La Perriere

Am now in wonderful La Perrier where I have spent the week in the cosy restored home of Lynne, an old friend of my mothers. A wonderful, huge and spacious kitchen full of wholesome foods and fresh produce, we have just spent the day cooking the over-sized zuchini some local friends have given her. It now is in the form of crispy little lemony-cheesy fritters and a fragrant soup.

The last few days we have done walks into the forest and around the village; up to the local graveyard and steeple, around the old, stone townhouses stopping to say hi to the dog-walking locals. Everything is straight out of a classically quaint french country-style magazine.

Rose bushes grow fondly against stony walls and lavender adorns street sides. To add to the fragrant blossoming streets are the blackberry bushes with juicy gifts for our stomachs on a morning walk.

The landscape is so European to my Australian tastes. To wander around ancient apple groves and nibble from pear and berry trees is a total delight for my senses, especially the roses that are growing on every terrace and street corner. Im in awe of the unusual abundance of the land here and its centuries-old traditions, rich fertile soil and vintage hedge-rows.

Its been an incredibly sensual experience being here and eating amazing food, picking the fresh produce from gardens of friends, and given a beautiful attic room with long views over valleys and forests. Its also been surprisingly hectic for 4 days in the countryside. Lynne has kept me busy and entertained visiting the array of eccentric ex-pats living locally, mostly women. Single and fabulous, with full and flourishing gardens and generous lives they share with us. I have listened to stories of the local gossip, the grumpy mayor and his plans to pave through the garden-plot, the gaggle of gay boys wanting to take over the town, the posh and the posers, the old bats and the conservative farmer peasant folk. The ex-pats here are in a group of their own sharing their experiences and lives.

I arrived here thinking I would have lots of time to be sitting around sipping Vin Blanc and doing watercolours, but have been given the full tour of summer life in rural France. As well as a fantastic home-maker (the restoration of her place a wonderful transformation and project of vision) Lynne has also filled me in on detailed and rich tellings of life here and the many stories of relationships, proccesses and obstacles. We have sat around a cheese-board, a pot of tea, or a bowl of my own Biryani (recipe i picked up in India, which surprisingly worked quite well! ) and shared our reflections. Just like visiting a real aunt. I have been grateful to meet the women here, living and sustaining a well-being from their passions like gardens, friends, food and their art practice. Its a pleasure to see how people survive in another land and hear them share their tales of its people and the concessions and obstacles they have overcome.

We are on our way out to a friends place to share our zuchinni love!

Paris welcomes me and I embrace the new solitude for the weekend, visiting Modigliani and Chagal's women in the Galleries, and wandering the streets of Montmartre, remembering being there with my father in 1998, visiting to same cafe which happened to coincidently be next to my hotel, to drink hot chocolates and sketch old women and their dogs.

Montmartre, with its memories and cosy summer streets felt very much a place of my heart. I spent the weekend re-visiting myself after 7 weeks with a companion. Leaving Zana to be alone was both refreshing to be able to get on my own rhythm, and uncomfortable as the silence was new.

So much to say! Where do i throw my ideas out now? On whose ears can my observances land, to be handed back, re-considered and discussed? Who can I reminisce with, complain to and wake up next to?

I noticed when we were in India that I am much more of a meditative and contemplative traveler who enjoys to sit in cafes or parks, soaking up the atmosphere, watching the people, writing letters, sketching locals. Zana is a much more active traveler and we balanced each-other out in this way, bar some rare moments in the beginning where we struggled to find the middle way.

So, for me Paris was a chance to get back into my own groove. Much sketching and observing and watching, eating, sipping wine, letting the sun play with the streets and shadows, watching people play with their families and babies, pregnant women by fountain-side chatting with elderly locals. Paris in the summer! So different to when I was last here, in mid winter, both times. So charming winter is, only in Paris can even winter be charming with the desiduous trees and handsomely rugged up people. Summer brings joy to the streets and cafe life to a full and brimming pond of variety and colour. After the first night, which was awkward being alone and I went to sleep with unease and nerves, I woke with a sunny day and city to myself, and wandered in the charm of it until the evening which gave me the pleasure to meet a lovely gentleman and we ate snails and drank wine in a Montmartre bar under the full golden moon like real Parisiens. Lucky me! Paris offered herself to me unlike before and the weekend is mine!

Monday takes me to La Perrier, to visit an old friend of my mothers, Lynne, in the countryside of Normandy.

