I did this one a little bit ago. I figured you guys might like to see it.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Cezanne
Hi all!
Well, things are starting to wind down here in Aix-en-Provence. We're taking pictures of all our work, scrambling to make it look like we've been sketching way more than we have, and everyone's starting to freak out because we're running out of time to create our masterpiece. The very first day of orientation here, we sat down with the director of the Marchutz School, Alan. The very first thing he said was, "Kids, I want you to do something. I want you to go home and write on a piece of paper 'They are not trying to get me to paint like Paul Cezanne,' and I want you to hang it on the ceiling above your bed, so it's the first thing you see when you wake up each morning." That statement was both true and false. They are not trying to get us to paint in the style of Cezanne. Really, they aren't trying to get us to paint in the style of anyone but our natural selves, which is one of the many things that makes this school so great. But if you interpret painting "like Paul Cezanne" to mean painting in a way in which the art is a true reflection of the artist's vision, in which every stroke represents a necessary relationship with every other stroke, to create a voluminous whole that is greater than the simple sum of its parts, then yes, they are trying to get us to paint like Paul Cezanne. Many artists and art historians say that Cezanne was the father of modern art. What this means is that to do something great in painting right now, one should really go through Cezanne. It's the same with Giotto and Michelangelo. Alan called them "bookends in history." Everyone way back the day, in Italy, was doing their art, and then along came Giotto who took everyone's different approaches, their different theories, their different everything, and summed it all up in a way that was more true than anyone had been able to accomplish. Michelangelo did the same thing with the human subject. Everyone who was interested in the way the human figure operated in space was doing their thing, when along comes this guy, and does it so well that it is impossible to ignore him. Well that was Cezanne as well. It is seen in his color, his depth (yes, there is great depth in Cezanne), his solidity and his atmosphere.
This past Friday, we went on a trip all around Aix, Cezanne's stomping grounds, where he was born and raised, and where he spent almost all of his days as a master. We started out in the studio he had built at the end of his life, where he worked on his late still lives and portraits. While they do have some replacement stuff, much of what they have in their actually belonged to Cezanne, and can be seen in various still lives. We then went out into the cold Mistral winds for the rest of the day, to look at some real motifs.
The first place we went was the Chateau Noire. The Chateau Noire is a large estate and mansion built by the inventor of a popular furniture varnish way back when. When he went bankrupt, he sold the property to a reclusive family, who has guarded it with everything they've got now for generations. When Cezanne got big, he tried to buy the place, but the family would not sell it. Instead, apparently recognizing his talent, they rented him a space for his studio, and allowed him to paint as much as he wanted around the property.
Now is the time for the story of Leo Marchutz, the founder of our school. Leo was a German art student in the early 1900s. He was friends with an art dealer in Nuremberg, who had the opportunity to buy a Cezanne painting of Mont Sainte Victoire. Leo, a fan of Cezanne, encouraged this dealer to buy. She was reluctant because of the areas of canvas that were left white, and her feeling that the painting was not finished. Leo did his best to explain that these white areas were a necessary element of the painting, and that it was a masterpiece. He was finally able to convince her to buy the work, and it hung in her gallery for about a year. During that year, Leo would come in every day and look, draw, copy, and study the painting. When it finally sold (for a huge sum of money), the dealer thanked Leo for finding the painting by paying for a trip to Aix, so that he could see the real motif. So off he went. Upon his arrival, the German city boy went for a walk around town. Although Cezanne had been dead for a few years at this point, his coach driver was still alive, and Leo happened to bump into him on the Mirabeau, the main street in town. He asked the coachman where he could see a place where Cezanne worked, and the coachman kindly took him out the Route de Tholonet (the Marchutz School is on that street) to the Chateau Noire. Well Leo Marchutz couldn't believe what he saw when he got to the top of the hill and rounded the corner. He had been driven right into a Cezanne motif, in fact the very one that he had studied for so long, done from the terraced hilltop of the Chateau Noire. Leo immediately took up a room, just like Cezanne, at the Chateau Noire, and began to study the motifs. So great was his passion for Cezanne that Leo returned the next summer, and eventually permanently moved to Aix, living at the Chateau Noire. Leo must have become quite close with the family who lives there, who recognized an important link between the young German and the late Paul Cezanne, because he developed an important relationship with them. When the War started, Marchutz even hid out on the property so as to avoid having to help the Nazis, and, despite their best efforts, he was not found. An important event happened when John Rewald (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rewald) came to Aix to study and photograph gothic architecture for his thesis. Here he met Leo, who asked to borrow his camera to take some pictures of Cezanne motifs. So the two of them went out together, lopping branches off trees, recreating and documenting Cezanne motifs. These were the first photographs of Cezanne motifs ever taken. Rewald eventually abandoned his gothic architecture project for a study of Cezanne, and later went on to be one of the most important art historians in the post impressionist era. He credits his study of Cezanne to Leo's enthusiasm. Anyway, Leo eventually moved from the Chateau Noire, about a 4 minute walk back towards town, to the place where the Marchutz school now stands. But the Marchutz-Chateau Noire connection still exists. Both professors, Alan and John, have their studios at the Chateau Noire, and Marchutz affiliates are the only people allowed to see the motifs that exist on the property. Alan and John have been allowed to bring one group of Cezanne scholars onto the property, but beyond that, only students have ever been allowed by the family onto the property. In fact, when the recent huge Cezanne retrospective that started in DC, and traveled to Paris, ended in Aix, Alan asked the family if he might bring the curator of the Smithsonian's National Gallery to come see the place, and they refused.
So there we stood, looking at things that only a hand full of people ever have the opportunity to see. People have speculated that Cezanne moved his easel during paintings, so as to gain multiple perspectives. It has also been said that up until Cezanne, art was about "this is what I see," whereas Cezanne asked the question "Is this what I see?" Well I'll be happy to explain to all of you in person why neither of these claims are true, and that's what we talked about. We did some serious looking at the motif and at the painting, and we did some reading of Cezanne's letters, and it was what Cezanne saw.
After an indoor picnic lunch in Alan's studio, we went across town to another motif to look at the evolution of Cezanne, and to think about what he meant when he said "I want to redo Poussin after nature." We looked at 3 paintings all done from this one spot, to see how he evolved over the years. Finally we went back across to the north east side of town, just in time to see the sun set on the mountain, and look at one of the last Mont Sainte Victoires he painted. As the Mistral winds whipped around us on top of the hill, we witnessed one of the most fortunate geographical situations in the world, the fact that the cliff side of Mont Sainte Victoire faces west. As the sun sets over the Cote D'Azur, it passes through the clear Provence sky, turning bright orange and pink, and it shines off the mountain, lighting it and the clouds up in fiery colors agains the blue, green, purple grey sky. It's amazing.
So no, they are not trying to get me to paint like Paul Cezanne. This is because, according to Cezanne, I can't, because I'm me, and I grab onto different things. But yes, they are trying to get me to paint like Paul Cezanne, because they are trying to get me to look and to really see, to be concrete and faithful to nature, without being a slave to nature, and to unify my surface in a way that creates something living.
The Marchutz school has given me something. They sometimes call it "sight and insight." I'm not sure what to call it, but it's very important, and I think it's going to drive my work from here on out. My time here has radically changed the way I see and think about the visual world. I've just begun my inevitable tasks of figuring out what to do with that, and disciplining myself so that I can get to a point where I can develop it further, and maybe even show people what I am just starting to see. Every time I say that, I hear myself sounding like a nut job, but I guess that's part of what studying art at the Marchutz school is about. This is a crazy place. I'm so happy I've come here. I can't wait to keep working so that I'll have more and better paintings to give all of you.
