Once Upon a Time in August....

 

At the end of July I packed a little suitcase, paints included, to begin 6 ½ weeks of flying and train-ing it (“ghetto” as my little cousin calls it) all over Europe.  Well, not all over – just Berlin, Hamburg, London, La Rochelle, Luxembourg, Heidelberg, and Valence – before returning to my wonderful apartment in La Roquette near Cannes.  Every stop was to visit friends or my German relatives, and I found out how lovely it is to be homeless!

 

First was a flight to Berlin where I stayed 3 days.  I was so excited to see my cousin Tine again and her family!  They have two children, Benita (3 ½) and Tamilo (2 months).  Sirko, Tine, and I enjoyed evenings together in their beautifully refurbished house about ½ hour outside Berlin.  One eve Tine made a great salmon dinner, and the other, after a long day sightseeing in Berlin, we all walked to the local Italian restaurant which is Tine & Sirko’s favourite.  Tine went with me to Berlin, and although I didn’t see some of the sights like the new American embassy that just opened on 4-July and the Brandenburg Tor, it was enough for me.  My parents, brother, and I had the once-in-a-lifetime trip to Berlin in December 1989, a few weeks after the wall fell down.  I remember that we went to the wall when it was already dark.  Cars were lined up with headlights on as hundreds, maybe over a thousand; people clambered all over the wall with hammers and hand-picks.  Many of us collected pieces, but many more just wanted the wall gone, letting their sadness and joy out as the cement chunks fell down.  So the big sights in Berlin were less of an interest than seeing some of the galleries and museums – Berlin has become quite the art town, probably second only to London in Europe for emerging artists (I think Paris has more of the big-name dead artists, but maybe I’m wrong.)  We were near the Dom, the cathedral, about noon when a ½ hour service is given every weekday, so we attended.  The cool and beautiful interior was such a fantastic backdrop to the service, which I really enjoyed.  About 4pm, after another sweltering day of sightseeing and dragging poor Tamilo with us, we met Sirko after work at the Pottsdammer Platz.  Up until a few years ago it was completely vacant since it was “No Man’s Land”.  It was an architect’s and city planner’s dream to have this much land in the centre of the city.  And after more than 40 years, the subway was reopened, with a bit of updating, of course.

 

Yes, while another day in Berlin would have been nice, I had a much better invitation to understand what happened there.  Saturday afternoon and evening was spent at Sirko’s mother’s birthday party.  She owns a farm, about an hour north of Berlin, in what formerly was the DDR (East Germany).  After cake and coffee hour, Sirko’s brother gave us a tour of their farm which consisted of about 5 farms pulled under one ownership – highly common as a result of Communism.  On one farm they raised pigs, so we got to see and smell the different houses where the piglets were born all the way to where the big hogs were being fattened before going to market.  Then we were driven over to the dairy.  Outside, the buildings look completely run-down, but inside contain state-of-the-art technology to milk cows.  Everything is automatic, from the gates to shutter the cows in and out of where they’re milked twice a day for about 20 minutes, to the disinfecting of the milking equipment to the milk storage – all automated!  Someone comes once a day to make sure the plug to the whole place is still in the socket.  Finally we drove out to see a small portion of the many fields they own – not that none of us had never seen fields before but because one of their 100k euro threshers had caught fire the day before and burned acres of fields.  But the machinery itself was a work of art!  The burned thresher was in itself not aesthetic enough to be considered sculpture, but I took many pictures of individual portions of it which made for some great abstracts.

            The party was typically German, starting at 3pm with cake and coffee and lasting until midnight after several courses of dinner and dessert and drinks.  Some of the guests were, well, interesting – very vociferous about their politics but defensive about East Germany.  As bottles were emptied it became difficult to have a useful conversation.  One of my distractions was to play with my camera, photographing the table from various angles, including not only the company, but the empty bottles and candles and champagne flutes and watermelon.  I’d also taken Tamilo out in his buggy for a little stroll.  The village was quiet, and on the road that led out into the fields, I walked to the last house.  An old man was leaning on the gate watching not much, so I greeted him.  After explaining that I was visiting and attending a birthday party, he wanted to know who.  Well, I didn’t know Sirko’s Mom’s last name – don’t think I even remembered her first.  He kept rattling off a list of names – I think he hadn’t finished when I slowly wandered back down the street.  As I remarked from Sirko’s brother that everyone in the village knows everyone else, their families, business, cars, homes.  I don’t know if that’s remnant of communism or just life in a small town where few leave and no one comes.  The village population gets older and older, and the young people that stay behind are usually deadbeats.  Young people with any ambition (whether to make money or marry someone who makes money) have moved to the cities, namely Berlin.  It’s a lost generation – those who were into their 40s and 50s when communism fell.  They still needed income and but weren’t mobile or adaptable to go where the little bit of money was.  Anyway, that’s old history that everyone knows, but we (my German cousin and aunt) found it peculiar how defensive they are of the old system.  First, I suppose, Sirko’s mother did fairly well by owning 50% of this entire co-op.  But they long for a strong leader and get frustrated that democracy takes too long and does too little.  They seem to forget that the materials weren’t available to redecorate and update the house as she’s done so beautifully.  Sirko, who is quite a good piano player, was denied lessons while growing up because he wasn’t potential concert pianist material.  Even though his mother could pay for lessons, they were prohibited.  We all get defensive of our countries (or kids for that matter, or anything that reflects who we are, I suppose) to people from the outside who think they understand it all, but in many instances the amnesia was strong.

 

My Aunt Marianne and Uncle Lu (Ludwig) were invited to the mother-in-law’s party, so they drove me back to the little town (now a suburb) called Tostedt, located between Hamburg and Bremen.  I lived with them here for 6 months when I was 14, and I’m being modest when I say it was the highlight of my teens (well, except maybe when Jason gave me my first kiss and I was wondering what to do with the bubblegum I was chewing).  Happy to be back in Tostedt, I spent about 5 days with them, and when it comes to art, my aunt is the one to hang out with!

