Update

Hello dearest Blog readers, I have not forgotten you!
Turns out backpacking through Europe at age 48 is not the same as at age 20. That trip really took a bit of a toll on me and I am still recuperating.
But in the meantime, I want to share a blog reader with you!
Her name is Lynda and we met in London when she read that I would be visiting there on my blog. It was so much fun to connect with such a beautiful, creative soul - she has lived in Papua, New Guinea, The Middle East, the tropics, and the UK, and is such a force for creativity.
It was fun to hear of her photographic and art and blog adventures, and to find out she is seeing clients as an art therapist - something I would like to do one day, as well.
We laughed and shared and had great coffee and it was awesome.

Thanks for seeing us, Lynda - I hope you come see me in the States one day!

Here are her lovely blogs:
http://chocolatelifeandjazz.blogspot.com
http://tryingtocreatearteveryday.blogspot.com

and us at Shepherd's Bush in London - don't you love her bright orange jacket? As soon as I saw that, I knew I would love Lynda:

"Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls." --Mother Teresa

m i a

My computer power box seems to have broken so I have been missing in action.
Soon, very soon, I will be back in the states and have tons of photos and blog updating to share about our trip, and journaling.
teaser - visited two Cumbrian neolithic stone circles yesterday! It was awesome.
Happy Art!

Arles, Avignon, Gordes, et les Malahieudes

Twenty eight years ago I lived with a French family for a semester of school. We managed to track them down, and they insisted we come visit them for a few days - here I am with Mr. et Mme. Malahieude in 1982, and again now in 2010 - amazing how they did not change one wink, I wish I could say the same for me, I look a bit exhausted from having to speak in French for two whole days:


and that amazing photo at the top is the town of Gordes - they drove us all around Provence for two days. We went to Avignon and danced on the bridge (sur le pont, D'Avingnon . . . ) we saw the Palace of the Pope, we went to Arles and saw gladiators in the arena, the Roman theater, and Van Gogh's institute. We went to Gordes and saw the Bollies, neolithic stone huts dating from 2000 B.C. that I had not learned about in architecture history. They thought I would enjoy that and I really did!
and the lavender was just about to bloom.
Stunning sights and beautiful scenery. Monsieur Malahieude also cooked some beautiful meals for us, each lunch and dinner was a feast. When we first arrived, they uncorked a bottle of very good champagne. How is it the French know so well how to live with pleasure?
I loved my time getting to know them again, even with spotty French, they were wonderful.








"It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to, the feeling for the things themselves, for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures." --Vincent Van Gogh in Arles

Aix in photos

Quelle une belle ville - I had just forgotten how very beautiful this town is. Renaissance doors and pediments and sculptures, perfectly designed shops along the narrow pedestrian streets, beautiful people in beautiful clothes.
and the family I lived with 28 years ago are coming today to pick us up and drive us all around, I think we will end up staying with them until the airport Saturday morning, I have some very old photos of them and me to share with them. I will post the before and after, once we get done with our little tour - 28 years ago and today - now off to see the South of France!








"Right now a moment of time is fleeting by! Capture its reality in paint... We must become that moment, make ourselves a sensitive recording plate... give the image of what we actually see, forgetting everything that has been seen before our time." --Paul Cezanne

day two - Aix en Provence

Yesterday was not the easiest day - my daughter got quite sick -- she has Celiac disease, like me, and it is so easy to eat one bit of the wrong thing. Our condition requires constant bathroom use, so sadly we had to skip our couchsurf stay - the family was so kind (if you are reading this Jean et Laurence, merci beaucoups!) but I needed to let her be comfortable, so we are staying in the hotel instead.
We did manage a lovely walk - the fountains, the amazing ancient doors and buildings, all so charming just as I remember them.
We listened to this African guitar player in the Hotel de Ville plaza, and enjoyed a very leisurely cafe.
We also visited a little tea shop in the basement of a fantasy bookstore, and enjoyed the very funny menu items, all hobbits and elves and unicorns - photos to follow:









"Beauty is truth; truth beauty." --John Keats

first day in France

It was a long journey (when you use free tickets with miles, the routing can be quite crazy) so we are totally jetlagged and exhausted, but we are HERE in Aix!
I went to art school here 28 years ago so it is magnifique to be wandering the small streets and seeing the beautiful Renaissance architecture again.
and last night we did have the best cheese salad and pommes frites I have had in a long long time. oh la la.
We are staying one night in this charming hotel, then off for a four day couch surf with une Famille Axois.
Vive la France!



"Leave the substance for the shadow. Leave your easy life, leave what you are given for the future. Set off on the roads." --Andre Breton

and off we go!

While on the road, I will post photos - lots of journal pages will eventually come from all this inspiration, but for now, just photos: here I am with my daughter as we start our journey in our driveway in Colorado - to follow will be Aix, London, Edinburgh, and the Lake District. . . .

"Through travel I first became aware of the outside world; it was through travel that I found my own introspective way into becoming a part of it." --Eudora Welty

3 june twenty ten

"In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins; not through strength, but through persistence." --Anonymous

Journaling for ideas

Yesterday at the gallery I used some quiet time to use my journal to, like usual, figure things out. Georgetown is so picturesque, I can't wait for a sunny day to go take lots of photos of the historic houses. Really, I love that visual journaling uses images and words to help me find things out, I just don't process as well when I just use my mind, I need to add my visual thinking. I think this is why artists sketch so much - we need to find things out by making them, coloring them, imagining them, sketching and playing with the images, and luckily, it is so fun:

"Discoveries are often made by not following instructions, by going off the main road, by trying the untried." --Frank Tyger

June!

and today is my first day working in the gallery in Georgetown. I will bring my journal and hopefully be able to do some visual journaling work, sort of as a demo, as I tend shop.
I will post here what I can get done while working. . . .
and it is June - a month of new vistas and travel - one week count down 'til our trip!

"Some men go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish that they are after." --Henry David Thoreau