Well, things are starting to wind down here in Aix-en-Provence. We're taking pictures of all our work, scrambling to make it look like we've been sketching way more than we have, and everyone's starting to freak out because we're running out of time to create our masterpiece. The very first day of orientation here, we sat down with the director of the Marchutz School, Alan. The very first thing he said was, "Kids, I want you to do something. I want you to go home and write on a piece of paper 'They are not trying to get me to paint like Paul Cezanne,' and I want you to hang it on the ceiling above your bed, so it's the first thing you see when you wake up each morning." That statement was both true and false. They are not trying to get us to paint in the style of Cezanne. Really, they aren't trying to get us to paint in the style of anyone but our natural selves, which is one of the many things that makes this school so great. But if you interpret painting "like Paul Cezanne" to mean painting in a way in which the art is a true reflection of the artist's vision, in which every stroke represents a necessary relationship with every other stroke, to create a voluminous whole that is greater than the simple sum of its parts, then yes, they are trying to get us to paint like Paul Cezanne. Many artists and art historians say that Cezanne was the father of modern art. What this means is that to do something great in painting right now, one should really go through Cezanne. It's the same with Giotto and Michelangelo. Alan called them "bookends in history." Everyone way back the day, in Italy, was doing their art, and then along came Giotto who took everyone's different approaches, their different theories, their different everything, and summed it all up in a way that was more true than anyone had been able to accomplish. Michelangelo did the same thing with the human subject. Everyone who was interested in the way the human figure operated in space was doing their thing, when along comes this guy, and does it so well that it is impossible to ignore him. Well that was Cezanne as well. It is seen in his color, his depth (yes, there is great depth in Cezanne), his solidity and his atmosphere.
This past Friday, we went on a trip all around Aix, Cezanne's stomping grounds, where he was born and raised, and where he spent almost all of his days as a master. We started out in the studio he had built at the end of his life, where he worked on his late still lives and portraits. While they do have some replacement stuff, much of what they have in their actually belonged to Cezanne, and can be seen in various still lives. We then went out into the cold Mistral winds for the rest of the day, to look at some real motifs.
The first place we went was the Chateau Noire. The Chateau Noire is a large estate and mansion built by the inventor of a popular furniture varnish way back when. When he went bankrupt, he sold the property to a reclusive family, who has guarded it with everything they've got now for generations. When Cezanne got big, he tried to buy the place, but the family would not sell it. Instead, apparently recognizing his talent, they rented him a space for his studio, and allowed him to paint as much as he wanted around the property.
Now is the time for the story of Leo Marchutz, the founder of our school. Leo was a German art student in the early 1900s. He was friends with an art dealer in Nuremberg, who had the opportunity to buy a Cezanne painting of Mont Sainte Victoire. Leo, a fan of Cezanne, encouraged this dealer to buy. She was reluctant because of the areas of canvas that were left white, and her feeling that the painting was not finished. Leo did his best to explain that these white areas were a necessary element of the painting, and that it was a masterpiece. He was finally able to convince her to buy the work, and it hung in her gallery for about a year. During that year, Leo would come in every day and look, draw, copy, and study the painting. When it finally sold (for a huge sum of money), the dealer thanked Leo for finding the painting by paying for a trip to Aix, so that he could see the real motif. So off he went. Upon his arrival, the German city boy went for a walk around town. Although Cezanne had been dead for a few years at this point, his coach driver was still alive, and Leo happened to bump into him on the Mirabeau, the main street in town. He asked the coachman where he could see a place where Cezanne worked, and the coachman kindly took him out the Route de Tholonet (the Marchutz School is on that street) to the Chateau Noire. Well Leo Marchutz couldn't believe what he saw when he got to the top of the hill and rounded the corner. He had been driven right into a Cezanne motif, in fact the very one that he had studied for so long, done from the terraced hilltop of the Chateau Noire. Leo immediately took up a room, just like Cezanne, at the Chateau Noire, and began to study the motifs. So great was his passion for Cezanne that Leo returned the next summer, and eventually permanently moved to Aix, living at the Chateau Noire. Leo must have become quite close with the family who lives there, who recognized an important link between the young German and the late Paul Cezanne, because he developed an important relationship with them. When the War started, Marchutz even hid out on the property so as to avoid having to help the Nazis, and, despite their best efforts, he was not found. An important event happened when John Rewald (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rewald) came to Aix to study and photograph gothic architecture for his thesis. Here he met Leo, who asked to borrow his camera to take some pictures of Cezanne motifs. So the two of them went out together, lopping branches off trees, recreating and documenting Cezanne motifs. These were the first photographs of Cezanne motifs ever taken. Rewald eventually abandoned his gothic architecture project for a study of Cezanne, and later went on to be one of the most important art historians in the post impressionist era. He credits his study of Cezanne to Leo's enthusiasm. Anyway, Leo eventually moved from the Chateau Noire, about a 4 minute walk back towards town, to the place where the Marchutz school now stands. But the Marchutz-Chateau Noire connection still exists. Both professors, Alan and John, have their studios at the Chateau Noire, and Marchutz affiliates are the only people allowed to see the motifs that exist on the property. Alan and John have been allowed to bring one group of Cezanne scholars onto the property, but beyond that, only students have ever been allowed by the family onto the property. In fact, when the recent huge Cezanne retrospective that started in DC, and traveled to Paris, ended in Aix, Alan asked the family if he might bring the curator of the Smithsonian's National Gallery to come see the place, and they refused.
So there we stood, looking at things that only a hand full of people ever have the opportunity to see. People have speculated that Cezanne moved his easel during paintings, so as to gain multiple perspectives. It has also been said that up until Cezanne, art was about "this is what I see," whereas Cezanne asked the question "Is this what I see?" Well I'll be happy to explain to all of you in person why neither of these claims are true, and that's what we talked about. We did some serious looking at the motif and at the painting, and we did some reading of Cezanne's letters, and it was what Cezanne saw.
After an indoor picnic lunch in Alan's studio, we went across town to another motif to look at the evolution of Cezanne, and to think about what he meant when he said "I want to redo Poussin after nature." We looked at 3 paintings all done from this one spot, to see how he evolved over the years. Finally we went back across to the north east side of town, just in time to see the sun set on the mountain, and look at one of the last Mont Sainte Victoires he painted. As the Mistral winds whipped around us on top of the hill, we witnessed one of the most fortunate geographical situations in the world, the fact that the cliff side of Mont Sainte Victoire faces west. As the sun sets over the Cote D'Azur, it passes through the clear Provence sky, turning bright orange and pink, and it shines off the mountain, lighting it and the clouds up in fiery colors agains the blue, green, purple grey sky. It's amazing.
So no, they are not trying to get me to paint like Paul Cezanne. This is because, according to Cezanne, I can't, because I'm me, and I grab onto different things. But yes, they are trying to get me to paint like Paul Cezanne, because they are trying to get me to look and to really see, to be concrete and faithful to nature, without being a slave to nature, and to unify my surface in a way that creates something living.
The Marchutz school has given me something. They sometimes call it "sight and insight." I'm not sure what to call it, but it's very important, and I think it's going to drive my work from here on out. My time here has radically changed the way I see and think about the visual world. I've just begun my inevitable tasks of figuring out what to do with that, and disciplining myself so that I can get to a point where I can develop it further, and maybe even show people what I am just starting to see. Every time I say that, I hear myself sounding like a nut job, but I guess that's part of what studying art at the Marchutz school is about. This is a crazy place. I'm so happy I've come here. I can't wait to keep working so that I'll have more and better paintings to give all of you.