            A day spent in Hamburg focused on the Rothko Retrospective in the Hamburger Kunsthalle.  We rented the headphones since commentary helps much with abstract art.  Rothko is known for the large paintings he did at the end of his life, large blocks of colour with undefined edges so they appear to float.  I’ll see if I can find one to put in the photos, but it’s probably easier to just look him up on Wikipedia if you really care.  What I found quite interesting was his progression leading up to his seminal work towards the end of his life.  One of his first paintings is a rather poor portrait of a friend in front of a window.  As explained by the commentary, his emphasis on the rectangular elements of the window already showed his style which would be refined in his later works.  He continued with exploration of Biblical themes (he was a Russian Jew), as well as mythical beasts and human bodies painted quite abstractly, but usually against some rectangular structure or background.  These themes mirrored much of Rothko’s outrage at what was happening to Jews during the period, in the 1940s, and the American government’s casual attitude towards it.  Tante Marianne and I explored the two floors of the retrospective, and then went quickly through them again at the end.  It is something I learned from her to really get a better idea of the artist’s message and progression and life and art.  Finally, there was a film about Rothko, which we really didn’t plan to see, but, being lured by a pair of good seats near the front of the theatre after the film had begun, we were quite enthralled.  The film was fantastic.  Rothko’s dream was to be able to paint an entire room – fill it with his painting in order to communicate better.  He’d been commissioned to essentially do this for the dining room of the Four Seasons in New York – in the 1950s or so.  The paintings didn’t quite suit the commissioners, although they did hang for a little while (if I remember this correctly).  Rothko decided to understand for himself, so he went for dinner there and quickly decided that anyone who paid that much for food didn’t deserve to see his paintings.  I believe these ended up in St. Petersburg, but I’d have to go check.  In any case, don’t go to the Four Seasons looking for Rothko.  He became friends with the director of the Tate Museum in London.  By now Rothko was becoming more depressed, but the director commissioned Rothko and the two collaborated on the project:  8 large paintings for a newly-created room in the Tate – created just for Rothko.  With two on each wall, Rothko hung them one above the other instead of side-by-side.  They had been made to be presented this way.  The director was very excited and enjoyed the energy Rothko had for the project, but all good things eventually come to an end.  The day the paintings were delivered to the Tate was the day Rothko was overcome by his depression and died by a medication overdose.

            My aunt and I walked around the Alster, the lake in Hamburg’s city centre.  The Kunsthalle, visible from where we had a beer and bratwurst on the water, spurred on our continuing conversation about art.  After the four hours we spent in Rothko’s world, I was inspired again to paint.  I don’t count myself to be any great sort of artist, but what I find wonderful is to be able to see an artist’s progression, to be reminded that they didn’t exit the womb painting floating rectangles or men in bowler hats or drip paintings or 3-dimensional forms visible from two.  I related to her the great experience I had in New York’s MOCA last May.  After wandering through the Kadinskys, Dalis, Wassilys, and Picassos, I entered a room with Pollock’s drip paintings prominent in front of me and on the wall to my right.  To the left were some fabulous abstracts, very bold and strong, and I thought I knew who the artist was but couldn’t quite remember who.  I finally checked the nameplate and was surprised that they were also Pollock’s, but ten years earlier than his iconic drip paintings.  A week after the Rothko retrospective, my best friend Suzette and I went to the Tate Modern looking for the “Rothko Room” and his 8 paintings hung one on top of the other.  While they’d already been removed for cleaning in preparation for the Tate’s upcoming retrospective, I was again fooled by an early Pollock that I didn’t attribute to him until looking at the nameplate.  Duped twice!  And inspired again to keep doing my art, even if it does just end up on every wall in my parents’ house and attic.

            The following day, Tante Marianne and I went off in a different direction in search of art: a humble compound in the middle of the northern German forest, not too far from Tostedt.  My poor Uncle Lu was dragged along on this trip, so another fun, four-hour festival of art wasn’t going to happen.  The compound was created by Johann and Jutta Bossard ( www.bossard.de ) between 1880s to 1930s.  The grounds included a cedar tree cathedral and a labyrinth, and the small museum, formerly the carriage house, had many of their paintings and sculptures.  Large sculptures filled the garden leading to the main house as well as another tall building with bas-relief sculpture and interesting geometrical columns on the walls.  I walked into it, into an empty, tall space.  I’m trying to figure out how to write this... It was the Temple of Art:  colourful mosaics on the floor, two-story high paintings with intricately woven stories, stained glass windows, painted glass sunlights, carved wooden beams, sculptured columns, and absolute silence.  I sat on the one bench in the middle of this place and just stared.  I would love to do this – like Rothko’s desire to paint a whole room, I wanted to build a chapel and paint walls and windows and roof tiles and floors.

            I spent the next day walking in the woods from Tostedt to Sproetze, the village where my Opa & Oma used to live, to their house which my Aunt Kitty now enjoys.  We took Aida the dog for a run through the fields while I still thought of my chapel.  She showed me old photo albums of my mom and she and Marianne, Oma, and Opa.  She surprised me with an album of Opa’s that had a black-and-white picture of my parents on the title page – from the year they met and were married in 1961.  Opa had hand-written their love story, proudly announcing that my dad came from German grandparents, but outside of “ja” and “prost”, German failed him.  The photo album was fabulous, with the engagement parties, wedding, and subsequent diverging directions as coloured photos filled with big smiles and LA palm trees that my mom sent back to him were mingled with formal and serious black-and-white photos of her family back “home”.  It was lovely spending the day with Tante Kitty, in her green garden fit for a magazine, surrounded by stories of her and my mom and grandparents from 50 and 60 years ago, as well as life now and all that we have in common.

            Before I leave Germany, I have to also write that I noticed German flags in front of a few houses on my aunt’s street.  It isn’t unusual in the States, in fact un-patriotic to be without one, but somehow it struck me as odd in Germany, and I asked my aunt if it was just my imagination.  No, since the 2006 World Cup held in Germany, German flags had become socially acceptable.  In Hamburg we saw a stand selling everything from bags and purses and wallets to shirts and sweats and caps with the German black-gold-red or the Hamburger castle insignia.  German pride had been revived by a football match.  I asked Marianne if they had a national German day that was celebrated, like 4^th of July, Bastille Day, Cinco de Mayo, or Canada Day.  Again, it was only in the last two years that the 3^rd of October was declared, marking the anniversary that East and West Germany were politically reunited.  But what she subsequently told me was even more interesting.  She, as well as many other Germans, wanted the 9^th of November to be the National Day.  On the 9^th of November in 1918, the first democratic German government, the Weimar Republic, was elected into power.  On the 9^th of November in 1938, Nazi SS officers executed an order to destroy all Jewish businesses, shattering glass storefronts, stealing merchandise, and breaking manufacturing machines.  The shards of glass all over the streets on the following morning were cleaned up by the Jews and their insurance claims given to the Third Reich.  Krystallnacht (“Crystal Night”, or the Night of Broken Glass) was not a bright spot in German history.  But 51 years later, on the 9^th of November 1989, the Berlin Wall fell.  It seems the 9^th of November somehow covers recent German history succinctly.

