Happy New Year to everyone!

For the next while I've decided to post some of my first drawings that were inspired by la belle France and also the letters I wrote last winter when we were in Provence. I've been typing them up and it's really fun for me to read about these thing I've partly forgotten already.



The second still-life I did and one I still love very much.
8 x 10 on paper with pencil crayons

Carqueiranne, France

Lettre de Provence - #1

Feb. 12/02

Chers amis,

I am siting writing this in the sun with the balcony door open on my new tablecloth typiquement Provençale with sunflowers and olive branches. I never tire of the blues, reds, and yellows of le sud. I thought I would spend most of the trip looking for that special santon de Provence to keep my fisherman (from another trip) company. Would you believe I found the perfect one the first day in this little village! It is a painter with a smock (almost as messy as I manage to get my T-shirts...) with palette and brush in hand. There is also an easel with a typical provençale scene in the painting- a terracotta tile roofed house and cypress trees. In Hyeres I saw another wonderful santon scene - 4 men playing cards at a table with a Pastis bottle and glasses. The store was closed for annual holidays with no specified return date - very “midi” like. We’re reaccustoming ourselves for everything closing down for 2-4 hours in the afternoon - except restaurants, of course.

We had a very smooth flight, everything on time, baggage all arrived, and got the car very quickly. Nice airport is quite small and manageable and rather laid back. The customs people were nowhere to be seen so we didn’t even have to clear customs and our baggage was there in minutes. The flight from Frankfurt to Nice (about 1 hr. 10 min.) was great as we followed the Swiss Alps, the French Alps, then the Maritime Alps on the Mediterranean. We hadn’t travelled that route in winter so it was amazing to see the snow coverage. The Nice airport is located right on the Mediterranean so it’s a wonderful way to enter France...although nothing can quite beat stumbling bleary-eyed from your couchette compartment after tossing and turning all night on the overnight train from Paris to see the bluest of skies and the Mediterranean in all its glory and the familiar paysage du midi.

We couldn’t believe the weather on the 25th of January....sunny, blue blue skies and around 20 degrees. We sat on our hotel balcony overlooking the Promenade des Anglais and seriously thought of trying to find the shorts we had packed for April in Italy. Instead we cracked open a bottle of rosé de Provence from the mini-bar.

Everyone at the university where Jim is teaching is very nice and the university is quite pleasant. However, it is located in an area of industrial parks and big box stores - a bit of a shock after the charm of Nice. We have found a wonderfully charming village on the ocean called Carqueiranne which is only about a 15 minute drive to the university. We have fallen in love with this village, the people, and the way of life.

We began in the ground floor of a villa with the owners upstairs. We had a beautiful garden all to ourselves. They’ve been terrific - so friendly, inviting us up for drinks and appies. I mentioned I liked flowers so she ordered some special flowers for me from a friend who is a grower. She also gave us gifts of her home made lemon wine and orange marmelade made from the oranges and lemons in her garden. This is the season for oranges and lemons and it’s really neat to see all the trees laden with fruit. All the little villages have their flower festivals. Right now all the Mimosa (Acacia) trees are in bloom - beautiful yellow flowers a little like our broom.

We did find the lower level a little cool and we were hoping for a sea view so we did find a great modern apartment (we control the heat!) right in the port. The village is still very close and there are lots of interesting little shops and restaurants here as well.

We’ve had some wonderful meals - fish soup with rouille, mussels, fabulously fresh shrimp and prawns, various local fish and of course the usual wonderful free range chicken, eggs, wonderful lamb and pork - all the veg and fruits taste so fresh and “of the earth”. The markets have been really fun and we’ve some great cheeses from farms and saucage to die for.

We’ve also had a great time at flea markets. We really scored in adding five more water bottles for pastis to our collection and some neat French popular music from the 60’s. Jim tend to ferrat out smelly old books....
(to be cont'd)

The last of the quicktime movies from our trip. I have decided I don't really like taking video on trips...too much of a hassle worrying about the camera and lugging it around. Give me my lightweight still camera anyday. My son is pleased because he gets to borrow it indefinitely. This one is of our hotel in Siena. We arrived in Siena after a miserable day driving from Florence (almost didn't find our car after parking it on the outskirts of Florence for 6 days), got on the freeway to Rome rather than Siena and made bad choices about getting on the right road, Jim insisted I drive after my contant nagging about going too fast and passing dangerously, then fumed while I poked along behind a slow truck all the rest of the way into Siena. Those of you who travel know those kinds of days well. And we were expecting to get ripped off in one of the most popular hill towns in Tuscany.