Monday, November 16, 2009
De Giverny a Paris
I'm sorry it's been so long. I've had a crazy few weeks, and it's very easy to get so caught up in what I'm doing here that I lack the time to actually reflect on it, but I have a few minutes now, so here goes...
I'm not sure how I can possibly capture what really happened 3 weeks ago in Giverny. We had been working out in the landscape by Mont Sainte Victoire, in Cezanne country, for about a month, and I had made all the progress I could out there. I was starting to understand shape, color, light, line, movement, all these artistic terms, but I had yet to really figure out how they relate to each other. My work in this period is full of empty white spaces between colors, and lots of yellow. Things were starting to make sense, but not really clicking, and I was getting frustrated. Then, on a friday afternoon, we got on a bus and headed down to the TGV station. The train ride from Aix to Paris was exceptional. I'm not sure whether we took the western rout up through Bordeaux, or the eastern one up by Lyon (I think it was the latter), but we passed first by Mont Sainte Victiore, then by Mont Ventoux, we rocketed by many hillside towns in the foothills of what may or may not have been the Alps, and then hit a flat plain. this is where the colors started getting good. As we got further and further north, the reds, yellows, and oranges started coming out. Then, all of a sudden we were in the middle of Paris, at Gare de Lyon. We took a hectic Metro ride from there to Gare du Nord, and got on a train out to Giverny, where Monet spent his later years. This whole time, nobody ever looked at our tickets, because, as to be expected in France, the train workers were on strike.
When we got out to Giverny, we walked into a dream world. There is a foundation in Giverny that owns a whole bunch of property right across from a museum (the foundation actually owns the museum, formerly dedicated to American art in France, now on loan to the French government), and just down the road from Monet's Gardens. The foundation exists for artists to come and stay, sometimes in residences, sometimes for week long seminars like ours. We were provided food by the museum cafe, and we each had our own room in a compound that included several houses and extensive gardens. Every day we went out painting or drawing as we pleased. We had a visit to Monet's house, to see his gardens as a group (although we could go back whenever we wanted) and to look at Monet's incredible collection of Japanese prints. I spent the first day or two working in watercolor, and the rest of the time in oil.
Giverny is a tough place to work, because the whole darn town looks like a Monet painting. Yet despite that I did my best to render what I saw, as I saw it, with as little regard to Monet as possible. The water colors are something I credit with the breakthrough I was to have. I was able to break through from one color into another, in a way I wasn't letting myself do with the oils, and, over the course of the week, I was even able to create a painting I'm still proud of. The watercolors themselves aren't much to look at, but they were invaluable in allowing myself to make something that is.
When the week came to a close, three of us went up, inspired by our time in Arles, to look at some Van Gogh in Amsterdam. I really didn't like that city. The architecture all seemed fake to me, with facades built to make every house look like it was facing the opposite direction that it was, trams that ding loudly at all hours, and don't stop for anything, despite running on the sidewalks, and thousands upon thousands of bikes. The canals were beautiful, but we found refuge from the annoying street life in the Van Gogh and Rijks Museums, where we saw about half of Van Gogh's lifetime masterpieces, and Rembrandt after Rembrandt after Rembrandt, and the coffee shops, where we enjoyed elephants, mangos, and amnesia haze.
Oh, and did I mention, we went there without our passports (we forgot them in Aix) and almost got arrested by the Dutch customs officer? Yeah, not a great trip.
Then we returned for a weekend in Aix, before ten intense days of still lives. Fast forward until this past Wednesday. We, once again, board the TGV to Paris, only this time to stay in Paris for a week of intense looking at art. We posted up in a hostel in the 4th, about a block and a half away from the magnificent Parisian city hall. After leaving our bags in our rooms, we headed down to the Grand Palais for a retrospective of late Renoir paintings. As this was not an "official visit," we were free to peruse the exhibit on our own for a few hours, before hopping back on the metro for our first lack luster meal at the hostel.
The next day began our series of seminars. We started off at the Louvre, warming up our eyes on an exhibition of Titien and Tintoretto, along with other Venician renaissance artists, then we got down to business. We, all 12 of us (professors included) sat down in front of two paintings, the first people aren't quite sure whether it's a Titien or a Georgioni, of two Venicians playing music and two muses, and the second was Rembrandt's painting of Bathsheba reading a letter. We looked at each painting for about an hour and a half to two hours, looking, and talking. Needless to say it was exhausting. The second day we were split up into groups, according to who was in the art history class I'm taking. My group looked first at a Chardin painting, and then at a Goya portrait. In the afternoon we went over to the Musée d'Orsay (in my opinion the best museum in the world) and had a look at some Pissaro, some Monet, some Sisley, and a Van Gogh, to compare styles and touches. The third day, we returned to the d'Orsay to have a more concentrated look at a Cezanne still life as compared to Monet's portrait of his first wife, Camille, as she lay dying. Camille on her death bed was among the most heartbreaking things I've ever experienced. Then, in the afternoon, we went over to the Orangerie, to have a 3 or 4 hour look at Monet's memorial to the fallen soldiers of WWI. Wow. The final day, we spent at the Musée Granet, a smaller museum, looking first at some expressionists, and then some more at Monet. We saw, but did not spend much time with, the painting that gave the Impressionist movement it's name, Impression Soleil Levant, but we looked more carefully at two Monet landscapes, an early one and a late one, to see how far he went, and then we sat in front of a large study of his lilly pads that he did, probably from the motif (as opposed to in his studio) in preparation for his more monumental work for the Orangerie.
I have to take the time, here, to explain that, while the majority of the works we looked at were impressionist, this was not the focus of the discussions. The school is teaching me a lot about vision, and how one's vision relates the the world he or she sees. It's easier to really get at this in front of an impressionist piece. The school is, in no way, trying to tell me that Monet is in any way better than Goya, or even Titien, who paint much more according to Salon styles. We looked at some pretty weak Monets and Cezannes. They are, however, helping me see why Monet, Cezanne, and the rest of the impressionists, in addition to people like Goya and Titien, consistently produced stronger paintings than someone like David (the french neo-classicist), whose paintings border on not even really being art. This is something I'm looking forward to discussing with each of you over a meal at some point.
I'm beginning to feel like I've taken up enough of your time. But I hope you can see that I've been really busy. I'm doing some exciting stuff over here in France. I can't wait to bring it back to share with you all. If you ever want to go to a museum, let me know.
I'm not sure how I can possibly capture what really happened 3 weeks ago in Giverny. We had been working out in the landscape by Mont Sainte Victoire, in Cezanne country, for about a month, and I had made all the progress I could out there. I was starting to understand shape, color, light, line, movement, all these artistic terms, but I had yet to really figure out how they relate to each other. My work in this period is full of empty white spaces between colors, and lots of yellow. Things were starting to make sense, but not really clicking, and I was getting frustrated. Then, on a friday afternoon, we got on a bus and headed down to the TGV station. The train ride from Aix to Paris was exceptional. I'm not sure whether we took the western rout up through Bordeaux, or the eastern one up by Lyon (I think it was the latter), but we passed first by Mont Sainte Victiore, then by Mont Ventoux, we rocketed by many hillside towns in the foothills of what may or may not have been the Alps, and then hit a flat plain. this is where the colors started getting good. As we got further and further north, the reds, yellows, and oranges started coming out. Then, all of a sudden we were in the middle of Paris, at Gare de Lyon. We took a hectic Metro ride from there to Gare du Nord, and got on a train out to Giverny, where Monet spent his later years. This whole time, nobody ever looked at our tickets, because, as to be expected in France, the train workers were on strike.