            Aside from black-gold-red and significant dates in history, I asked my aunt about more current events, specifically about energy resources (OK, that was a non-sequiter for those of you asleep).  But I was interested not only because of Russia flexing its muscles and control over energy which supplies much of Germany’s demand, but also because of the difference of opinion on nuclear energy from the French neighbours.  From the exhibit in Geneva I’d learned that Germany was planning to shut down all its nuclear plants by 2020 – although they only have about 19, compared to France’s 53.  But France’s population is very much pro-nuclear, citing accidents happening in any industry.  In fact, solar panels, now seen on the rooftops of many German houses, are absolutely uneconomical in France as it would take at least 20 years to break even due to the low cost of electricity produced by their nuclear plants.  Marianne said the bill to abandon nuclear would probably be overturned, as it has flip-flopped in the past.  The important thing is to continue R&D on all alternative resources, from nuclear and wind to clean-burning coal.  I asked her about Angela Merkel, and she said that she was quite well-liked in Germany.  Yes, it wouldn’t suit Germans for her to be having a torrid affair with a Calvin Klein underwear model 15 years her junior.

 

I barely made my plane to London Lutton after a summer lightning storm felled a tree across the train tracks from Tostedt to Hamburg, but at midnight Suzette picked me up from the train in Croydon and was immediately mad at me that I was only staying 8 days.  So we started catching up and ended up sitting in her car outside her house until 2am, already talking about our emotional trials with our lives.  Best friends are wonderful – to not see each other for 2 years and immediately have one of those “I can’t tell anyone else this, but...” conversations.

            Suzette has two boys who are very much, well, you know, boys.  They are about 1 and 2 years old, but the size of 2 and 3 years old.  Energy was the only requirement for babysitting them, playing with them, and disciplining them, but by the end of the 8 days, I was absolutely in love with Joshua and Haydon.  I was also honoured and amazed that Suzette and Roland asked me to be Haydon’s godmother – and I accepted in a heartbeat!  Anyway, Suzette and I took the boys out to parks, shopping, and a couple kid-friendly museums, then escaped without the boys one afternoon to the Tate Modern and one Saturday late night for girls’ night out and a few beers.  We caught the Olympic Opening Ceremony in Beijing on TV and were quite impressed, as I suppose most of the world was.  So we concluded that we’ll have to get tickets to London in 2012 – why not?

Suzette and her Mom threw me a party with her family and our mutual friends Andrew and Wei from Cannes, who now live in London.  Suzette went all out on the food, as usual.  We had enough for everyone to eat lunch and dinner, and then her Mom’s curry arrived.  I told Sandra we had much too much food and asked why she brought the curry – “Well, it’s a party!  You always bring curry to a party!”.  So it was just a wonderful week with her family, and Suzette and I both enjoyed just doing the usual daily schedule together. 

 

I probably wouldn’t have left London if my schedule was my own, but I’d promised to house-sit for family friends Larry & Sylvie near La Rochelle while they went to Turkey for vacation with their kids.  The main characters in this plot were Ouragan the Horse (“ouragan” = hurricane in French), Calico the Donkey, Stella the English Setter, Cookie the Cat Who Loves Attention, and Frisky and Domino the Scaredy Cats.  Oh, I forgot the Herd of bulls and cows with their calves who wandered down the road occasionally and always turned me into a Scaredy Cat since I had to walk by them with Stella, blocked by the canal on one side and the forest on the other.  Anyway, that was about the only contact I had with any living creature for the two weeks, with the exception of the throngs of people at Cultura in La Rochelle when I bought a couple canvases and the nice lady at the local Spar market. 

About 10 years ago (maybe a bit less), Larry bought an old farm house, actually the main house of a vineyard named Vina, after the vineyard near Stanford in California where the original owner had worked.  (Did I get that right, Larry?)  So Larry made friends with the guys at the French hardware store and passed French Bureaucracy 101 after many months to create this gorgeous house that he also uses occasionally as a bed & breakfast.  The weather was lovely and cool for mid-August, the surrounding fields and forest as quiet as a cemetery, and the first week I didn’t do anything terribly remarkable.  In the evenings I replenished the water buckets for Ouragan and Calico and gave them a few carrots or apples that had fallen from a tree nearby.  I’ve never made friends so easily!  Then Stella would take me out for a long walk along the canal and in the forest.  She also likes to go swimming, so when I was worn out and my shoulder was throbbing from her tugging on her leash all the time, I’d let her jump in and swim as wide as the leash would let her.  Once she surprised a bird in the tall grass near the path – it startled me as well, but Stella couldn’t keep her excitement contained.  She chased the bird (a bit hard to do without wings) then ran back to me to tell me she’d found a bird!  Then back around the circle to go after the bird, now long-gone, and returning to me to make sure I fully understood this incredible phenomenon.  Anyway, Stella and I got used to each other, and as long as we took the same road without too much new to smell and drink and chase, she was manageable.  By the end of the two weeks I think I even became quite fond of her and gave her a bath just before Larry & the family came home. 

Behind the house is a fabulous pool, not to mention a Jacuzzi and sauna inside, so a swim or two or three became part of my daily routine as well.  Oh, and I can’t forget the courgettes – no, the COURGETTES!!  Larry had planted 6 zucchini plants which grew so fast that they produced Godzilla squash.  They were about 15 inches long and 6 or 8 inches diameter and were actually quite frightening!  Along with the squash were 8 or 10 tomato plants, so I also kept busy in the kitchen searching through Larry & Sylvie’s bookshelves of gourmet cookbooks for zucchini and tomato recipes.  By the second week I’d recovered from Joshua and Haydon sufficiently to do some painting.  A couple small ones were duds, but I finished the “Red Pirate Ship” which I lugged over to Luxembourg to Gabi’s and eventually gave to my other cousin Anja.

 

So that was my August, but I still hadn’t seen Anja or Gabi and their families nor my friends the Dawsons in Valence.  Coming back to Luxembourg, with its pastel-coulored houses, made me happy.  My cousin Gabi and her husband Arnold live in a fabulous house for their 6 kids (2 completed, 4 more in the planning phase) in a little village called Beyren.  I used to fly to Lux often enough to have the miles for this around-the-world trip plus a few others when I worked for Hughes.  During these business trips I made good friends, and being back in the city and countryside brought back many good memories from 10 years ago.  A former colleague, Ray Sperber and his wife Lola invited me for dinner.  Lola is also an artist, and Gabi and I were really impressed with her work and all the paintings she’s done. 