We landed up in this fabulous old hotel with a room with a wonderful view of the Tuscan hills and a super back garden. The rate wasn't cheap but included breakfast and dinner. The dinners were wonderful and we sampled some great wines from the region. It was a real old style hotel and we felt completely pampered...just what we needed for three days and it was an excellent base to explore the area.

The music is Tino Rossi's "Viene, Viene" ...our theme song while driving through Italy.

roomwithaview.mov

Our hotel in Siena

I've made a quicktime movie that begins with our apartment in the port of Carqueiranne and then footage of the Thursday market. Shopping at the local weekly market is a total highlight of living in France. The day I did this there was a Mistral blowing and you get a good idea of the wind and also of the village of Carqueiranne. The market is spread over the main street and square. Although we're often in shirtsleeves in Feb/Mar in the south of France, that particular day was a little chilly. The music is Tino Rossi singing La Méditerranée.

Today's entry is for all my friends who love travelling in France...enjoy!

market.mov
The weekly market in Carqueiranne with the Mistral blowing.

A month today we'll be on our way to live for two months in the wonderful little village of Carqueiranne. I've posted some video footage in a small quicktime movie.

Carquieranne.France.mov

A taste of Carqueiranne

Merry Christmas everyone! Just taking a little break...turkey's cooked, gravy is made, Richard did the vegetables. Jim and Richard are having their Christmas chess game. Our very dear friends, Don and Elaine, will arrive in about an hour. We're all really looking forward to having a quiet Christmas together and remembering family, friends, and being thankful for being so blessed.

Today is a Christmas present for our dear friend, Monique. I took this video footage when we met her mother and her friend, Roger, in the south of France this past winter. It had been many years since we saw Jacqueline but we all had the feeling no time had passed and we so enjoyed meeting again. We hope to host them at our apartment in Carquieranne this coming winter.

UncadeaupourMonique.mov

One of the highlights of Christmas time in my childhood home was when my father brought home the wooden box of Japanese oranges...a tremendous treat we looked forward to all year long.



old Japanese orange box label

We're all booked for France...flights, car, apartment. We decided to go back to our apartment in the port of Carqueiranne. I'm thinking of that wonderful fresh fish I bought off the fishboats already...who knows...perhaps this time when I paint them they won't turn out red, blue, and yellow!
So, we'll be seeing this sign quite a bit very soon.

Autoroute entrance to Marseilles

I started reading "The Good Women of China" by Xinran. These stories were compiled by a radio journalist in China from 1989 who hosted a radio call-in show, during which she invited Chinese women to speak on the air about their lives. "Words on the Night Breeze" became famous throughout the country for its unfliching portrayal of what it meant to be a woman in modern China.

Now, is this a "Chinese thing"...to take a sad tale that stretches credibility anyway and then just for good measure throw in even more incredulity and melodrama?

The first story is called "The Girl who Kept a Fly as a Pet" and is based on a box of letters and journal entries mysteriously left at the radio station. A young girl begins to be sexually abused by her father at the age of 11. The father tells her her mother doesn't like her so she must not tell her mother or she will be jealous of her. Eventually the mother does find out but lets the situation continue to save the family's honour. The girl begins to deliberately injure herself and make herself sick so she can spend time in the hospital and be away from her father's abuse. So far, so good in terms of believability.

Then, one day when the girl is in hospital she feels a baby fly crawl up her legs and she is pleased to be so lovingly caressed in this way that she builds a little nest for the fly and keeps it as a pet. Still, not totally beyond the realm of the credible. The baby fly is squashed so then the girl befriends a large fly in her room and tries to protect it. This fly is eventually squashed. The girl becomes desperate and since she knows flies carry disease she squashes another fly into a wound which becomes infected and then she dies.

But this seemingly isn't enough. While in the hospital she has befriended a young woman with rheumatoid arthritis who was an orphan but was supported by her village to reach the achievement of being a cadre of the military. While on a walk outside the hospital our young girl sees a man and woman doing something she doesn't understand and reports to hospital staff that a man is trying to kill a woman. This was her friend who was making love with her boyfriend. They are both arrested and the young woman refuses to say her boyfriend was raping her. The boyfriend commits suicide. The young woman loses her position in the military and is marched back in shame to her village where she, of course, becomes completely ostracized.