When we got out to Giverny, we walked into a dream world. There is a foundation in Giverny that owns a whole bunch of property right across from a museum (the foundation actually owns the museum, formerly dedicated to American art in France, now on loan to the French government), and just down the road from Monet's Gardens. The foundation exists for artists to come and stay, sometimes in residences, sometimes for week long seminars like ours. We were provided food by the museum cafe, and we each had our own room in a compound that included several houses and extensive gardens. Every day we went out painting or drawing as we pleased. We had a visit to Monet's house, to see his gardens as a group (although we could go back whenever we wanted) and to look at Monet's incredible collection of Japanese prints. I spent the first day or two working in watercolor, and the rest of the time in oil.
Giverny is a tough place to work, because the whole darn town looks like a Monet painting. Yet despite that I did my best to render what I saw, as I saw it, with as little regard to Monet as possible. The water colors are something I credit with the breakthrough I was to have. I was able to break through from one color into another, in a way I wasn't letting myself do with the oils, and, over the course of the week, I was even able to create a painting I'm still proud of. The watercolors themselves aren't much to look at, but they were invaluable in allowing myself to make something that is.
When the week came to a close, three of us went up, inspired by our time in Arles, to look at some Van Gogh in Amsterdam. I really didn't like that city. The architecture all seemed fake to me, with facades built to make every house look like it was facing the opposite direction that it was, trams that ding loudly at all hours, and don't stop for anything, despite running on the sidewalks, and thousands upon thousands of bikes. The canals were beautiful, but we found refuge from the annoying street life in the Van Gogh and Rijks Museums, where we saw about half of Van Gogh's lifetime masterpieces, and Rembrandt after Rembrandt after Rembrandt, and the coffee shops, where we enjoyed elephants, mangos, and amnesia haze.
Oh, and did I mention, we went there without our passports (we forgot them in Aix) and almost got arrested by the Dutch customs officer? Yeah, not a great trip.
Then we returned for a weekend in Aix, before ten intense days of still lives. Fast forward until this past Wednesday. We, once again, board the TGV to Paris, only this time to stay in Paris for a week of intense looking at art. We posted up in a hostel in the 4th, about a block and a half away from the magnificent Parisian city hall. After leaving our bags in our rooms, we headed down to the Grand Palais for a retrospective of late Renoir paintings. As this was not an "official visit," we were free to peruse the exhibit on our own for a few hours, before hopping back on the metro for our first lack luster meal at the hostel.
The next day began our series of seminars. We started off at the Louvre, warming up our eyes on an exhibition of Titien and Tintoretto, along with other Venician renaissance artists, then we got down to business. We, all 12 of us (professors included) sat down in front of two paintings, the first people aren't quite sure whether it's a Titien or a Georgioni, of two Venicians playing music and two muses, and the second was Rembrandt's painting of Bathsheba reading a letter. We looked at each painting for about an hour and a half to two hours, looking, and talking. Needless to say it was exhausting. The second day we were split up into groups, according to who was in the art history class I'm taking. My group looked first at a Chardin painting, and then at a Goya portrait. In the afternoon we went over to the Musée d'Orsay (in my opinion the best museum in the world) and had a look at some Pissaro, some Monet, some Sisley, and a Van Gogh, to compare styles and touches. The third day, we returned to the d'Orsay to have a more concentrated look at a Cezanne still life as compared to Monet's portrait of his first wife, Camille, as she lay dying. Camille on her death bed was among the most heartbreaking things I've ever experienced. Then, in the afternoon, we went over to the Orangerie, to have a 3 or 4 hour look at Monet's memorial to the fallen soldiers of WWI. Wow. The final day, we spent at the Musée Granet, a smaller museum, looking first at some expressionists, and then some more at Monet. We saw, but did not spend much time with, the painting that gave the Impressionist movement it's name, Impression Soleil Levant, but we looked more carefully at two Monet landscapes, an early one and a late one, to see how far he went, and then we sat in front of a large study of his lilly pads that he did, probably from the motif (as opposed to in his studio) in preparation for his more monumental work for the Orangerie.
I have to take the time, here, to explain that, while the majority of the works we looked at were impressionist, this was not the focus of the discussions. The school is teaching me a lot about vision, and how one's vision relates the the world he or she sees. It's easier to really get at this in front of an impressionist piece. The school is, in no way, trying to tell me that Monet is in any way better than Goya, or even Titien, who paint much more according to Salon styles. We looked at some pretty weak Monets and Cezannes. They are, however, helping me see why Monet, Cezanne, and the rest of the impressionists, in addition to people like Goya and Titien, consistently produced stronger paintings than someone like David (the french neo-classicist), whose paintings border on not even really being art. This is something I'm looking forward to discussing with each of you over a meal at some point.
I'm beginning to feel like I've taken up enough of your time. But I hope you can see that I've been really busy. I'm doing some exciting stuff over here in France. I can't wait to bring it back to share with you all. If you ever want to go to a museum, let me know.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Van Gogh Weekend
So 40 years ago, Leo Marchutz, the founder of my school here, said "Van Gogh painted a masterpiece a day, for the last 70 days of his life." So last friday, we took a field trip to try and explore how that happened. Unfortunately, in the last few months of his life, Van Gogh was in Auvers, up north, so we couldn't be where he was then, but he spent a couple very important years in Arles and Saint-Remy, which are about an hour away from Aix. So I spent the week leading up to the field trip reading a brief biography on Van Gogh, written by his sister-in-law (no pressure, Julie) and some of his letters from that period. This was the time in Van Gogh's life when he started having his crazy attacks, and really started going off the deep end, in fact Saint-Remy is the mental institution that he checked himself into after cutting off part of his ear. I've included links to a few of the paintings we were looking at, but unfortunately you might have to copy and paste them to see them. Sorry!
So we started out at 7:30 AM and headed off to Arles. When we got there, we drove to a draw-bridge over a canal that he painted. We walked to the spot Van Gogh would have done the painting had the bridge not been moved about 300 meters to avoid being wrecked, and sat down with a reproduction of the actual painting (http://www.popartuk.com/g/l/lg8554+le-pont-de-langlois-arles-1888-vincent-van-gogh-poster.jpg). We then spent the next 2 and a half to 3 hours disecting exactly what Van Gogh had done. We were lucky enough to have beautiful clear blue skies, just like the ones Van Gogh most liked to paint in, and we could really see all the colors in nature. Van Gogh is known, among other things, for his use of color, and seeing the colors he found in nature compared to the actual nature itself was absolutely amazing, and really very inspiring artistically. My work since then has been a lot more adventurous with colors.
Next, we went briefly to an old roman road with tons of sarcophagi that Van Gogh painted (http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/vincent-van-gogh-paintings-from-the-yellow-house-3.jpg). We only were able to spend a small amount of time there, but, again, the colors van gogh found were all really there, and they were amazing to see in real life.
We then went to the mental hospital where he was briefly forced to live by the townspeople, and looked at yet another painting (http://wahooart.com/A55A04/w.nsf/3e75729998cde7c6c1256dd20064bdfa/842acf0a36dc59e4c1256ea7002b3fd7/$FILE/Vincent%20Van%20Gogh-Courtyard%20of%20the%20Hospital%20at%20Arles,%20The.jpg). To look at this one we got to go up onto the second floor.