            Gabi’s children, Cornelia (2) and Nicolas (5 months), were so fun!  Nicolas is a miniature Arnold, and Cornelia has a personality that fills up the room.  We went to the aquarium, took walks along the Mosel (comparing ducks to swans to pigeons), walked to the playground (avoiding all the neighbourhood cats), coloured, played house, made banana-chocolate chip muffins, took silly pictures, and watched the backhoe in the yard tearing up the ground for Gabi & Arnold’s renovations.  Most evenings Arnold, Gabi, and I enjoyed dinner and long conversations about the economy (before the crash) and anything else (families) that happened to sound interesting.  Other evenings we had a quick dinner and went to the local pub and talked about the economy (before the crash) and anything else (beer) that happened to sound interesting. 

            I stayed over a week at Gabi’s, and on the weekend we were invited to Anja’s annual Garden Party.  Anja, Gabi’s sister and another sweet cousin of mine, lives near Heidelberg with her husband Mathias and their sons Alexander, Benjamin, and Jonathan – all under the age of 5.  Unfortunately I didn’t bring the California sunshine since it rained on their party for the first time since its inception.  But the kids loved getting wet and muddy and the adults gathered the bratwurst and beer under the tent to tables lit with candles.  Mathias works for SAP and many of the guests were colleagues, but by the end of the afternoon and late evening, everyone knew everyone else’s story.  Gabi and her kids and I stayed an extra two days while Arnold returned to Lux for work.  Aside from keeping the kids entertained and more late-night discussions of Germany’s history, us three girls played Sudoko addictively and laughed and had fun like we did when I lived with them as teenagers.  Without kids, I don’t remark how much time has passed, but with them I see how much older I’ve gotten, but kids also have a funny way of keeping us young, too.  They hold up our faults and bad habits like a mirror, and I’m still glad I don’t have to look into mine!

            Before leaving Lux, I painted “Go Orange” for Gabi and Arnold in a manic two sleepless nights.  But I was so happy to give it to them, and they seemed quite excited about it, too.  It not only matched the decor, but Arnold is Dutch and reminding you of William of Orange should put the colour in the right context.

 

After a long train ride from Lux to Valence on a sweltering day, I was welcomed to Matt & Janet’s apartment by their two girls, Jessica & Valerie.  Again, the last time I spent a weekend with them, the girls did my hair into pigtails – really quite hysterical.  But now Jessica doesn’t think anything is funny because she’s a teenager now and it’s all so serious... but Valerie is still cute and funny and affectionate.  But if you see the pics, they still have a great sense of humor.

            I asked Janet to tell me again their story of being highly-paid engineers for GM, working in the States and in Lux, and then giving it up to move to Africa to be Christian missionaries when the girls were babies.  I won’t write their personal story here, but it helped me to relax a little about “God’s BIG plan for my life”.  Most people close to me (or anyone who’s managed to read most of my blog) see that I’m drawn to work out in the field for my faith.  Evangelizing isn’t my strongpoint, but I figure I should develop it, or work in other areas in which I am stronger.  But after all this travel and learning languages and meeting workers in different countries and cultures, I still don’t feel like I’m supposed to do something like that.  Janet helped me see that God might be heading me in that direction, but He does it in His time and I can’t rush it, nor can I think that I’m “wasting” time.

            Riding in the TGV along the Cote d’Azur back to Cannes, I felt the familiar tug in my heart that I was coming home.  I don’t really know what that is all about because I am surprised that I still feel it.  My life in France this year is very different than two years ago, but there’s still something here for me.  Friends asked if I would be happy here, and I probably would, but not under the stressful circumstance of just packing up and moving without a reason (especially to do all the paperwork!).  So anyway, I get to just live my life with a few mysteries and not figure it all out in advance – God probably doesn’t want my advice anyway.

 

My final three weeks in my apartment in La Roquette were a mix of everything.  After my brother told me about the train wreck in Chatsworth, I kinda checked out for a week or so.  I painted “111”, and once I got all those irritating feelings out of my over-sensitive system, I finalized the remaining paintings of the “My Sins” series.  My former tutor Christele and I met a few more times, and my friend Pascale and I spent a day in Nice and at the Chagall museum.  I wasn’t terribly impressed by the museum, since the paintings seem to be hung in a random order, but his stained glass windows and “The Bible Message” series of 10+ huge canvases definitely made an impression on us.  Like deciphering the pictures on the sanctuary walls of the church in San Gimignano, I really enjoyed “reading” Chagall’s paintings for the historical Biblical scenes described.

            Jackie’s boys, Michael and Robert, came downstairs to visit me quite a bit.  A few nights I made them dinner and watched them while Jackie was out.  Robert usually played games on my laptop or told me about his life in France while being “fidgety” as he calls it – the boy has a perfectly entertaining conversation while jumping around the room and being generally, well, wiggly!  But he’s a fabulous football player and so seems to have enough energy to power a small village.  Michael, much more calm, preferred to “just chat” while visiting rather than playing video games or watching TV.  Actually, one night I let the boys paint with my oils, and after that Michael became quite the artist!  First he just wanted to paint on paper, but a week or so later, I convinced him to try a small canvas.  I taught him how to dilute the paints in alkyd and oil and mix them.  A few days later, being bored by video games, he asked if he could paint again.  I was out of small canvases, and so he chose one of the long ones I had left over (30x90cm).  Previously he painted on the floor, but when I asked him where he wanted to paint, he pointed to my setup and said “there, like a real artist”.  He mixed all the paints himself and didn’t need any advice or encouragement from me to paint a really incredible abstract.  He was so un-self-conscious – when Robert asked him what he was going to paint, Michael just simply said he didn’t know.  I’m sorry that I didn’t take a picture of his paintings, but I also noticed that after I’d made a big deal about his painting to Jackie and other friends, he didn’t ask to paint anymore.  I broke my own rules.  But I left him several brushes and paints and canvases, a knife and palette and mixing alkyd, so Jackie said she’d try to get him going again by asking him how the paints are mixed.  Jackie’s great with the boys, and I miss them all terribly. 

 

At least I know I can stay homeless with minimal rent, since everyone wanted me to stay longer, so that was nice.  I’ll just keep flying around…  I guess that “free spirit” description of me is accurate. 

 

Election? What election?

I recently (OK, 3 weeks ago) read my friend Jon’s blog.  In one of the first entries he apologized for not writing for 2 days.  So I guess I’m no longer in the League of Bloggers but in the Memoir Hall of Fame.  I can provide all kinds of excuses, some true and some flimsy, but I’ve got enough to write without wasting time on trivialities and half-truths and crummy perspectives.