Just a little over top don't you think. It doesn't make me inclined to read any more!

And one more time...



Sunrise

I'll try once again to post this painting.



Sunrise

This is my latest painting, inspired by looking at some beautiful sunrises recently out my livingroom window. I've taken liberties, of course. There are actually large numbers of Oak trees in front of the view and doing the trees was my original inspiration. But I really liked the background I did so I couldn't bring myself to put the trees in. Will do another background and put the trees in this time!

I seem to be reading an awful lot of what could be loosely described as historical fiction. Seems to be a lot of books in this category these days. A few notes about them.

"Fingersmith" by Sarah Waters. This was shortlisted for the Booker and I notice she was at the Vancouver Writer's Festival recently. A big beast of a book but very intriguing. I really loved all the twists and turns and the historical aspect of London and life in the 1860's. Quite an interesting modern way through all sorts of standard stuff like gothic, romance, etc.

"The Last Crossing" by Guy Vanderhaeghe. He really seems to capture all those issues of the wild west in an authentic but modern way. Debunking the romance yet leaving something admirable of those times and pioneers, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

"Mount Appetite" by Bill Gaston. Read a few of his stories since the book was shortlisted for the Giller. He's a reasonably good story teller.

"Bel Canto" by Ann Patchett. A novel that was very hard to put down and really very beautifully written. I look forward to reading other work by her.

"The Story of Lucy Gault" by William Trevor. A very good tale as one comes to expect from Trevor. Incredible ironies in the events of the Irish and English background families. A story, of hate, loss, love, redemption, mercy, forgiveness, and the essential mystery of being human---irony does best explore those themes.

We saw "Frida", the movie about Frida Kahlo, the other day. Really quite worth seeing. I'm currently taking a course on Emily Carr, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Frida kahlo and it made me more sympathetic to her work. I don't need to build up enthusiasm for the other two artists. Also saw "Italian for Beginners" on video...also quite good.

This is my latest painting and I've included the photo I painted it from. I debated quite a while whether to keep it simple much like the photo or add various coloured sailboats, kayaks, kites, etc. I decided to keep it simple since I was initially attracted to the simplicity of the photo and the three elements of white: snow on the mountains, sailboat, and seagull.


Olympic View
11 x 14 acrylic on paper


photo of the Olympics

Snow...only in Victoria, you say....!

Looks like Montreal received its first snowfall yesterday. Although we west coast types love to tease the rest of Canada, just to remind Monique that we also get snow from time to time here in Lotus land.


Snow in Victoria in 2001

And a little quicktime movie on our "snowstorm".
SnowinVictoria.mov

I'm posting pictures today of my kitchen reno. It's turned out even better than I expected...the white of the cabinets and the tiles along with the halogen lights create a light that is very like the south of France. A wonderful bonus that will help to dispel those dark gloomy days of our winter and remind me of how wonderful our winter was there last year.

A very special thanks to Mary who was my unpaid design consultant and gave me lots of ideas and encouragement. I did doubt myself at times whether this idea of the tiles would actually work but Mary was always confident. Mary also sewed my curtains...unkown talents!

Thanks also to Marnie who suggested the idea of painting some of my designs on tiles. This was when I had just started drawing and was using pencil crayons...the thought of painting anything was not in my mind! And thanks to Cindy and Susan who also helped with suggestions...and a very big thank you to Chris who spent his Saturday morning getting my cabinet doors back!

And thanks to Adam and Brendan who did the painting, tiles, counters, etc. You did a super job.

Here's a lamp I created for my son's apartment. It was old and messy and had a very dull shade. A coat of silver paint for the base and black paint for the shade did wonders to brighten it up. I then put my night sky design on it (thanks to my friend, Fern, who gave me the idea from a diagram she made for me).

One of my neighbours told me I should keep a portfolio of my work. I've found it's been a great idea as I already forget when I did certain things and since I give away quite a bit of stuff, it's nice to have a picture. It's also been really helpful doing the tiles for my kitchen as I have the designs in an easy format to work from. Today I'm posting pictures of a couple of trays I did from my paintings in France.

