Homeward, the Long Way
Six weeks, four countries, one full camera. The gate at Charles de Gaulle, a plane pointed at Istanbul, and the long hop home to the studio. Last post from the road.
Category: An Artist in Europe
Danielle her working journal from the European trip: sketchbooks, galleries, and the places that shaped the artists before us.
The Shop That Mixed Paint for Cezanne
Monday’s list said one word: Sennelier. The paint shop on the quay that has been serving artists since 1887. On the way there the Left Bank gave me green glass bubbles, a wall of steel cyclists, and an entire film crew in the Palais-Royal.
Dawn at Notre-Dame, Shared With the Management
Last full day in Paris, so I got up before Paris did. Notre-Dame at six in the morning, an empty square, and the discovery that I was not actually first. The locals were already doing their rounds.
The Hill That Thinks in Black and White
Monday’s list said Butte aux Cailles, so naturally I went Sunday. A stencilled rat guarding a doorway, and Aydar’s flowering women watching the street from two walls of the thirteenth. All of it in black and white, which is to say, my language.
Victor Hugo Could Draw, and I Am Still Not Over It
A postcard collage in a Popincourt gallery, a wall of painted cats, and then the Maison de Victor Hugo, where the man who wrote Les Miserables turns out to have drawn moonlit castles in brown ink better than most of us ever will.
Eight in the Evening at the Arc, When the Sun Lines Up
For a few minutes around eight the sun sits inside the Arc de Triomphe and the whole avenue turns to brass. Then home through the metro, where the Picasso museum has hung its rooster over the escalators.
Gallery Windows, a Charcoal Mountain and a Very Large Pink Companion
A day of looking through glass. A gallery window near the Palais Royal, a photograph growing a charcoal mountain at the Drawing Lab, and a two metre pink figure guarding a window full of toys.
Montmartre at Twenty to Eight, With the Carousel Still Asleep
Yesterday this hill was licensed painters and a queue for portraits. This morning at twenty to eight it was me, a tagged post box and a merry go round standing perfectly still.
Thirty Studios Behind a Painted Face on the rue de Rivoli
Three artists broke into an abandoned bank building on the rue de Rivoli in 1999. The city ended up buying it for them. Today you can walk up through thirty working studios for nothing, and I did.
One Square Metre in Montmartre, and a Ten Year Wait to Stand On It
The painters’ square in Montmartre runs on licences, one square metre each, renewed every year. I went up to see how that works and came back down having photographed nothing but walls.