Alex Burke - Copenhagen

My port of entry into Europe was Berlin, where we stayed in the apartment of a friend of Zana's, my traveling partner through India. She had been living and studying in Berlin for a year and had slipped back to Australia leaving us the debris of her life there, and the lofty room she lived in, the bed that smelled of someone gone, and the comfort of having a washing machine, a kitchen and a space to ourselves.

A wonderful space to recover in! My post-India ailments did nothing to prevent me from registering Berlin's vibrancy and dynamism, the energy in the streets on the faces of its residents cycling below my window. My internal and physical being was in total re-construction mode, where I had to put myself together from the way India ripped at the layers of every level of my being and body. I left Berlin to Copenhagen knowing I would return.

Alex Burke and I met at the restaurant I worked at in Sydney for 3 years and we became partners in crime, attracted to her generous spirit, constant sense of humor, and love of wining and dining.
In Copenhagen she works for a Danish film distributor and lives in a cosy old apartment close to everything, full of girls who are drawn by her magnetism to share her bed, her floor and her couch. A little family of ladies in the 'West-end' all sharing space, patience, wine and days, revolving like planets with different axis', around Alex and her fay and vague line of living, her smooth and fluid lifestyle, which however disorganized it seems from the outside, somehow functions and survives in new countries, new jobs, demanding situations, and all sorts of social echalons. This ability is highly endearing and her method of survival creates an air of Mother-Hen-ism that offers the famous Burke-Hug and endless generosity. Copenhagen was a platter of ladies and friendly wine-bars, long mornings spent relaxing (well earned and needed after my Indian Adventures) and strolling the city, getting a little high off Christiania, Copenhagen's own Nimbin-style commune right in the centre of the city, watching the local talent of freaks and lovers and European men, laying lake-side. In full ease did we roll the week over in CPH with the west-end girls, and had the leisurely rhythm of home to get comfortable in ourselves again, recover to our full selves after the debilitating experience of Berlin previously, where I was out of action in recovery mode for the whole week. Thanks to Alex and her nest, I'm now off to Paris alone, and feeling fully returned to myself.

More Jesus!
i didnt think i could do more christian paintings but being here in Italy, the subject matter is simply the vehicle for technichal advancement. I loved watching the light change when oils overtook tempera and Michaelangel0, Raphaelo, Parmiaginino and other high renaissance artists began exploring with these new colours!
Florence is a haven for Art and im not phased by the religous manner of the art or the artists, but marvel at the place where artists began gaining respect as artists. The place where they stood up and took a role bigger that craftsman. This place is so full of Art and History i am overwhelmed by the Ufizzi and the endless symbols. The best thing about these galleries, as i have said before, is the obvious references to the environment. the backdrops for so many paintings are the very backdrops to our days here. the faces in these paintings are the very faces we are surrounded by. bar the tourists. As i marvelled at this rise of skill, this development of visual consiousness, and this expoloration of concepts and meduims, i was taken back to the vatican.
In the vatican city museum, which holds probably one of the most valuable historical collections of all times, i found the mystical relics which truly touched me.
Looking apon artworks of the Egyptians took me into a mystical world of distant conciousness and deep symbol. Mummefied cats, animal gods, sacred hybrids, goddesses and mummies and 10,000 year old ART. I cant beleive this kid of stuff still exists, and after this i look at 600 year old art as young and realise more about how history works..in waves.
Amongst all these galleries, these vibrant and moving van goghs, these dark eyes Madonnas, elongated baby jesus', Mythological movements, natural wonders and imaginative ponderings, i see now at the close of this journey, what has truly touched me the most.

firstly, its been the Places where these people drew inspiration and being amongst these environments, sitting amongst the forests of barbizon, the trees of Ancient Roman ruins, the Mosaics of the Alahmbra, the HARMONY of these environments and how harmony has been captured and created by these artists. Ive come to understand the Harmony of Art and its environtment, and the role of the artists in this beautiful exchange. This discovery has come with an appreciation of the mystical strings attatched, the symbols and the language of this harmonious world. I read a book about picasso and remember a quote of his ' being an artist is not to immitate nature but to use what she has to create new and removed creations'. In a way i dont agree with this because i beleive its about being in harmony with creation, and this is why the environments have touched me. What a delight to know that in the world, for centuries, there are places that are, have, or tried, to live in complete harmony, and the role that rt has taken to be the tool is which to create this.
I will always be taked back to these forests, these castles and these villages.
I'll dwell in the rhythms of europes tidal creativity and lively cultures.
Ill feel at ease with these rhythms of the creative universe.
Harmony!