I 'm posting a few notes about books I read over the last few months. I'm always on the lookout for suggestions for reading so pass any ideas along by email.

"The Map of Love" by Ahdaf Soueif. Egyptian writer. Fairly good story even with all the obvious politics. Somehow fairly intriguing even though the characters were rather cardboard and romanticized.

"Oleander, Jacaranda" by Penelope Lively. Very good non-fictional account of a child's perception of events in Egypt during her childhood there.

"Miss Garnet's Angel" by Sally Vickers. A quiet unassuming book that gets you in the end especially having recently visited Venice where it takes place. I think most people want to read something set in Venice after having been there...just to recapture the magic spell.

"The Russlander" by Sandra Birdsell. Very impressive especially how the suspense really builds even though you know about the eventual massacre. Really managed to pull off the telling of a historical period without boring you to death like Wiebe did in "Sweeter than All the World".

"When We Were Orphans" by Kazuo Ishiguro. In the end somewhat disappointing and even during the novel it didn't seem really all that good. Can't really explain why I couldn't put it down and read it the entire day until I finished it...certainly was a page-turner.

"Downhill Chance" by Donna Morrissey. Another really good Newfie writer. I think she really captured the way of life in the outposts before and after WWII without making it overly idealized. I loved the way she captured the language and expressions.

"Testament" by Nino Ricci. Nice to see Ricci writing up to his "Lives of the Saints" period again. He has captured the times of Jesus and what things were probably like and how the stories came about and grew.

"Spelling Mississippi" by Marnie Woodrow. Another new Canadian writer. Very good writing especially for a first novel. I did like the settings of New Orleans and the flood of '66 in Florence. We saw the plaque and the water line of this flood when we were in Florence this past April.

"The Divine Economy of Salvation" by Priscila Uppal. Quite an amazing first novel by a 27 yr old and also Canadian. About a young girl who becomes a nun to try to redeem her involvement in a another young girl's death when she was a teenager.

"In the Skin of a Lion" by Michael Ondaatje. Some excellent writing and overall very good especially the ending but I somehow got a little bogged down with it.

"The Remains of the Day" by Kazuo Ishiguro.The books goes deeper than the film but I don't think I would have been disappointed by the film if I had read the book first.

"The Navigator of New York" by Wayne Johnston. Another fabulous book by Johnston this time about polar exploration and the controversy around Cook and Peary. Wonderful writing once again about ice and snow.

On the mystery front, "Justice Hall" by Laurie R. King was very good as well as Reginald Hill's "Dialogues of the Dead". Ruth Rendall should give up writing I think. Gave up reading both "Adam and Eve and Pinch Me" and "The Blood Doctor".

This is my latest painting and tiles I painted for a backspash in my kitchen. I did the painting as a study for a canvas floorcloth I want to do for my soon-to-be new terracotta stone floor. I'm doing a partial kitchen reno incorporating my the backsplash plus other painted tiles sporadically placed with white tiles. The designs are all going to be from the paintings I did in the south of France this past winter. My walls are already a wonderful sunny yellow of Provence. I think having this kitchen will always make me think of those wonderfully warm, full of light sunny days during our winter there. Just the thought should brighten up our dark gloomy west coast winter.


Mimosas in bloom along the coast around St. Tropez


Rockfish on a provençale tablecoth painted on tiles

Our very dear friend, Monique, moved to Montreal this month to take up a new challenge as the Director of a language centre. We wish her very well but we will miss her a lot, although I believe there will always be a bit of the spirit of Monique in Victoria.

Monique in the midst of preparations for Montreal

This is a trunk that my friend, Fern, gave to me. I wish I had taken a "before" picture. I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. My son is now using it as a coffee table. I had put in pictures of all the places he had travelled in the lid.

I've started painting on glossy white ceramic tiles with Liquitex Glossies paint and having tremendous fun with this medium. I've posted a pictures of a trivet I made and I've made some coasters as well. Next I'm going to try to do something like my Rockfish painting over six 6" x 6" tiles that I hope will work as a back splash over my stove. The medium is quite different to paint with so I'm so quite sure how it will turn out. Should be fun trying.


