Wheat fields, Poppies, Gathering Storm - Painting Begun and A Walk Through It's landscape - JP's Post

Brush and Raw Umber Drawing to Start

The Setup and
In the video survey the sweep of the landscape. 

Trip South to Foix under the Pyrenees

Friday, May 29, 2015

Yesterday we went to Foix, two hours due south “ in the foothills of the Pyrenees” the seeing of which is my third and final objective for this stay after Carcassonne and the Chauvet cave recreation which we saw last week. We counted up all our coins. There is a nice web site which figures out the cost of  tolls and the likely cost of Gasoil between any two points in France – and beyond, as far as we know. You need to have enough coins because there are no people available to help you change paper money at any of the toll stops we’ve seen.  The roads to Toulouse and beyond are plenty fast but somehow more modest than our highways. There are trucks but fewer of them and every 8-10 Km there is an Aire de someplace local, a rest stop with facilities, picnic tables, a chance for kids to run around and older folks to stretch, and sometimes a restaurant.  I think roads back home are King, where here a lot of them  are just centuries old paths with a bit of asphalt slapped on top.             Somewhere along the way, we came out from behind an obscuring hill and for a second saw odd jagged clouds floating above the horizon.  No!! Que Merveilleux!!!   We were finally seeing the snowy peaks of the PYRENEES!! It was truly thrilling. Our picture doesn’t get it at all. 

NEXT:

   

Across the wide plain and up into the big foothills we found the town of Foix honest to God NESTLED into the little valleys.  Sometime in 1000-1100 somebody  built a chateau on the tippy top of the pictured tall tall outcropping of limestone. (Take mountain streams surging through layers of limestone for lots and lots of years and you get some fantastical features. Apparently the cliffs under the chateau have caves that show signs of prehistoric habitation. ) One picture is from a postcard because we were much too close under the chateau to show what it looks like. The others are our pictures including the view up from the restaurant where we had lunch.    This was a stronghold of the Cathars but it still fell to the northern crusaders  around 1209. It got traded around for three centuries finally ending up as part of the wide area ruled by Henri of Navarre, a Protestant and a minor relative of the French crown. For lack of other choices, he got chosen by the very Catholic Catherine de Medici to marry her daughter and become King of France.  All sorts of high ranking Protestant Huguenots came to the wedding; the gates of the city were closed and they were slaughtered on St. Bartholomew’s Day . Henri, now Henri IV of France , converted straightaway.  Years later he signed the treaty of Nimes giving religious freedom to protestants .

Back to the 21^st century : After a lovely lunch in the beautiful and gracious center of town, we tried to figure out the byzantine parking payment system that involved many instructions, our number plate, various levels of free and paid time, and the machine which  required exact change, and balked at our using a credit card though it had the slot for it,  naturally all in French. A tall fellow, with a Midwestern accent,  who lived in town , stepped in to help. He was born in Foix, went to Canada when he was five, lived there and in the US for the next 55 years, serving in our army. He was stationed in NY, Georgia and Washington among other places. He retired 3-4 years ago and came back to “this hick town”.   We noticed that after he got us squared away, he helped some other people so it wasn’t just a language problem. 

2nd Painting Done - An Afternoon Walk - 3rd Subject Considered - JP Post

Painting 2 from studio window complete, for now.

An afternoon walk Alayrac in the distance.

Ripening wheat, poppies, dark European oaks, crest the rolling hills.
Mistral squalls gone, the afternoon sun burns out of bell clear blue sky.    

Poppies, ripe wheat, from whence the rich French breads.
I think this will source the next painting.

Betsy walks on between the fields

On Coming, Going and New Painting Almost Done - JP's Post

Coming.

Going.

Any Questions?

New painting almost done. Weather still blustery and unsettled with rain squalls. From a window. Does this still qualify for "plein air"? 

Painting 35,000 years ago and Mine Today - JP'S Post

Thirty Five Thousand Years Ago in a cave above the l' Ardeche River in Southwestern France he (she?) could not post on Facebook so he (she?) went deep into the back of a cave making sure the cave bears had left for the summer and posted these masterpieces.

