Academie de la Grande Chaumiere and Gainsbourg's tomb

 

Friday I went to the drawing session at the Academie de La Grande Chaumiere   on rue de la Grande Chaumiere in the 6th arrondissement, near Montparnasse.  

Above is the scene.  The dust on the atelier walls looks like it's been there for one hundred years and the stools and grimy plank  floor are speckled with paint like millefleur.  

The model, who is an actress, was fantastic. She obviously knows what she's doing.

  

Here is the façade, a peice of authentic Paris.

A  scene in my story White Sky of Paris happens here.   

 This is Serge Gainsbourg's tomb at the

Montparnasse Cemetery

Also part of the story. 

Look at those metro tickets.  They must have cleaned up, 

usually there are more.

 

Outside the cemetery on Boulevard Edgar Quinet, a tagged truck caught my eye.

 

It's one of the better one's I've seen around Paris. 

Grafrank, Jef Aerosol and Invader

One of my favorite street artists in Paris is Jef Aerosol.  Here's a montage of Gainsbourg pochoirs that inhabit Butte aux Cailles a hood in the 13th arrondissement.

 

photo courtesy of web

But check out Grafrank  (redacted: this website was active but no longer is available, too bad. It was cool.) It's a global graffiti ranking site.  Looks like Invader is more popular than Jef.

French Election street art

The workshop and pitch session organised by Tioka from SCWBI France was awesome.  What a treat  to speak one on one with amazing Jessica Regel.  So elegant a woman.

She gave me great insight and has inspired me deeply...  I'm not sure how much I should tell about my project. 


Here is a photo from place Saint Medard.  The nationwide adminsitrative elections will be decided today.  As you can see any occasion is worthy to tag, especially these official election affiche plastering a construction site wall.

The ten month hiatus from my main writing project brought a clarity of mind that I didn't have before.  I guess I can thank all those events that blocked me from pushing the project, like chewing on a Carambar that sticks your teeth together. I hate Carambar.

But check out this: Good Luck Carambar

Marketing madness, what dorky jokes. I guess the French accent makes the deal.

Rue Daguerre Saturday morning

It's Autum, grapes and the first clementine arrive.

 Oysters and

figs and berries abound.

Lobsters aren't cheap, this is Paris.

These must have been from yesterday, cooked, cut and stuffed.

Cèpes and girolle from France?  Maybe.

An espresso in the long shadows.

One of those big crabs

A Saint Piérre?

You know daguerrotype?  One of the first photographic processes?  Yes that derives from the name of Monsieur Louis Daguerre, he was an artist.  I wonder if someone told him he was crazy, don't do that, it's a bad idea, I wonder what he would have answered. Fuck off? Now there is even a Daguerreian Society.

  What would he think if he knew the Parisians would dedicate a street to him and it just turned into one of the best markets in town.

This fish doesn't look to appetizing with his exploded tongue.

Camembert yes.  Miam miam.

Sailboat on the Seine

Look at those locks maddened lovers clip onto these repoussé sculptures.  They probably toss the key in the river and vow passion, heart-splintering, gut-wrenching love. Until death do them part.  Fuck that! Look at that sailboat, how the hell did it get there?

Crazy. Walking across the Pont Alexander to get to the Palais de la Decouverte for an outing with my four year old to push buttons and watch electric fish do their gigs, we saw this two treed sailboat hanging out between the low stone bridges on the Seine.  How did that get there?  Only barges can float under those arches.

A Piece of Cake

Wouldn' t you just dream to have a workspace like this? 

It's where I get to play all day.  I love it, absolutely love it.  One of the best things about the space, is that there is no internet.  At first I was worried but after three weeks of creative freedom and high productivity I am pleased.

Sometimes I feel like I am icing a cake.

I can't post this stuff on my other blog that is reserved just for paintings because there are three live feeds that pull the photos for painter related websites.

Way back in 2008 I got too much hate mail so decided to impersonalize my blog posting.  Even though my blog had been chosen by a travel  website as one to follow, I decided to let it die.  That was my Vagabond artist blog. 

When I started this blog I felt it should be specifically oriented towards writing. I love writing but there's more in my life than that.  And it seemed too much like brown nosing for a platform.  I was doing the right thing, building a platform.

...

Paris is awesome in August.  So few people are here. Lots of cool people hanging out in Luxembourg Gardens, they're easy to spot.  Not so stuffy.  This August I met an Australian-French couple and their kids.  She's a cellist and he is an orchestra conductor.  We see them this afternoon if all the kids follow our schedules, right!

Just yesterday I met a professor of writing classes from Harvard.

September is another story: la rentrée.  Eeeks, stress! Schools starts.  All the classical moms are back with their kids dressed in grey, beige and light blue. The chocolate shops display giant pencils, black boards and satchels all made of solid dark chocolate.

For me, la rentrée means blissful studio time.  My work is my pleasure.  I can't wait until Tuesday to go ice that canvas with gobs of oil paint.  To dust it with spray paint and to work on the 4th first draft of that memoir.  The lump that is weighing down the hammock.