Tuscan Hills on 6" x 6" white glossy ceramic tile

Mathieu, the fellow from Paris with a website on Pastis 51 and who found my painting of the Pastis 51 water bottle, has included my blog on his site. Thanks, Mathieu, it's been fun email chatting and I really enjoy your site. Take a look at Mathieu's site at:

Une canadienne en vacances en France peint le pastis 51

Another reclaimed table today...this one my son's landlord was throwing out. It had three inches of snow on it when I rescued it. And a few paintings I did from pictures I took in Italy.


Table with the Tuscan Hills design


Rialto Bridge - Venice


Houses sinking into the Grand Canal - Venice

test

I'm posting my latest painting today. I did another Tuscan hills and cypress trees idea. I was much happier with this one than the last one I tried.


Tuscan hills and sunflowers

I'm posting some pictures of two tables that my neighbours were going to throw out. I'm really very pleased with the results. The one with the pines and mimosas is in my livingroom now and the one with the palette, brushes, and paint jars is serving as a table in my studio. I've also included the cricket bat I painted with a Yorkshire scene.

One of the really fun things about having this blog is that you get responses from people out there somewhere. I got an email today from a fellow in Paris who really liked my painting with the Mimosa branch in the Pastis 51 bottle. He's from Paris and collects Pastis 51 stuff as well as having a website devoted to it. We had a lot of fun during our winter in the south of France going to flea markets and picking up pastis water bottles, ice buckets, and even a set of playing cards from Ricard. Pastis is just perfect to drink in the south of France...somehow it's not quite the same back home. The picture isn't too clear but you'll get the idea.


Pastis memorabilia

This is a study I did for painting a Yorkshire scene on a cricket bat I bought quite a while ago in a second hand store. I was quite pleased with the way the cricket bat turned out. I'll post a picture when I get my film developed. I tried to include a border collie but it didn't quite work.


Yorkshire Dales with drystone fences and sheep

Last summer when we were in Vancouver we took a couple of free walking tours given by the Architectural Institute of B.C. They offer six in total (we did the Chinatown and West End ones). They also give five in Victoria. We really enjoyed them and learn a lot about the city we grew up in. You can get them to send you electronic or snailmail brochures by emailing tours@aibc.bc.ca or check out their web site at tours

Today I'm posting a couple of other paintings I did recently. The first one was on a canvas so I took a (rather bad) picture of it.


Ile de Bendor


Tuscan hills with Cypress trees

I finished a painting from my Chinatown pictures. Just for fun I'm going to post it, the preliminary sketch I did and the three pictures I used.


Fantan Cafe


Sketch for the Fantan Cafe

Photos I used for the painting

My son and I went picture taking in Chinatown last weekend.

I was practicing making links on Monday and one annoying this about the Blogger program is that it won't delete postings you want to delete sometimes for a long time. It may magically disappear one of these days. Anyway, I didn't really want to link people to the Apple Store. I'll try this again. I really love the graphics of vintage posters especially advertisements for travel and drinks. You can take a look at some of these at Art and Posters

I see the Apple Store posting has disappeared now. I think you have to make another posting before it actually will delete the previous.

Along with the two wheeled theme I've posted the photos I used to do my motorcycle painting.


Motorcycles in St. Tropez


Motorcycles in Cassis

Here are the bicycle pictures. Having trouble with my scanner so this might be the last of pictures for a while.


Old bicyles in Italy


I love the colours of this one

One thing we noticed about Italy is that many people of all ages still ride very old ordinary bicycles. I took quite a few pictures of these old bikes and I'll be posting some over the next few days. I think I'll try to do some kind of painting as well.


Wooden bicycle in front of a deli shop in Florence

These are some cyclists getting a well deserved drink of water from the community fountain in the very beautiful medieval village of Gordes in France. This is a hilltown and it was quite a hike for these men who weren't exactly young but obviously very fit.

The French do certainly love their dogs. They are welcome in restaurants, buses, food shops...you name it. They are quite well-behaved in these places and it was fun in Carqueiranne to see some dogs wandering on their own like dogs in our neigbourhood used to do when we were growing up. The French haven't quite got into the idea of cleaning up after their dogs but the street sweepers were out several times a day in our little village so it wasn't a big problem. I did have to laugh at this device the village had installed on the beach for dogs to do their business...a "villepropre" or "clean city". We never saw any dog use it.


"Villepropre" dog toilet

Our anniversary yesterday (couldn't seem to post anything)....34 years!


Jim and Janice, May 18, 1968.