OK,  so this is only a recreation. Human breathing moisture breeding fungus almost destroyed the paintings in Lascaux so these are forever off limits except to a few. Clearly masterpieces equal to Picasso, Velasquez, Rembrandt and we got only five minutes.  This artist was near to tears in frustration. To see more about the "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" or Chauvet cave in  Villon-Pont d' Arche, France go to Click Here. We do recommend the visit. They have created  an amazing , awe inspiring museum.

At the "Prehistorique" on the banks of the l' Ardeche where we spent the night before the visit.

Betsy attacks veal dinner too beautiful to eat. This is prehistorique?
The French, you know, were always way ahead of the rest of us when it comes to cuisine. 

Next day or 35,000 years,later, depending on how you are counting, JP starts his new painting.

Painting Complete - JP Gets Haircut then on to Carcassonne - JP Post

Completed Paintng -View From Alaryac Kitchen, Oil on Pamnel, 12h x 16w, Signed, Dated 5.23.2015

Before heading out on adventures in other
French territories, shaggy JP gets
trimmed by prettiest, most charming
French coiffeuse pour hommes.

Transformation approved. From now
on I will have to go to France for all
my haircuts.

At the castle in Carcassonne JP meets another handsome French lady.

Is this a comment on the eternal state of affairs between
men and women?

Nonetheless this lady remains the queen on all my castles.

Castle and Cave Betsy's Blog

Wednesday 5/20 JP had his hair cut at 2.30 in Cordes at the La Cosy Hair salon by a really cute blonde who seemed to own the place. He went from shaggy old goat to cutting edge interesting older man in 20 minutes. Around 3 we left to drive south through Toulouse to Carcassonne and a hotel at the foot of cliffs.

Thursday morning: Carcassonne castle up on the top is like every fairy tale you ever saw illustrated with tall towers with conical roofs, huge surrounding walls, narrow cobblestone passages winding up and around towards the center. But there are no cascading roses, no little princesses in pretty dresses, or handsome princes paying court. This one means business. The lines are straight and severe. There are innumerable narrow vertical slits in the walls that widen out on the inside in an arc so bowmen can aim out over a wide area with very little exposure, maybe 4-8 inches in width. The windows are small, there are double gates, double or triple walls and the predominant color is rock gray. It is as imposing as a battleship, more so since a defense has been here since Roman times. It lies on a trade route from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, in a broad area dotted with lots of bastides, little walled towns. Before it got quite so fortified, it was captured by the northern French forces in the early 1200’s when they came down in holy fury for the heretics. Apparently Northern France was a cohesive fighting force molded by centuries of fighting off the Vikings, whereas the folks south of the protecting Massif Central monkeyed around with their beliefs and fought among themselves. They also didn’t have primogeniture going so holdings got split up into itty bits among both sons AND daughters. Noble but not effective. The northerners came in and slaughtered, raped and pillaged and that was the Albigensian Crusade sanctioned by the Pope. They proceeded to fortify the castle to the impregnable condition, ( after restoration within the last 130 years) that we saw. Now, of course, there are lots of boutiques, eateries, jewelry shops and tourist stuff in the inner town. And roses. And I saw a high waisted little princess dress on a manikin in a shop window!

From there we drove east to the Mediterranean Sea. JP and I got our first and only lifetime glimpse of the Mare Nostrum from the superhighway before turning North to Vallon-Pont d’Arc, up in the massif, along the Ardeche river, a prime kayaking and camping area where we spent the night in a romantic white tent after a stupendous meal that included paper thin veal, potatoes shaped like overturned boats, pesto drizzled around and some tiny translucent blue green berries that exploded with sweet juiciness. This town is also the site of the Chauvet Caverne which contains spectacular paintings from 36,000 years ago. 21,500 years ago a landslide blocked the opening completely until natural forces opened a seam through which a cave hunter, M. Chauvet felt a rush of air in 1994. He and his 2 companions dug around, crawled through a very narrow channel and came out into the discovery of many many lifetimes. Though the actual cave was immediately closed to the public, the government built a recreation further up the side of the valley which opened just last month and that is what we got tickets for. Just go, if you ever get the chance. The most beautiful and astonishing works are at the deepest end of the cave. We had 5-6 minutes to look at paintings as masterful as Rembrandt or Picasso. JP was in pain at being pulled away. Nothing in Western art has more motion and knowledge of life and assuredness of line than those horses, or the lions, or the bison. And this was a recreation! “Everything fake” as our guide had told us at the beginning. My memory now was of great color though it was all in red ochre, charcoal or a film of white clay. The UN has apparently declared this the first Human Masterpiece. There are no photographs that do this artist, or these artists justice. The real cave must be incandescent. We’re glad it is preserved.