 

This is actually a commentary and less of a “what (and where) in the world is Laurie doing” episode.  As of my last entry, I had returned from Geneva and the Refresh Retreat and was back in my apartment in La Rochelle, near Cannes, painting and reading and thinking about things, becoming very interested in reading what I could on French politics and the French view of America.  I continued reading a book called “La fin de l’Empire” which I grabbed in Cultura (the French version of Barnes&Nobles, but with art supplies!) because my theory for the last few years has been that America’s empire is in decline, repeating the history of the fall of the Roman Empire.  Yes, we are innovative and have done great things and advanced civilization in many ways that will continue to be used, but though we still use Roman inventions (numbers, books, mirrors, roads, indoor plumbing, the Coliseum – I mean, where would USC play football??), their society dribbled away in consumerism and “more”ness.  Anyway, back to the book, I was thrilled to read it.  The author writes that the American Empire is overextended, produces too much (how much can we buy, actually, so let’s market to the 3^rd World whose economies can’t digest it), and is faced with a crisis of legitimacy among the world’s nations and citizens.  The first chapter is called “Route to Bagdad”, and I appreciated it because it traced the American government’s actions back to the beginning of Regan’s reign.  I wasn’t really old enough to follow politics then and didn’t in later years because I was too busy with school and work, so this was something of a history textbook for me since more recently I’ve enjoyed reading and debating as a nice compliment to doing my art and travels. 

 

Anyway, I was enthralled with this book and other articles I could find.  My former French tutor came for a visit one afternoon and after catching up on the mundane of life began to talk politics for 3 ½ hours – in French!  Both of us were quite impressed with my French, actually.  However, in the “Fall of the American Empire”, my bookmark remains in the middle of chapter 2 because I finally saw that this was an American book, originally titled “Dilemmas of Domination:  the Unmaking of the American Empire” by Walden Bello.  It sounded like a good French name to me.  With a new quest to seek out articles on America written by (real) French people I came across a Le Monde special magazine with “Les Américians” plastered on the front.  By paying Cultura 5 euro, I could read articles that Le Monde had published over the last year or so, as well as a follow-up to an article that interviewed several “typical” Americans 4 years ago before the Bush-Kerry election.  I liked best the article entitled “The World escapes the US” – as in “the American’s don’t have a clue”.  (The following are basically excerpts, but translated by me and sometimes abridged.)

 

We will not be returning to a unipolar system where neither the power nor the legitimacy of the States and Western Europe is accepted by the rest of the world.  This signifies two dangers currently in progression:  anarchy and tyranny, either simultaneous or alone, will dominate this century, and neither the States nor Europe nor the grace of destiny, either simultaneously or singly, will be able to influence in any important way.  The States have entered into a new phase, characterized by their humiliation in Iraq, of general loss of prestige and power, due also to the spectacular emergence of China and India on the economic scene and the reemergence of Russia as a menace to its neighbors but also indispensable to the West, however weak and unfriendly.  In this crisis of American power and influence, the terms “unipolar” (or “unilateral”) and “super-power” have lost most of their validity.  And what replaces them is neither the concert efforts of multiple powers  (as Europe in the last century) nor the reign of multilateral institutions (dominated by promoting discourse such as the diplomatic approach by the French in the last years).  Of course the unity of allies to dissuade and international institutions functioning to keep a minimum of rationalization and moderation in international affaires continue to be widely used, but their efforts are, at least, fragile and fragmented.  Their mechanisms are constantly detoured, blocked, or submerged by the assembly of passions and myths, by the armed prophets and their fanatic or desperate disciples, or by uncontrolled cultural and social evolutions.  China and Russia play a complex role in the balance.  For the West, these two states are irreplaceable partners, but at the same time dangerous collaborators and potentially real or virtual adversaries.  (my comment is that they, more specifically India and China, are also our suppliers, allowing us to buy ourselves to death)  Geographic and cultural differences aside, the BRIC group (Brazil, Russia, India, China) is an emerging economic power which transcends the North-South polarity (The French usually use “South” to denote 2^nd and 3^rd World countries and economies.)

One of the most pre-occupying issues is basically the multiplication of civil wars, whether permanent, intermittent, or virtual, whether for religious, racial, political, or economic causes, that menace and incite by extension or contagion entire regions, such as East Asia, Mid-East, and the Cornice of Africa.  This makes control by stronger, outside forces or international institutions an effort of Herculean proportions.  Generally, the basic cause of all evolutions and political revolutions is the coincidence of two series of conflicts:  technology vs. social and cultural norms, and modernization vs. tradition.  These tensions, however, have been incredibly accelerated and heightened by the political and military actions of the West, above all the invasion of Iraq with its false justifications, atrocities, and attempted demonstration of power.  The invasion has been compared to Napoleon’s invasion into Spain by its limited effects and often counter-productivity of military power.

The US has found itself, since 9-11 and Iraq, confronted by a world it cannot ignore, but cannot control, nor, apparently, understand.  More troubling, for Americans, is the complexity and ambiguity of their relations with the emerging powers.  It is impossible for Americans to simply categorize them as friends, enemies, or collaborators.  The central difficulty is that the world has become, on one hand more asymmetric and heterogeneous in terms of perceptions and passions, and more symmetric and equal in terms of power.  To begin to understand this situation, we must deal with incomplete antagonism and imperfect partnerships with an incomplete equality of power and imperfect reciprocity.  (Got that?)  The strong are not always strong enough to completely impose and protect the order and because egos and persistent oppressions and sometimes aggressions compound to make partnerships and objectives more complex or masked.  It has now been proven that the superior technology which can deliver a spectacular military victory obtained in a few hours with few casualties has been rendered, if not useless, at least deceptive.  So the West is left with a classic dilemma:  adopt the methods of their enemies in the name of effectiveness and thereby rival their taste for suicide, brutality, and disregard for human life – either that or a slap on the wrists.  (At first I thought this ridiculous until I realized that in Vietnam, soldiers had to fight as guerrillas because it was the enemy’s tactic.)  General Rupert Smith is quoted that modern conflicts and confrontations are no longer about destroying an enemy, occupying their territory, or taking their resources.  The objective of modern war is now to influence the will and allegiance of other people to one’s own – and this cannot be done in totality (my comment is that this can’t be done at all – most civil wars have roots in this kind of thinking even when some of the differences like culture are minimized).  This is obviously seen in Iraq, but the difficulty of complexity also with Russia.  In exchange for their support against Iranian nuclear armament, the West must abstain from interfering in relations with the Ukraine, Georgia, or even talking about human rights in Russia itself.  (this article was published in summer 2007 before the recent aggression against Georgia and the West’s lack of interference)

As countries in the West, especially the States, influence other nations either by direct pressure, diplomatic compromise, or indirect navigation of the current cultural and social psychologies, they cannot exclude other countries or act in isolation.  On the contrary, only reciprocity, however imperfect, and successes, however partial, between nations and cultures can have a chance to isolate the adversaries of tolerance and encourage transnational solidarity.  It is this solidarity, at a time of increased nationality that will be the best chance for humanity.

