journey.
Love to all

St Joseph in Nice

My Godmother Josephine and her Grandson Philippe for the day of the St Joseph
This is the Monastery of Cimiez attended by Franciscan Monks. I like the symbol of the two arms criss crossing each other on the top of the smaller steaples. Philippe, Yvon and Josette (old family friends) took a walk on St Joseph to this special spot overlooking Nice. It has an olive grove, the Matisse Museum, the Roman Ruin Arena and is hosting the famous Jazz festival of Nice every year in July. They have busts of famous American Jazz players like Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillepsie...

Antibes by night


Not the best quality pictures but worth posting them in my opinion. Antibes is a beautiful fortified town just on the water. There is also a fort (Fort Vauban) to it's right on the picture. Vauban is responsible for the fortifications of many villages in the Alpes Maritimes and Alpes de Haute Provence, that corner of France located in the South East of the country.



3 avenue de Grignan a Nice




This is the apartement that belonged to my Dad. I lived there as a teenager going to school and working. I stayed there about 4 years. My Godmother lives on the second floor of the villa. My Cousin has an apartement adjacent as mine.
There is lots of work to do in that little place. It has been a storage unit for about 25 years and dust has accumulated. I have empteed it and then added few pieces of furnitures and then few things that my Sister was letting go. My aunt Corinne gave me the first piece of furniture which is the little armchair. My Mom gave me the desk with the S's on the side and the marble top white wash cabinet. The secretary is from my Grandmother and I am planning on restauring it to it's better days on my next trip.
So you can see some of the garden part and the entrance with the soon to be fixed glass hawning.
The bathroom is out of service for the moment and will be another project for my next trip.
I am back now in Alaska but wanted to post what I couldn't in the last 10 days because of download problems and time crunching.

More to come...

Saturday, March 24, 2007

A day in Cabris



Cabris is another small village perched on a rock overlooking the Riviera. It is about 10 minutes north west of Grasse. I had never gone before. My Mom's friends, herself and I decided to have a meal at the auberge du vieux chateau. An excellent restaurant for sure with a terrasse that makes you want to stay and play "lezard" in the sunshine for few hours. Very nice day.







A day in St Paul de Vence



St Paul is that magical place on Earth that gives my soul the feeling of going home. It is not in the boutiques of souvenirs and painting galleries that it lives but in the wall and the vistas and the bones of the structure and of course the memories of the past the present and the future. Paule and my Mother were there with me for that visit.









Friday, March 16, 2007

Napoleon at Golfe Juan

Pictures of costumed figures mixed with the modern life... Pretty surreal. I am not a fan of Napoleon, far from it but the fashion of the time was quite interesting. Maybe too many "derriere" shot... sorry about that.

Pretty Facades

I hope that you are indulgent with my spelling mistakes. I just reread some of my posts and oups!!! I might correct them if I find out how to... I love the front of the houses in my area so I have taken some pictures of them walking in the streets. Here are few of them. Some shadows show more of what is around. Little ghosts making non permanent graffitis.

The sentence means: "The stars of wisdom shine in the depth of the ink" March is poetry month's.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Manosque

Few pictures of the two churches that we visited in Manosque, the city of the 4 hands has the "blason" is showing. The town is about two hours by road traveling north from Marseille. Close to Forcalquier and Sisteron. It is a really nice area of Provence where wine is growing as well as lavender, olives and barley to just name few.