Back through the Park of Cevennes. Up and down, switchbacks, gorges, rushing waters, impossible cliffs. No wonder invading armies didn’t come through there.

Back at 7:30. 770 KM, about 480 miles round trip.

St Antonin Noble Val Betsy

May 17, 2015 Sunday

Went 25 minutes NW across the plateau, then down to the edge of the green and sweetly flowing Aveyron to the St. Antonin Noble Val Sunday market specifically to get a map and maybe cherries if there were any. I didn't find any right off, but there were lots of people selling Fraises du Here and There. Strawberries that are smaller and sweeter than ours. Then I found some early cherries and bought some of those too, some onions, two bottles of beer from the English people we bought from last time, a splendid map of Southwestern France that has everything we could conceivably drive to, and a packet of butter that turned out to be mashed potato with a little butter. Oh well. And 4 chocolate/ orange macaroons.   Coming back by the cathedral, I discovered that this afternoon- in about an hour in fact- there will be a concert to benefit the restoration of their organ with a performance of a piece by Tavener. I’m sure you will remember that he wrote the recessional used for Princess Diana’s funeral, a truly moving piece of music.    I’ll leave pretty soon to get back there to hear that.  Meantime, we can read aloud our Donna Leon mystery set in Venice while JP applies color to the painting.

Plus Tard.  Actually, he DIDN’T write the recessional. That was the wonderful John TAVNER  who just died in 2013 . This mass by John Tavener was written in the court of Henry VIII with reference to the common songs of the times. There was a suspicion he consorted with protestants, ( pre Anne Boleyn?) but he was kept out of prison by Cardinal Wolsey because he was “qu’un musicien”.  Frankly, I think he noodles along shapelessly and interminably in a minor key . Tiresome.  But the other music both earlier and then 20^th century was wonderful and the setting with the stained glass high up all around and the echoing acoustics was just what we came for. The organ needing repairs was a freestanding box about ten feet square with 6-8 pipes showing and the organist facing out.  A cute pipe organ! Imagine! 

JP Has Lunch - Lunch Has JP. Painting Progresses. A JP Post -

A paella Betsy got at the market in Cordes Sur Ciel. JP had this for lunch.

Delicious, including baby octopus, crayfish, mussel and what to a New Englander would seem to be a little quohoag (hard shell clam to others).! 

Lunch has JP.

Painting progresses with color.

Looking Around - Betsy's Post

THis boxwood arch, 15 feet high could have  been planted by Louis XlV. It is the beginning of The Big Walk around the bowl.

May 16, 2015

Yesterday was cold and alternately sunny and rainy, damp but bracing walking weather. The rain was always rather light coming in waves with the wind, not like the New England grim, cold and unrelenting nor’easters, and the sunny bits were warm and bright and sparkling, not to mention welcome. In the expanse of the bowl around us, the shadows of clouds flowed back and forth across the landscape  bringing the lines of rain and pushing aside the sunny areas in their passing.  In the right light, you could see the gusts of wind push over the tops of the oats in waves. The whole walkabout was a frolicking weather stew.  Apparently the system is going to be sitting on us for the week. A good time to read.  On the walk I came by a field of oats strewn with bright poppies that was straight out of Monet. As we have noticed so often, France looks an awful lot like the Impressionists said it did.  The farm where the poppies were is owned by the Dutch lady who takes her cheeses to the markets.  I didn’t see any cows around but when I go to the market this morning, I’ll look for her. She said she always took cheeses on trips and had no problem at customs. I might try that. By the way, we never had our luggage examined anywhere.