Then it was time for lunch, but not before looking at one more (http://www.abcgallery.com/V/vangogh/vangogh37.html). In this painting there is a baby tree, which is now a HUGE tree. The bridge has been redone, but you can see what Van Gogh was up to. It was really cool.
For lunch we ate at the cafe Van Gogh painted in his "Night Cafe" painting.
In the afternoon, we went to Saint-Remy and spent some time looking at some more paintings in the actual location. What was amazing is that while he was there, he was largely kept inside, behind barred windows. I could never accomplish was he did behind bars. In particular, we looked at a series of three paintings done of a man cutting wheat in a field. We talked for a long time about what he had done as he painted the first, second, and third in the series, and why he had done it.
I really think the trip is going to have affected my own painting in a big way. Van Gogh's vivid colors give his paintings a kind of life that few other artists have achieved. He was adamant that it was not necessary to achieve the actual colors found in nature, but the relationships between colors. I'd love to get a chance to see some Van Gogh paintings in real life, because, according to my teachers, they'er incomparable to the reproductions. Unfortunately, almost all the good ones are in Amsterdam. So Nick and I are going to get high as balls and look at them in a week.
So we started out at 7:30 AM and headed off to Arles. When we got there, we drove to a draw-bridge over a canal that he painted. We walked to the spot Van Gogh would have done the painting had the bridge not been moved about 300 meters to avoid being wrecked, and sat down with a reproduction of the actual painting (http://www.popartuk.com/g/l/lg8554+le-pont-de-langlois-arles-1888-vincent-van-gogh-poster.jpg). We then spent the next 2 and a half to 3 hours disecting exactly what Van Gogh had done. We were lucky enough to have beautiful clear blue skies, just like the ones Van Gogh most liked to paint in, and we could really see all the colors in nature. Van Gogh is known, among other things, for his use of color, and seeing the colors he found in nature compared to the actual nature itself was absolutely amazing, and really very inspiring artistically. My work since then has been a lot more adventurous with colors.
Next, we went briefly to an old roman road with tons of sarcophagi that Van Gogh painted (http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/vincent-van-gogh-paintings-from-the-yellow-house-3.jpg). We only were able to spend a small amount of time there, but, again, the colors van gogh found were all really there, and they were amazing to see in real life.
We then went to the mental hospital where he was briefly forced to live by the townspeople, and looked at yet another painting (http://wahooart.com/A55A04/w.nsf/3e75729998cde7c6c1256dd20064bdfa/842acf0a36dc59e4c1256ea7002b3fd7/$FILE/Vincent%20Van%20Gogh-Courtyard%20of%20the%20Hospital%20at%20Arles,%20The.jpg). To look at this one we got to go up onto the second floor.
Then it was time for lunch, but not before looking at one more (http://www.abcgallery.com/V/vangogh/vangogh37.html). In this painting there is a baby tree, which is now a HUGE tree. The bridge has been redone, but you can see what Van Gogh was up to. It was really cool.
For lunch we ate at the cafe Van Gogh painted in his "Night Cafe" painting.
In the afternoon, we went to Saint-Remy and spent some time looking at some more paintings in the actual location. What was amazing is that while he was there, he was largely kept inside, behind barred windows. I could never accomplish was he did behind bars. In particular, we looked at a series of three paintings done of a man cutting wheat in a field. We talked for a long time about what he had done as he painted the first, second, and third in the series, and why he had done it.
I really think the trip is going to have affected my own painting in a big way. Van Gogh's vivid colors give his paintings a kind of life that few other artists have achieved. He was adamant that it was not necessary to achieve the actual colors found in nature, but the relationships between colors. I'd love to get a chance to see some Van Gogh paintings in real life, because, according to my teachers, they'er incomparable to the reproductions. Unfortunately, almost all the good ones are in Amsterdam. So Nick and I are going to get high as balls and look at them in a week.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
shittiest weekend of my LIFE
I had a pretty incredible day yesterday. School is just getting better and better. We spent the last week out in the landscape painting, which was great. It turns out painting is really difficult. But the vision aspect of the school is just getting started. We've spent a lot of time talking about things and looking at things, and I'm starting to be aware of things that I was never aware of before in the world around me, mostly pertaining to color relationships and the way the mind looks at something red and green and purple and takes all that information and tells you you're looking at a green tree. And if I want your mind to go through the same process in looking at my art, I can't just paint a green tree, because the tree is so much more than simply green when you really begin to look. So in order to paint a tree that really looks REAL, I have to break down what my mind is seeing into all the things my eyes are seeing and paint that. It's really a lot to think about, especially when you lack technical training in painting. Anyway, so that's what I've been up to in school. Nothing I would ever be learning at Kenyon.
But yesterday we took a field trip. We piled into the bus at 8:30 AM and headed north along one of the original Roman roads to the Luberon Mountains, where we spent our day in a vast valley. We stopped briefly to take a look at a castle that Camut lived in for a while. When he first found it, it was in complete disrepair, inhabited by gypsies who worked in the vinyards and cherry orchards in the area, picking the fruit. But they weren't supposed to be living in the chateau, so Camut and his other artsy type friends kicked them out, at which point the gypsies put a curse on Camut and his friends, that each would die a violent or unexpected death, which happened. Camut was hit by a car or something, and the others died in similar ways. Weird.
Anyway, after looking at the castle, we went through a ravine that during the war had been controlled by the resistance, and then up along a ridge towards the town of Bonnieux, a town of about 1400 that sits up on the hillside. We sat at a bit of a distance, looking at the way the town sat on the hill, and its relationship with the landscape, for about an hour and a half, just talking about it, making sure we were seeing everything. I'll attach a picture of what we were looking at. The town itself is made up of 16th and 17th century architecture, but the church up at the top is 12th century, and it's pretty amazing. Maybe someone can tell me what the tree made of horizontals on top of the hill is? Anyway, after looking at the hillside for a long time, we had about 40 minutes to explore the town and see everything up close. Beautiful. Then we bought some bread and local cheese and sausage and some pastries and headed across the valley.
All the way across the valley was the town of Lacoste, a little bigger, but not much, and equally beautiful. In Lacoste, we walked down into what used to be a terraced farmland, and is now a terraced oak forest. The trees look more like live oaks in Georgia than anything else, and we picnicked at the site where John, our teacher, had camped out for a month in the forest painting with the founder of our school, Leo Marchutz, back in the 70s. After a nice relaxing lunch, we headed into some other woods to check it out. We wandered around on this wooded plateau, where we found some ruins of old stone farmhouses. The word farmhouse is misleading, because you think of a farmhouse and you think of something quaint and modest. These were huge and elaborate, stone and plaster houses dating back hundreds and hundreds of years. The most recent was 18th century. There was also an old borie, a stone (but no cement) beehive-shaped building that was built during one of the plagues. It's extraordinarily complex inside and really cool looking, with many rooms and a hallway. Very cool.
After we had experienced the woods, we drove to a Cistertian monastery to look at its architecture. We spent the whole time in silence, like the monks do, only talking at the very end to reflect on what we had seen. It was simplistically beautiful, with GREAT acoustics (for the gregorian chants they do 3 or 4 times a day). The way the monastery supports itself is by farming wheat and lavender, which, unfortunately, had just been harvested a few weeks ago, although I can hardly complain because it was still breathtaking.