(This is an excerpt from The American Interest by Pierre Hassner, born in 1933.  He studied philosophy under Raymond Aron and is one of the most sought experts on international relations.  He studied in Italy, the US, and Canada.) 

 

Turning towards the American election, in the June 16, 2008 issue of Elle magazine, I read an article that French youth love Obama (although most of France does) – they wear sweatshirts and t-shirts with his name and face and “emblem”, replacing  rock band shirts and sports jerseys.  “If Obama wins, racism will be banished throughout the world!” says one high-school student.  The article says:

The candidate speaks to all:  white and black, but has captured the support not due to race but his vision.  He has done what Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice haven’t.  Obama also addresses the immigration issue, a problem both France and the US face.  French immigrants want to know what France can offer their children – they don’t mind working hard and putting up with some discrimination, but want their children well-integrated.  For immigrants and their descendants, Obama is an incarnation of a fantasy.  His cross-cultural roots also set an example for the people being asked if they’re French or Moroccan, Algerian, Indonesian, Haitian, etc.  Obama underlines France’s incapacity to acknowledge its diversity, but they acknowledge that Obama’s predecessors:  Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Mohammed Ali paved the way.  This hasn’t happened here in France yet. 

(There is still racism in France, sanctioned and even institutionalized – most obvious to me when I learned that pictures are still required when submitting a resume.)  Other students Elle magazine interviewed are more pessimistic.  They believe Obama will fall back in the ratings.  While he’s new now (written in June), by November Americans will revert to supporting someone closer to their values: patriotism and closed-minded positions towards the Arab world.  Most students believe McCain will win, malheureusement.

 

Another article in “Les Américians” commented that each of the presidential candidates (this was before Hillary bowed out) would disappoint everyone.  McCain has proved himself to have strong character, but in the coming decade, his war record is not applicable.  He doesn’t have the temperament nor the mentality for the new world order, aside from his vicious temper and quick-flip to calm.  He’s not ideal for a head of state on the international stage.  The author was most inclined to Hillary, excepting her fanfare about bombing Iran.  But she’s a moot point now, anyway.  Obama’s fierce campaign against Hillary will do him damage in the final run against McCain (although what I hear is that he’s ahead of McCain now – probably more to do with running mates than anything, though). Obama’s biggest proponent is probably his biggest handicap:  the world over is looking to him, not just along racial lines but for an appropriate approach to the complex international stage.  He brings so much hope with him that, if elected, the only place to go is down.  With not just Americans awaiting his grand initiatives, he will not be able to satisfy everyone.  While Obama is compared to George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and also heralded as the next JFK, the world unfortunately isn’t Kennedy’s world anymore.  So just as Sarkozy was heralded as the most exciting leader in Europe and anti-establishment when he was elected in May 2007, but has disappointed most of France, so it will likely be Obama’s fall if elected.

Yoann, my friend in Geneva who is a former Alcatel colleague, gave me some of his perspectives on Sarkozy.  First, he made a contract with his former wife to pretend their marriage was fine until 2 months after he was elected last May.  They then divorced (Sarkozy’s second) and he quickly married Carla Bruni, after first showing her off to the world during a vacation to Egypt at Christmas-time.  She, apparently, for all her high-breeding, is equivalent to a call girl. She has a son from her relationship with famous philosopher Raphaël Enthoven, but also happens to have slept with Enthoven’s father, Jean-Paul. (Do we even have famous philosophers in the US, let alone those who are publicly known and respected?)  And she doesn’t even have the class to hush it up.  During an interview to the magazine Figaro Madame in February 2007 she declared: “I am faithful — to myself! I am bored to death by monogamy.”

The first press conference of Sarkozy’s presidency addressed his love life.  Bruni is a stepdaughter of an Italian tire magnate and classical composer, Alberto Bruni Tedeschi, who is married to her mother, Marisa Borini, a concert pianist. Carla Bruni is rich, grew up in France, is well-educated, and speaks three languages, so some think she’s good first lady material.  I saw a TV programme that gave some details of their meeting.  Sarkozy, from the right-wing, asked a close friend and political aide to find him someone with the qualifications of being left-wing and some sort of artist (the French venerate their culture and those who nurture it, be they artists, fashion designers, singers, writers, or philosophers).  So a dinner party was arranged. Bruni, one of the guests, successfully wooed Sarkozy by strumming her guitar and singing a song for him after dinner.  It would be such a cheesy story if it wasn’t in France.

 

The general consensus, both in France and in conservative nations like Egypt and India, where the royal bedmates visited, is that she doesn’t have the image of a first lady. Additionally, Sarkozy’s public affair with her removed the very traditional French boundary between a politician’s public and private life.  Mitterand, for example, had a mistress for about 20 years, and although the press certainly knew about it, only for Mitterand’s funeral were photos of her and their teenage daughter published.  

 

Aside from the sordid stories of her former relationships and attitude toward them, Yoann disgustedly told me that Sarkozy was caught texting Carla during meetings. So for those who don’t really care who he sleeps with or marries, Sarkozy brings down his ratings by publicly being in love with a woman rather than France.  He is also perceived to be just looking out for himself and excels in self-marketing and manipulating the press. Newspapers loved making caustic comments about him, in typical French fashion.  One favorite name was Presisdent Bling-Bling.

 

But while his self-promotion and the “Carla Effect” reduced Sarkozy’s popularity last year, so has his approach to reforms to improve France’s economy...