From the Saturday market: Saucisson au Roquefort, au fenouil {lamb?), au canard , paella, olives,  cheeses with lovely brown and olive green rinds cut from big rounds , unusual looking head lettuce and potatoes for potato salad and the basket to carry it all in. The cheese man kept giving me little slivers of cheese and I kept trying to give him money and make a shape with my hands of how much I wanted. He’d just give me another sliver and I’d like that even better. We were at an impasse until a gentleman who spoke English helped me buy the last one. Next time, we can get the one with Fenugreek or fenugeek or whatever.    On the way home, I got French Mayonnaise and it is yummy, much yellower and very lemony. So good.   On my walk, I checked out the cherry tree I used to gather from last trip.  Que Dolour! There were just a few green cherries and they won’t be ripe for a month.  But last night I looked out the bathroom window and there were cherry trees 3 feet away with lots of green cherries and a few turning red! How did I miss this last time?

Random Notes:   The only hand soap I found is a hunk the shape of a pound of butter that is hard to hold. But wait! I’ll cut it up.    I can’t get used to bottled milk sitting unrefrigerated on market shelves next to dish detergent. It’s really convenient and almost as tasty.      In Cabannes there is a jolly and colorful RECYCLE sign with an arrow pointing around the left of the building to the back. The right side of the building says ANTIQUES in much more muted and sophisticated tones.  I drove around to the back but all I saw were stacks of wooden pallets.        When you enter a town, there is a sign with its name; when you leave it, there is the same sign with the international sign of NO! slashed through it.  So much for YOU, town.       

Bread and Day 2 Painting - JP Post

This is BREAD !
Betsy back from open air market.
Whole Foods forgetaboutit!

And Day 2 on painting. Color tomorrow?

.

Rain Squalls - Plein Aire from the Kitchen Window - Betsy Warms Her Backsides

Rain squalls today, blustery wind, I choose plain aire from the kitchen window.

Earlier, outside, my umbrella, pallet, and easel went airborne!

Progress. The grisaille ( raw umber under painting.)

Betsy, wisely warms her backsides at the wood-stove, a Maine woods tradition.

Betsy Arrives.Betsy has Wine. Betsy Implodes. - JP Begins a Painting - JP's Post

Betsy Arrives to breath taking villa courtyard in Alayrac France.
Alayrac? Just try to find it on a map. Try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vindrac-Alayrac

Betsy contemplates a light French repast and wine then implodes!

And today a JP painting has begun!  Raw umber under painting sketch. Please note, Maestro Borowicz. (I try not to think too much about it. If I did I would be too amazed to do anything. )

I may not have notified everyone I should so please let friends and family know.

View from the kitchen Window - Betsy's Post

2015 0514   Nous sommes arrived and it is just as beautiful as before. View from the kitchen  

window

This could be JP’s starter painting.

Nothing of note on the way over besides the hideously uncomfortable seats for sleeping, being awoken at 1:30 for breakfast and a 2 hour wait on the tarmac in Paris for a replacement part of some kind.  Duly noted, and POOUFF, gone. The sunrise was beautiful and we saw the Eiffel tower.

 JP brought a painter’s umbrella on a long hollow shaft with a sharp point for being rammed into the ground. He had put one of those tiny bourbon bottles (empty) over the point to protect the carrier.  It caused great interest on both sides of the Atlantic but made it through eventually.

We bought sausage, cheeses, wine and bread on the way. The concierge had brought us ham, bread and eggs so we are set.  We went to bed at 4PM and were wide awake 11-3. 

Random notes: My French is still execrable and mostly Spanish.  Odd since I didn’t do a lick of work on it. There is WIFI here now though intermittent.  There is a whole new shelf of trash books to read and contribute to. JP has stopped figuring out the electronics around here and is sorting his paints on this 30 foot table.  It’s a beautiful hazy/sunny day with a brisk wind, new green fields, birds singing, the three horses below the window munching and snuffling and a great quiet.  Sorry, but I’ve got to get back to doing damn nothing.

News from Toulouse, a Sequel

Waiting by the studio door for our good friend and neighbor Kate Fentress to shuttle us up the the Logan Shuttle on our way back to the tiny stone village, Alayrac in Vindrac-Alayrac, France, just north of Toulouse. Visions of past paintings by JP send us on. Tomorrow night we will drink the wine from Chateau Bourget across the way and sleep to the song of the rossignol (French for nightingale ) We hope our friends will keep in touch with this blog. Boarding soon. Please sign up below for notices of our posts. return Au Revoir!