Studio Work and Concert: Saturday, Aug. 31.
In the evening we attended a concert at the Cultur’Cafe. The group was Coco Verde: percussion, bass, guitar, saxophone, and a marvelous singer, Colette Stil. They performed an homage to Cesaria Evora. The place was packed and the crowd was enthusiastic. Great fun! We got home at midnight and, once again, collapsed into deep sleep.
My train to Lyon leaves on Monday at 1:13 and it is a 45 minute drive to the train station from here. So today, Sunday, is packing day. I can’t believe that two weeks have passed and that my stay at Verquilleux is done. I can’t thank Ken and Margaret enough for offering me this amazing and rich opportunity to be a part of “real” life here in Burgundy, France. They have been openly generous in sharing not only their home and studio with me (and all the lovely food and the pool), but also, and more importantly, all of their fantastic friends – French, British, Swiss, etc. And thank you to everyone I have met here for making me feel so welcome and so at home – and for putting up with my elementary French skills. I hope to see you all again in the future. Hey, readers of this blog, are you missing the feet? Will they reappear in Lyon? Stay tuned for the next Daring Deeds of Debi! (rather like the Perils of Pauline.)
Margaret, hard at work in the studio on Saturday, Aug. 31. We focused on being in the studio as much as possible, since I am leaving for Lyon on Monday and she is leaving for London on Wednesday.
Painting the first layers of color on the pages of my Moleskine sketch book in preparation for the mixed media work I will do in it as I travel further on my adventure. The messy preparation needs to be done in the studio, then the not-so-messy layers can be done on-the-go.
Installation art? Nope. Just trying to paint as many pages as possible at one time and keep them separated while they dry. Although, when two pages did stick together, I found it was a happy accident. My moves to repair those pages turned them into very interesting beginnings on which to create.
I don’t think I showed you this one yet. This is the one I made when I was calming my mind on Thursday evening.
I created this one on Friday. Over the last couple of days, while I have use of Margaret’s studio, I’ve been concentrating on preparing the book and some other small paper supports, but have still created at least one finished work each day.
And I did this one on Saturday, while waiting for my sketchbook pages to dry.
Chatting with Pierre and Margaret while waiting for the concert to begin.
Manne and Daniele chatting while waiting for the concert to begin.
Ken and Margaret posing for the camera while waiting for the concert to begin.
Philippe introducing the band and announcing that the concert is about to begin! He also introduced me and my work, causing me to blush and raise a shy hand to admit to my identity. Actually, it was a pleasure to have my work hanging all around on the walls while this wonderful group entertained us.
Stuck in the middle of the crowd, there were too many people in front of me, and if I stood up I would have blocked the view of everyone behind me, so I didn’t get much in the way of good photos. Ken took this one so that I could show Carl this bass. Carl, wish you could have been with us to hear this group!
Another shot of part of the band.
Toward the end of the concert we moved out to the bar and Margaret took this photo from that vantage point.
I can’t believe it’s been two weeks already! I’ll miss seeing Margaret and Ken in your blogs, but can’t wait to see what comes next!