 

So I mentioned before about my 3 ½ hour French conversation with my former tutor, Christéle.  Of course I wish I had written a few things down soon after, but there’s a general theme among my French friends, no matter what economic or social class.  One of the first ways Sarkozy got the French in a frenzy was by increasing his salary while telling all of France they need to tighten their belts.  In order to stimulate the economy (by getting the French to spend what they just lost in wage increases) was to allow the giant commercial corporations like Carrefour and Casino (Wal-Mart and Ralphs grocery store equivalents) to use their large purchasing power for reduced wholesale costs to pass on lower prices to the public, meanwhile undercutting small and medium-sized merchants.  Since France is one of the least-franchised countries in the West and having small merchants (bakers, butchers, neighborhood brasseries) is a part of their culture.  (For example, one theory regarding poor service in large department stores is that the French custom of saying “bon jour” on entering a business can’t be done in a large store.  And if you don’t say bon jour – even if only to other customers if the proprietor isn’t within earshot – service can get nasty.)  Sarkozy is also good buddies with many heads of big business.  Aside from his son being married to the heiress of Darty (equivalent to Best Buy in the States), he and his family have been long-time friends with the head of Bouygues, a giant telecom company as well as infrastructure and construction, and several other businesses (equivalent to GE, I suppose).  Many of the reforms he’s making to improve the economy are perceived to attack the middle-class while leaving benefits to big business – sounds familiar.  Also the method in which he is changing the structure of France is to bombard them with reform before labor understands the full effects and can strike.  His favorite trick is to reform one aspect of business or education, then reform an opposing group so that both are paralyzed to strike because they would be striking against each other.  The perception of Christéle, as well as my friends Pascale and Thierry, is that Sarkozy tinkers with change, making tweaks in the system, but so frequently that the population can’t keep up and the long-term effect is masked – usually to the benefit of big money.  Back in May or early June, I saw that one of the long-term newscasters was fired, and this made the headlines.  I wasn’t quite sure why, but Christéle enlightened me that he’d irritated Sarkozy during his “welcome to the presidency of France” interview.  This well-respected and well-known newscaster (someone like Tom Brokaw) always interviewed the new presidents and put some hard questions to them.  Well, Sarkozy thought his image tarnished afterwards, so the newscaster was fired, based on him being too old and reducing ratings, of course.  A “retrospective” of his work was broadcast, specifically excerpts of his interviews of Mitterand and Chirac who both diplomatically answered the same questions he posed to Sarkozy.  Sarkozy also tampered with unemployment benefits – sacrilege for the French.  Christéle said he’d changed the scale so that an unemployed worker is required to take a job providing 90% of his former salary or wage after 3 months, then 75% after 6 months, and something like 50-60% after a year (these are approximate, probably being distorted a bit both by Christéle’s telling me and my memory). 

 

Anyway, that’s just a bit of what’s been going on in France, not to mention immigration continuing to be a big issue (Sarkozy wants the EU to have a united front on this), and all the adaptations France has to make as the EU strives to be more concrete.  It’s amazing that France is working so hard with the EU with respect to its tradition of looking inwards and thinking their methods are the best (hmmm… sounds like another country I’ve lived in).  Oh, one other fact I saw on the news recently is that France’s banking is in good health despite the crisis in the States that has become contagious to most of Europe and Asia.  The banking expert on TV said commercial loans had increased by ~15% and personal loans by ~8% from last year.  Their system somehow prohibits riding loans on loans on loans on equity.  The downside, though again more of a cultural thing that the French are used to, is that the townhouse my friends Pascale and Thierry bought in 2006 has yet to be completed (the original date, however, was mid-2008, so it’s not incredibly behind schedule).  The French appreciate things being slower in order to be of better quality, or simply contribute to a better quality of life.

 

So the French are disappointed in Sarkozy for one reason or another.  I asked Yoann about the other candidate running against Sarkozy in last May’s elections.  Yoann’s opinion of Ségolène Royal, a woman, was that she is not articulate at all.  Following her speeches was like hunting for clues as to the point she was trying to make.  Yoann actually abstained from voting, which surprised me, but sounds similar to the last two American presidential elections:  choosing between two unqualified candidates.

 

Also, not particular to external American affairs but an influence on it, is an excerpt from “Screwtape Proposes a Toast”, written in 1959 by CS Lewis. (It was something of a short follow-up after he’d written the infamous “Screwtape Letters” 1942.)  I suppose just by writing the excerpt in my blog forces me to admit what I believe, but Lewis does it in a much more eloquent and logical way than I could, so it speaks for itself.

 

Democracy is a name they venerate.  … Democracy is properly the name of a political system, even a system of voting, and that … has only the most remote and tenuous connection … that all men are equal.  … And of course it is connected with the political ideal that men should be equally treated. … As a result… the word Democracy … prompts a man to say I’m as good as you.  [But] no man who says I’m as good as you believes it.  He would not say it if he did. … and therefore resent every kind of superiority in others;  denigrate it;  wish its annihilation.  Such a man presently suspects every mere difference of being a claim to superiority.  No one must be different from himself in voice, clothes, manners, recreations, choice of food. … But now it is sanctioned – respectable, even laudable – by the incantatory use of the word democratic.  Under the influence of this incantation those who are in any or every way inferior can labour more wholeheartedly and successfully than ever before to pull down everyone else to their own level.  But that is not all.  Under the same influence, those who come, or could come, nearer to a full humanity, actually draw back from it for fear of being undemocratic.  People who would really wish to be – and are offered the Grace which would enable them to be – honest, chaste, or temperate, refuse it.  To accept might make them Different, might offend again the Way of Life, take them out of Togetherness, impair their Integration with the Group.  They might (horror of horrors!) become individuals.  [Thus is produced] the vast, overall movement towards the discrediting, and finally the elimination, of every kind of human excellence – moral, cultural, social, or intellectual.  … It is not pretty to notice how Democracy (in the incantatory sense) is now doing … the work that was once done by the most ancient Dictatorships, and by the same methods.  … “Tyrants” allow no pre-eminence among subjects.  Let no man live who is wiser, or better, or more famous, or even handsomer than the mass.  Cut them all down to a level; all slaves, all nobodies.  All equals.

It begins to work itself into their educational system.  … The basic principle of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils.  That would be “undemocratic”.  These differences between the pupils – for they are obviously and nakedly individual differences – must be disguised.  This can be done on various levels.  At universities, examinations must be framed so that nearly all the students get good marks.  Entrance examinations must be framed so that all, or nearly all, citizens can go to universities, whether they have any power ( or wish) to profit by higher education or not.  At schools, the children who are too stupid or lazy to learn languages and mathematics and elementary science can be set to doing the things that children used to do in their spare time.  …  But all the time there must be no faintest hint that they are inferior to the children who are at work.  Whatever nonsense they are engaged in must have – I believe the English already use the phrase – “parity of esteem”. … Children who are fit to proceed to a higher class may be artificially kept back because the others would get a trauma… by being left behind.  … All incentives to learn and all penalties for not learning will vanish.  The few who might want to learn will be prevented;  who are they to overtop their fellows?  And anyway the teachers … will be far too busy reassuring the dunces and patting them on the back to waste any time on real teaching.

A democracy does not want great men. … For “democracy” … leads to a nation without great men, a nation mainly of subliterates, morally flaccid from lack of discipline in youth, full of the cocksureness which flattery breeds on ignorance, and soft from lifelong pampering. … One Democracy was surprised lately when it found that Russia had got ahead of it in science.  What a delicious specimen of human blindness!  If the whole tendency of their society is opposed to every sort of excellence, why did they expect their scientists to excel?

