The Road to Noyers
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| The hairdresser in Noyers-sur-Serein, a medieval village in France |
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| Trip on the coiffure posters that peek through 600 year old windows |
I'm slowly finding inspiration while spending 10 days in a tiny village here in the Burgundy region of France. When I arrived I had no car, knew no one, and had no plans. Now I've met Madame Mignot around the corner who sells vegetables, eggs, and walnut oil from her backyard. I've met the young chef who is giving Adrian a ride tomorrow in his truck to buy some walnut wood and also have an invitation to try homemade Burgundy liquor tomorrow before lunch. A butcher, a bakery, an art museum, a Wednesday market, 2 restaurants, one wine seller - take a walk with an open heart and get all that you need. Small town style. A necessary life exercise when living in a dense city full of complication and decoding.
Breathing Space
A recent visit to London's Hampstead Heath confirmed my need to get out of Paris and take a long deep breath of countryside air.
Im so excited to take a break from city life and get country. Adrian, Ingrid and I are going over to Noyers-sur-Serein for a
10 day creative retreat. YES. We will stay at Rod & Marco's house, a magical house in a medieval village.
Ink on Paper
Why are there so many artists in states like Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania that all produce incredible wood cuts, etchings, screenprints, and letterpress based works on paper? Please keep the art of print making alive. We need it. I love it.
I discovered a Pennsylvania based print maker today, Valerie Lueth. Here are some of her ink on paper works:
I'm Sharing Stories with Opening Ceremony
Adolescence
Can I start by saying how stoked I am that the 80's are finally out and the 90's have been 'in'? The 90's were about so many things for me. Let's see, I was shifting into the 90's in Junior High School. Boom. The ultimate age for absorbing everything and anything. Too much at times.
Obsessions, secrets, anonymous note passing, butterfly stomachs, day dreaming, crying, sneaking, yelling, lying, confessing, impressing, giggling, bonding, privacy... it was everything to be a teenager.
By the time movies like Stealing Beauty, Singles and Reality Bites came out, I was a bright-eyed college student. I have friends who are stylists here in Paris who work with all the big guns, and when one of them came over to put together looks for a big feature, I told him he should just watch Singles. He turned to me and said, "What's that?". Euros are so fashionable but the references are painfully familiar to genre's they know little about. Perhaps I should be a 90's fashion consultant out here.
I remember going to see R. Bites with my new dorm friends. We were way into Ethan Hawke and thought Ben Stiller was totally lame. Stealing Beauty was my all time fave movie back then. It moved me to a point where I dreamed of olive groves and wine soaked countryside parties. I also loved 90's films like Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures and John Duigan's Flirting. Simone and I traveled a lot while picking up new music abroad and we loved the then-new British pop movement - especially bands like Pulp, Blur, The Stone Roses, Suede and Verve. It was cool to mix all night dance marathon raves and Brit-pop. Dancing-dancing-dancing into feeling-feeling-feeling. I was caught in-between watching 90210 with dorm buddies and quitting the volleyball scene to becoming an artist, going off the popular grid, and immersing myself in pop-art, obscure foreign cinema and music. I wanted to get existential and shed the silver city pink lipstick and opalescent nail polish. I was basically a teenager from the Santa Barbara bubble with a hunger for big cities like San Francisco and London.
That said, it's been a little mindbendy to see what was so popular for me in real time in the actual year 1991, be so nouveau trendy today. The 16 year olds in Paris are wearing what the 16 year old me wore in the 90's. Wow. I guess the sensation I'm feeling is what my older sister must of felt when the 80's were back in full steam. It's my turn to feel the timewarp. Dang, I'm being reminded of my awkward years and how shy I was to hit the dancefloor. I'm hearing the very songs from my non-cell phone school dance world on the radio while Im working at home. Love it.
I'll never forget the moment Micheal J. Fox was in my hometown, Santa Barbara, on State st. promoting the use of grey water or some such environmental concept. I was really into Back to the Future. My brother took a photo of M J. Fox with us girls in the background. He made copies of it and sold it at school. I had an aqua net sprayed wave of bangs and wore a short sleeved cotton button up shirt, collar slighly up, with a loud floral print on it. My shirt was tucked into my peach cotton pleated cuffed shorts from the gap with a leather belt and a huge silver buckle on it. Oh yeah, and on my feet were my light toned top siders with no socks ( a splash of Euro in there for sure) and on my finger was a silver dolphin ring.
Tips
My friend Tülay asked if I could write down a few tips on operating an slr (or dslr) camera for her. If you could use a few pointers on using your camera, these notes are for you too.
A Wedding in Bergen
My trip to Norway is coming to a close, but my heart is very much open. Last Friday I experienced a true Norwegian wedding, one of simplicity, sweetness, and all within a very intimate poignant party. Dear friends and parents of a porcelain skinned little boy, Frei, decided to have their ceremony take place in the small square just beneath their home on the hillside of storybook Bergen. Everyone gathered on both sides of a tiny cobbled lane leading up to the square, and then cheered them up to the steps where they performed the ceremony. Afterwords, we all walked in our own love parade to the Paris style sightseeing boat that took us to the Urdihuset (an old house specifically built for parties put on by the social elite) for the dinner and dance party. The New Wine performed along with a yacht rock style band (with members of the New Wine). The second band had three modern doo-wop girls singing backup with cute matching glittery outfits. It was so good. One of the best parties ever.
I was their photographer and found it very hard to take a bad photo of the radiant lovers... Viva love celebrations between good people and food friends. Tusen Takk!
Back in Bergen
Enjoying some sunny days in Bergen leading up to Eirik and Ina's wedding. I'm honored to be their photographer and portraitist for their magical day. I'm also baking cupcakes with Simone to add something scrumptious to the dessert table. What flavor? Eirik said Norway is famous for their berries so we might have to berry it up. Their neighbor and friend will be singing some notes with the use of her loop station which brings up memories of Leslie doing the same at my own wedding. Speaking of which... being by the sea here in Norway, makes me think about our post-wedding beach day with everyone in SB. GOODNESS.
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