This week has more painting in store for me, so hopefully I'll start to get better. And then on friday we skip class to go on another field trip to Arles to study the area that Van Gogh loved to paint. After that, on Saturday, we spend the day sailing around off the coast of Marseille. It really stinks here, and I wish I could be back in cold, grey Ohio.
But yesterday we took a field trip. We piled into the bus at 8:30 AM and headed north along one of the original Roman roads to the Luberon Mountains, where we spent our day in a vast valley. We stopped briefly to take a look at a castle that Camut lived in for a while. When he first found it, it was in complete disrepair, inhabited by gypsies who worked in the vinyards and cherry orchards in the area, picking the fruit. But they weren't supposed to be living in the chateau, so Camut and his other artsy type friends kicked them out, at which point the gypsies put a curse on Camut and his friends, that each would die a violent or unexpected death, which happened. Camut was hit by a car or something, and the others died in similar ways. Weird.
Anyway, after looking at the castle, we went through a ravine that during the war had been controlled by the resistance, and then up along a ridge towards the town of Bonnieux, a town of about 1400 that sits up on the hillside. We sat at a bit of a distance, looking at the way the town sat on the hill, and its relationship with the landscape, for about an hour and a half, just talking about it, making sure we were seeing everything. I'll attach a picture of what we were looking at. The town itself is made up of 16th and 17th century architecture, but the church up at the top is 12th century, and it's pretty amazing. Maybe someone can tell me what the tree made of horizontals on top of the hill is? Anyway, after looking at the hillside for a long time, we had about 40 minutes to explore the town and see everything up close. Beautiful. Then we bought some bread and local cheese and sausage and some pastries and headed across the valley.
All the way across the valley was the town of Lacoste, a little bigger, but not much, and equally beautiful. In Lacoste, we walked down into what used to be a terraced farmland, and is now a terraced oak forest. The trees look more like live oaks in Georgia than anything else, and we picnicked at the site where John, our teacher, had camped out for a month in the forest painting with the founder of our school, Leo Marchutz, back in the 70s. After a nice relaxing lunch, we headed into some other woods to check it out. We wandered around on this wooded plateau, where we found some ruins of old stone farmhouses. The word farmhouse is misleading, because you think of a farmhouse and you think of something quaint and modest. These were huge and elaborate, stone and plaster houses dating back hundreds and hundreds of years. The most recent was 18th century. There was also an old borie, a stone (but no cement) beehive-shaped building that was built during one of the plagues. It's extraordinarily complex inside and really cool looking, with many rooms and a hallway. Very cool.
After we had experienced the woods, we drove to a Cistertian monastery to look at its architecture. We spent the whole time in silence, like the monks do, only talking at the very end to reflect on what we had seen. It was simplistically beautiful, with GREAT acoustics (for the gregorian chants they do 3 or 4 times a day). The way the monastery supports itself is by farming wheat and lavender, which, unfortunately, had just been harvested a few weeks ago, although I can hardly complain because it was still breathtaking.
This week has more painting in store for me, so hopefully I'll start to get better. And then on friday we skip class to go on another field trip to Arles to study the area that Van Gogh loved to paint. After that, on Saturday, we spend the day sailing around off the coast of Marseille. It really stinks here, and I wish I could be back in cold, grey Ohio.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Nice and Cassis... Jacques Cousteau!
So I've finally gotten around to writing about Nice and Cassis, the two coastal towns I visited this past weekend.
On Saturday, we all piled into a bus and headed towards Nice. It's about two hours away from Aix, and it was just about the prettiest drive I've ever done. Leaving Aix, we went south east, passing the long part of Mont Sainte Victoire. That mountain is enormous. Climbing it next weekend, as I hope to do, will be quite the adventure. It's pretty tall, but what's most impressive is that its cliff face must stretch for three miles! Very impressive. Then we wound through the countryside, passing by small french town after small french town, and loads of rolling hills, all covered in beautifully scraggly brush and dwarfed, stunted trees. We passed by Cannes, where we got our first glimpse of the Mediterranean, and soon arrived in the aptly named Nice.
Upon arrival in the French Riviera, we got paninis at an outdoor cafe, and walked over to the pebbled beaches, where we met up with some of the other IAU kids. Most of the early afternoon, we floated in the clear blue water. It's impressive how far down you can see, and how steeply the shore drops off. You can get about 50 feet out and you're in 20 foot deep water. The really amazing part is that you'd really have to try pretty hard to drown, not only because of the total lack of waves and current, but because the water is so salty, should you get tired treading water or swimming, you can just relax and end up with all 10 toes out of the water, floating on your back.
After a couple hours of sea side play time, we decided to climb up to the top of the hill and get a good look at the city. So we walked up the maze of stairs and walkways leading to the top of a shockingly steep hill on the eastern edge of the city, where we found vast views and a waterfall. I was puzzled at how a waterfall could start at the top of such a steep hill, and nobody could really give me an answer, but there it was. After some serious photo taking, we wandered back down, through the market in the old city, and back to the bus that took us back to Aix via a restaurant.
The next day we woke up bright and early to go to Cassis, a coastal fishing village, still unspoiled by foreign tourism. After checking out the harbor and the shops for a half hour or so, we went with the same people we had explored Nice with on about a 90 minute hike to the west, to explore a series of inlets in the cliffs, known as "les calanques," each with it's own little "hidden" beach. There we spent the day picknicking on baguette sandwiches, lounging by the beach, and, at the suggestion of a funny elderly french couple who had docked their yacht in the calanque, jumping off the tall, white cliffs. It was pretty great. Eventually we had to tear ourselves away from our little paradise we had discovered, and walk back to the boat.
After the excitement of this weekend, this week has been pretty slow. I'm learning a lot about drawing, tho, between the advice I've been getting from my teachers and the help on the side that all the other students can give me (they pretty much all have previous training in drawing). So I'm learning helpful technique tidbits from my fellow students, and from my teachers, i'm slowly learning how to create a vibrant and cohesive world of my own on the page, instead of just copying down what I see. Every day I spend here, I get happier and happier with my decision to come here. As I told mom yesterday, I really think I'm going to grow a bunch here. I'm trying very hard to buy into the whole attitude they have that, regardless of my previous experience (or lack thereof) I became an artist as soon as I started at Marchutz, and I think the more I'm able to get myself to think that way, the more success I'll have in the program.
That's all for now, but I'll have more to say soon, as we leave for Oktoberfest in 24 hours!
On Saturday, we all piled into a bus and headed towards Nice. It's about two hours away from Aix, and it was just about the prettiest drive I've ever done. Leaving Aix, we went south east, passing the long part of Mont Sainte Victoire. That mountain is enormous. Climbing it next weekend, as I hope to do, will be quite the adventure. It's pretty tall, but what's most impressive is that its cliff face must stretch for three miles! Very impressive. Then we wound through the countryside, passing by small french town after small french town, and loads of rolling hills, all covered in beautifully scraggly brush and dwarfed, stunted trees. We passed by Cannes, where we got our first glimpse of the Mediterranean, and soon arrived in the aptly named Nice.
Upon arrival in the French Riviera, we got paninis at an outdoor cafe, and walked over to the pebbled beaches, where we met up with some of the other IAU kids. Most of the early afternoon, we floated in the clear blue water. It's impressive how far down you can see, and how steeply the shore drops off. You can get about 50 feet out and you're in 20 foot deep water. The really amazing part is that you'd really have to try pretty hard to drown, not only because of the total lack of waves and current, but because the water is so salty, should you get tired treading water or swimming, you can just relax and end up with all 10 toes out of the water, floating on your back.