 

For anyone who has read this far, aside from Ma, I have to admit that with all this “research”, I’m staring at the absentee ballot on my desk and wondering who to vote for…

 

Regarding Art

I had a boyfriend once (yes, incredulous but true) who, when I would tell him I was doing my art,  would jealously respond --  “Who’s Art?”  As I was writing about my summer adventures I noticed that there was one storyline on politics, which I made a separate entry, and then another plot regarding art.  Remember that great Harrison movie “Regarding Henry”?  What follows is my exciting remake, “Regarding Art”:

 

This tale picks up in July.  Aside from becoming a political and economic spectator, I was frantically painting in order to have my series mostly complete and ready to take to local galleries.  I didn’t get as much done as I’d hoped, primarily due to the adversaries of doubt and negativity.  Although I didn’t quite fall into one of my favorite holes entitled “I’m not really an artist” but did succumb to the slightly shallower “The gallerists will laugh at me!”.  I think in my last blog entry in mid-July I wrote that I’d decided not to look for an exhibition space or gallery in France this year, but I decided to stick with my original agenda (I should know better than to make a commitment since I’ll always try to weasel out of it).  The decision to not promote my art helped take the pressure off, especially since I was having trouble resolving 3 of my paintings – they were missing something that was escaping me.  Normally I just put such paintings aside and whatever escaped me before eventually surfaces a year or two later.  But when I decided to keep to my word, the pressure came back because I’m on a schedule!!!  The engineer in me decided to take control and made quite a nice spreadsheet allocating so many hours to each painting to “get them finished” and crossed off the list.  I found out that art doesn’t get made that way, but a lot of chocolate chip cookies do.

 

So at the end of July before heading off for 6 weeks of travel around Europe, I rented a car to throw some paintings in the back and peddle them at high-end galleries in a town nearby – St. Paul de Vence.  The town, quaint and painterly, attracted many of the famous artists from the last century who lived out their lives on the Cote d’Azur.  These artists – Picasso, Cezanne, Dufy, Leger, Matisse, Chagall, etc – would pay their room and board during a painting expedition for a quick sketch on canvas or a scribble (in Picasso’s case) on a napkin.  So much art was deposited in inspiring St. Paul, and its heritage continues as it is THE place to buy art on the Cote d’Azur.  Anyway, I rented the car in a complete state of terror, but needing to peddle my wares before going away to visit relatives if I were to hope for a show in September or October.  I wasn’t feeling much like putting myself out there, and everything from driving a car (a stick-shift) around here (where I’ve never driven – didn’t have a car when I lived here prior), to going to the galleries (French gallerists are sure to be even more snobby than in New York), to updating my website (I needed to explain this “body of work” and do it in French) was overwhelming.  While I’m really good at marketing, I now know why artists generally aren’t – aside from having the skills, we have to have the motivation and be in a mood to deal with rejection.  I wanted to just not do this, partly because I didn’t feel prepared.  Although I had some paintings in the car, I really needed to make a portfolio but hadn’t since few of the paintings were definitely done and the rest in flux or contemplation.  So I asked friends and family to pray for me and that accountability alone kept me from playing hooky.  Although the car rental was expensive, I’m grateful I had the money to get it.  A friend from church gave me a ride to the Nice airport for the pick-up.  The driving was really easy, and I enjoyed it.  My Ma helped me translate my artist statement into French since I didn’t have the time.  All the gallery staff were very nice and helpful, with lots of good conversations in French about art, and I made 3 gallery contacts that I was hoping would amount to something.  A French artist in his mid-50s and inhabitant of St. Paul offered me coffee and a long chat about painting abstracts.  He told me that painting good abstracts is more difficult than any other genre and that my paintings should “have balls”.  He was running a gallery displaying his art and that of his friends – a co-op, I suppose, but one of the largest galleries there.  We dissected his paintings and talked art philosophy for almost 2 hours, and I even convinced him to look at my website after he told me he didn’t use the internet.  So I figured it was a successful day.  I drove into Nice the following day, talked to one artist who was selling only his own art in a gallery, but really didn’t see much.  St. Paul is really about it for art, and though my contacts didn’t work out, I’d been to neither St. Paul nor old-town Nice, so I got to do some sightseeing and just be a tourist as well. 

 

So I’m now getting ready to remove the paintings from the stretcher bars and roll them up into my suitcase.  I’ve posted them to my website – 11 in all.  While I’m not sure a couple are resolved and completely finished, they are what they are for now. (Some are obviously overexposed due to a tug-of-war between my camera and a hyper English setter in which my camera underwent the hammer to be repaired – I’m not joking!  It doesn’t like water pictures, which will limit my picture-taking in Australia and New Zealand but should get me through the trip.  I plan to use a friend’s camera and improve the website pictures this week.)  Eight paintings are in a new section on the website entitled “My Sins” which is the series I was promoting for an exhibition here.  Their titles and the artist statement regarding them pretty much says it all, so I won’t rewrite it here. Three additional paintings are in the general abstract section of my website.  Two I did while on the road in Germany and gave them to my cousins.  One is called “Go Orange” which, aside from matching their decor, firmly endeared itself to my cousin’s Dutch husband.  Just check out their bright orange football jerseys next time you watch a European match.  The other is the “Red Pirate Ship” which I thought my other cousin with 3 boys would enjoy, and it also coincided with her decor. 

 

The last painting is called “111”.  The September day I returned back to my apartment near Cannes, I received an email from my brother about a train crash and that he was on the train after the one that crashed and was OK.  After reading the news reports about the head-on collision in Chatsworth, I went into some sort of emotional shock.  My brother has a side business (www.lapassenger.com ) informing commuters on the Metrolink trains in LA of train delays and cancellations – a big help to commuters who may need to drive to work to be on time.  My family and I have helped him promote it from time to time, and because of it he’s quite close to the passenger community – mostly commuters.   Being a Friday and all, he might have taken that earlier train if the workload was light.  Plus he always sits in the first car behind the engine which was where the most casualties occurred.  I was addicted to the news reports, which was dumb because I always ended up crying, especially when some of the interviews my brother gave were featured.  I still think I’m adopted because the rest of my family seemed to get over it quickly, but I just had a very unexplainable hard time with it for a week or two.  So I have to paint these over-sensitive, illogical, unpredictable feelings, and what came out was this painting.  I read a lot of meaning into it, which I wrote to my brother, but now I think I’ll just let it stand on its own.