Tag Archives: France

Art from a couple of months

Detail from a wall at L’Aitre Saint Maclou

The top two photos are the finished versions of two large houses I painted in Brattleboro before I left for France in mid September 2024.

The three pencil drawings were done in France, the one of my hand was drawn in Rouen when I stayed with Geneviève for 2 weeks, and the other two were made after two different excursions with Geneviève, the first to the Aitre of Saint Maclou, loosely you could say Saint Maclou’s boneyard, but it went back to the Bubonic plague and others.

Damn I hate wordpress! I can’t edit any paragraph once I click return and it is driving me up a wall. But that said, the final Pencil drawings were done was done of the wheels in the barn behind the broom makers workshop, where he showed us how he makes brooms of all different sorts, entirely by hand or with human powered tools, nothing electrical.

The final little painting in acrylics was done recently, just 6” square. Nothing much to say about it, but after I finish my last house portrait, the final oil painting and house portrait of three I started back in June, (see the finished 2 above) i will have to come up with a new project!

These last two photos were spontaneously snapped by Ruby, another artist in the collective, who saw me walk in the gallery door with Josette, She was enchanted by Josette! And even I loved the photos she took!

I see I completely forgot to explain the simple black and white painting/ drawing of the two dancers. That was originally just black paint splotches on good white paper but I challenged myself to make a picture out of it and lo and behold I did, just in adding a few lines.

EN FRANCE MES ŒUVRES LES PLUS RÉCENTES. IN FRANCE, MY NEWEST WORK

Also some photos in France of Guillestre and around there, where I am staying.

Des Oignons, some onions

des poires, some pears


le crâne d’un chien, a dogs skull

Je suis en France depuis déjà deux semaines mais le temps passe vite. Je n’ai que deux semaines de plus à Guillestre et après ça deux semaines à Paris…j’ai tout un tas de photos de vous montrer mais je crains que les photos sans fin des montagnes puissent être ennuyeuses . Je vais essayer de les organiser dans un diaporama, peut-être un peu plus tard. Pour le moment, juste quelques unes de Guillestre et les environs.

i have been in France for two weeks already but time is flying. I have only two more weeks in Guillestre and then two in Paris. Of course I have taken a whole pile of photos to show you, but endless photos of mountains could be boring so I’m going to try to make a slideshow of them, maybe a bit later. For now, just a few photos of Guillestre etc.

On top of a mountain, a très petite mountain above Guillestre.
Village center, à couple of restaurants and the tourist info center
The road, la rue de la petite Fontaine, on which I am living right in the center of town
Mountains in the distance during a trip to Orris en Rattier this past weekend.

Paintings and photos

Coeur de France language school (for French ) in Sancerre, France. A rainy day…
A more sunny day in Sancerre, 2019
House on Bullock Street is a shade of purple or aubergine, not the blue it appears in photo.
In acrylics, the same house is rather brighter! I hope owner, for whom I painted it doesn’t mind…
Palazzo Podere in Tuscany Italy
My version of this lovely house, approximately 32” by 24” done entirely in colored pencils.

A poem for our time, to our better selves

THE NEW COLOSSUS

(poem engraved on the Statue of Liberty, with recording below.)

‘By Emma Lazarus – 1849-1887

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

For those who need also to hear this poem read out loud, I recorded it, after several attempts during which I broke down in tears. Here, then, without tears, but my heart full of them, I offer Emma Lazarus’ amazing poem, which is engraved on the base of the Statue of Liberty,  which we also call, The Lady.

Statue of Liberty poem