After a couple hours of sea side play time, we decided to climb up to the top of the hill and get a good look at the city. So we walked up the maze of stairs and walkways leading to the top of a shockingly steep hill on the eastern edge of the city, where we found vast views and a waterfall. I was puzzled at how a waterfall could start at the top of such a steep hill, and nobody could really give me an answer, but there it was. After some serious photo taking, we wandered back down, through the market in the old city, and back to the bus that took us back to Aix via a restaurant.
The next day we woke up bright and early to go to Cassis, a coastal fishing village, still unspoiled by foreign tourism. After checking out the harbor and the shops for a half hour or so, we went with the same people we had explored Nice with on about a 90 minute hike to the west, to explore a series of inlets in the cliffs, known as "les calanques," each with it's own little "hidden" beach. There we spent the day picknicking on baguette sandwiches, lounging by the beach, and, at the suggestion of a funny elderly french couple who had docked their yacht in the calanque, jumping off the tall, white cliffs. It was pretty great. Eventually we had to tear ourselves away from our little paradise we had discovered, and walk back to the boat.
After the excitement of this weekend, this week has been pretty slow. I'm learning a lot about drawing, tho, between the advice I've been getting from my teachers and the help on the side that all the other students can give me (they pretty much all have previous training in drawing). So I'm learning helpful technique tidbits from my fellow students, and from my teachers, i'm slowly learning how to create a vibrant and cohesive world of my own on the page, instead of just copying down what I see. Every day I spend here, I get happier and happier with my decision to come here. As I told mom yesterday, I really think I'm going to grow a bunch here. I'm trying very hard to buy into the whole attitude they have that, regardless of my previous experience (or lack thereof) I became an artist as soon as I started at Marchutz, and I think the more I'm able to get myself to think that way, the more success I'll have in the program.
That's all for now, but I'll have more to say soon, as we leave for Oktoberfest in 24 hours!
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Bonjour, mon petit bureau de change!
Things are really taking off here in Aix-en-Provence. We’re finished with our orientation, and I’m in the middle of my first classes. I’ve already had my first 19th century French impressionism class, which was pretty cool, as well as the first studio session. The Marchutz program is amazing. Our director is this guy named Alan, who runs the program with the help of John, another man, and the two of them make quite the duo. They’re exactly the types of people you would expect to randomly decide to expatriate to the south of France and take up art. John came from Seattle to Marchutz to study as an architecture student, and Alan, who used to live in and around the Carolinas, left the US to go to a Cat Stevens concert in Tunis, traveled around Europe for a while, camping and making friends, then tried painting for the first time after a trip to Ireland, and left only to get his MFA in Vermont. They’re both very soft spoken, and just indescribably spacy.
The studio is absolutely stunning. It’s just outside the city limits, in a town called Tholonet, literally 150 meters from the spot where Cezanne panted this: http://www.fineartprintsondemand.com/artists/cezanne/mont_sainte-victoire_tholonet-400.jpg
The drawing went well today, I think. I didn’t get any criticism, which seems like a good sign, I’m not doing it completely wrong, but I’d love to know what to work on. The only two comments I got today were that my inclination to start with areas of strong contrast was good, and then at the end he told me I had a good first day. It’s not like a regular art school in that they really don’t spend time teaching us technique. The way Alan put it, they’re “going to give us a brush and some paint, and tell us they’d prefer we use the side with the bristles, but we don’t have to.” They’re more worried about how we see. The school used to be called the Marchutz School of Vision, and, while the name changed once the 70s were over, the approach (and faculty, apparently) has stayed the same.
This weekend they’re bussing us down to Cassis on Sunday, and Nice on Saturday. Nice is supposed to be... well... nice to say the least, and Cassis is known for its "calanques," little inlets in the cliffs on the shore of the Mediterranean, each with its own beach, complete with baby blue water and pristine white sand. The photos I've seen in the guide books look absolutely breathtaking, so I'll keep everyone posted on how that goes, and I'll be sure to take some pictures of my own.
Tonight Mme Tissot had 20 of her friends over for what couldn't be described as anything short of a banquet-style feast. She had about 10 different types of quiche going, accompanied by a huge platter of different pates, an enormous salad, a special black olive and anchovy tampanade, a specialty of both Provance, and, according to the lady sitting next to me, Mme Tissot, as well as bread, and, of course, wine. Then after that had all been cleared away, came the typical French cheese course.
So here I am, with my mind blown and my tummy full after the feast, and I havn't been able to make myself finish my art history homework.
I'll keep y'all updated on how Nice and Cassis are for sure, and get pumped for next weekend, because my partner in crime and I are off to Munich for a Bavarian cultural festival.
A bien tot!
The studio is absolutely stunning. It’s just outside the city limits, in a town called Tholonet, literally 150 meters from the spot where Cezanne panted this: http://www.fineartprintsondemand.com/artists/cezanne/mont_sainte-victoire_tholonet-400.jpg
The drawing went well today, I think. I didn’t get any criticism, which seems like a good sign, I’m not doing it completely wrong, but I’d love to know what to work on. The only two comments I got today were that my inclination to start with areas of strong contrast was good, and then at the end he told me I had a good first day. It’s not like a regular art school in that they really don’t spend time teaching us technique. The way Alan put it, they’re “going to give us a brush and some paint, and tell us they’d prefer we use the side with the bristles, but we don’t have to.” They’re more worried about how we see. The school used to be called the Marchutz School of Vision, and, while the name changed once the 70s were over, the approach (and faculty, apparently) has stayed the same.
This weekend they’re bussing us down to Cassis on Sunday, and Nice on Saturday. Nice is supposed to be... well... nice to say the least, and Cassis is known for its "calanques," little inlets in the cliffs on the shore of the Mediterranean, each with its own beach, complete with baby blue water and pristine white sand. The photos I've seen in the guide books look absolutely breathtaking, so I'll keep everyone posted on how that goes, and I'll be sure to take some pictures of my own.
Tonight Mme Tissot had 20 of her friends over for what couldn't be described as anything short of a banquet-style feast. She had about 10 different types of quiche going, accompanied by a huge platter of different pates, an enormous salad, a special black olive and anchovy tampanade, a specialty of both Provance, and, according to the lady sitting next to me, Mme Tissot, as well as bread, and, of course, wine. Then after that had all been cleared away, came the typical French cheese course.
So here I am, with my mind blown and my tummy full after the feast, and I havn't been able to make myself finish my art history homework.
I'll keep y'all updated on how Nice and Cassis are for sure, and get pumped for next weekend, because my partner in crime and I are off to Munich for a Bavarian cultural festival.
A bien tot!
Sunday, September 6, 2009
The French Connection
Je suis arrivé.
The flight from Dulles to Heathrow was pretty awful. The guy sitting directly behind me was a sleep kicker, so I had knees in my back all night, but despite that, I managed to get about 4 hours of sleep. The transfer from Heathrow to Gatwick was really easy, however, and the flight to Marseille was quite nice. The people I was sitting next to were these really sarcastic French people who kept making fun of the flight attendants' disorganization in passing out drinks and collecting trash.
And I don't know if you've ever flown into Marseille but the view is absolutely breathtaking. From my window-seat vantage point, I was able to watch as we flew over the more industrial part of the city. I saw a power plant, a ship yard, some factories, and a big pile of rubble that was on fire. I have to say I was a bit worried that this was an accurate representation of the city, but then the flight path took us out over the Mediterranean and when we turned around I saw the nice part of the city and my mind was blown. It was a huge maze of orange clay rooftops along the coast with a series of bleach-white mountainous cliffs along the coast and western part of the city. It really was amazing to see.
Once I made it through what had to have been the most ineffective customs I've ever seen (I'm pretty sure the customs agent never even looked at the picture page in my passport, and there were about 7 other customs agents just standing around looking bored), I was greeted by Nick, Mme Tissot, and what appeared to be her boyfriend, Paul, who is quite the character. Mme Tissot is about 20 years younger than Mike made her out to be. She's a really nice lady, but very french. Last night she had to go to a wedding, so she couldn't eat with us, but she made a pretty amazing quiche.
Then it was time to explore Aix, which is aptly nicknamed the city of fountains. They're all over the place. Enough so that each map of the town has it's own symbol for the fountains that pepper its intersections. Nick, who has been here a few days already with his mom, took me around a bit, but he didn't really seem to know much more than I did where we were going. The city is divided into two parts: the medieval part and the other part. We live in the other part, which is a large grid of what used to be huge (and I mean HUGE) town-house style mansions, which have since been divided into condos. We live on the top floor of one of these, about 4 short blocks from Le Cours Mirabeau, which is essentially the 5th Ave Aixois. Across the Cours Mirabeau is the medieval part which is a never-ending labyrinth of streets hardly wide enough to ride a bike down. People driving their cars in the medieval part are never more than about 5 inches from both curbs at the same time. It'll be a while before we start painting (they teach us to sketch first) but when I do, I'm going to love painting downtown.
Today is a day off. We'll probably do some more exploring, and there is also le festival des Calissons. If I get fat this semester, i will blame Calissons. They're a candy unique to Aix, although they are probably recreated in other places in france, that are basically lemon flavored marzipan, spread thickly on a wafer, with a sugary glaze/icing on top. Ils sont incroyables. According to Mme Tissot, this festival is a display of all the cultural aspects of Aix and Provence as a whole. the "queen" of a neighboring town will be there with her mounted guards, all in their provencal garb. I'll try to remember my camera.
I think next weekend we're going to take a day trip to Cassis, because apparently this time of year is when the ocean is warmest, around 20 or 21 degrees C, and there's an easy train that will take us there, and a beautiful hike out to some cove where we can jump in.
Life is rough
The flight from Dulles to Heathrow was pretty awful. The guy sitting directly behind me was a sleep kicker, so I had knees in my back all night, but despite that, I managed to get about 4 hours of sleep. The transfer from Heathrow to Gatwick was really easy, however, and the flight to Marseille was quite nice. The people I was sitting next to were these really sarcastic French people who kept making fun of the flight attendants' disorganization in passing out drinks and collecting trash.
And I don't know if you've ever flown into Marseille but the view is absolutely breathtaking. From my window-seat vantage point, I was able to watch as we flew over the more industrial part of the city. I saw a power plant, a ship yard, some factories, and a big pile of rubble that was on fire. I have to say I was a bit worried that this was an accurate representation of the city, but then the flight path took us out over the Mediterranean and when we turned around I saw the nice part of the city and my mind was blown. It was a huge maze of orange clay rooftops along the coast with a series of bleach-white mountainous cliffs along the coast and western part of the city. It really was amazing to see.
Once I made it through what had to have been the most ineffective customs I've ever seen (I'm pretty sure the customs agent never even looked at the picture page in my passport, and there were about 7 other customs agents just standing around looking bored), I was greeted by Nick, Mme Tissot, and what appeared to be her boyfriend, Paul, who is quite the character. Mme Tissot is about 20 years younger than Mike made her out to be. She's a really nice lady, but very french. Last night she had to go to a wedding, so she couldn't eat with us, but she made a pretty amazing quiche.
Then it was time to explore Aix, which is aptly nicknamed the city of fountains. They're all over the place. Enough so that each map of the town has it's own symbol for the fountains that pepper its intersections. Nick, who has been here a few days already with his mom, took me around a bit, but he didn't really seem to know much more than I did where we were going. The city is divided into two parts: the medieval part and the other part. We live in the other part, which is a large grid of what used to be huge (and I mean HUGE) town-house style mansions, which have since been divided into condos. We live on the top floor of one of these, about 4 short blocks from Le Cours Mirabeau, which is essentially the 5th Ave Aixois. Across the Cours Mirabeau is the medieval part which is a never-ending labyrinth of streets hardly wide enough to ride a bike down. People driving their cars in the medieval part are never more than about 5 inches from both curbs at the same time. It'll be a while before we start painting (they teach us to sketch first) but when I do, I'm going to love painting downtown.
Today is a day off. We'll probably do some more exploring, and there is also le festival des Calissons. If I get fat this semester, i will blame Calissons. They're a candy unique to Aix, although they are probably recreated in other places in france, that are basically lemon flavored marzipan, spread thickly on a wafer, with a sugary glaze/icing on top. Ils sont incroyables. According to Mme Tissot, this festival is a display of all the cultural aspects of Aix and Provence as a whole. the "queen" of a neighboring town will be there with her mounted guards, all in their provencal garb. I'll try to remember my camera.
I think next weekend we're going to take a day trip to Cassis, because apparently this time of year is when the ocean is warmest, around 20 or 21 degrees C, and there's an easy train that will take us there, and a beautiful hike out to some cove where we can jump in.
Life is rough
Saturday, June 6, 2009
hmmm
so last night in a phone conversation, my ex girlfriend told me she regrets not giving me more blowjobs. WHAT DO YOU SAY TO THAT???
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
I'm sorry I've been so boring lately...
exam week fucking sucks.
after i fail all my exams I'll tell you why a 40 should never be followed by an entire bottle of wine.
after i fail all my exams I'll tell you why a 40 should never be followed by an entire bottle of wine.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Bong Hits and Interviews
I'm part of a peer counseling service at my school that runs four sessions with freshmen during which we teach them how to do what we all know they're going to do, but safely. It's a pretty good program. We're currently in the process of conducting interviews with people who are applying to be teachers in the program, and, unfortunately, we had to learn the hard way why it's a bad idea to conduct interviews on 4/20. My roommate and I smoked several bowls before heading down to the interviews. When we got there it quickly became apparent that we were not the only interviewers who were baked out of our fucking skulls. Out of a room of about 10 interviewers, I'm pretty sure three were not high as balls. By far the highest was a girl who we'll call Kate. Kate could not look anyone in the eye without bursting out laughing. So we would conduct our interviews as follows: someone sober would ask the first few questions, and then, one by one, we stoners would pull ourselves together long enough to ask a simple one sentence question without dissolving into an incoherent flow of giggles and partial words. Finally, we made it through the first half of our interviews, and were awarded by a half-hour break. So what do a bunch of high kids do with a half hour? Thats right, we went upstairs and took bong hits.
We came back downstairs about 20 minutes later, our eyes about the color of a fine pinot noire, and our mouths all slightly open. This was not our finest hour. The interviews started back up, and it was a shit show. This is what would happen. The interviewee would be talking about how they would approach sexual misconduct coming up in a meeting, and my roommate would start to breathe really loudly and then choke back a laugh of some sort. I would then bury my face in a cup of pepsi to avoid laughing, and inevitably make a funny slurping sound, and Kate would lose her shit, laughing in the face of the poor freshman interviewee. It was a disaster. After about 45 minutes of this, Kate finally had to excuse herself, informing us that this had been her eighth time smoking in the past 6 hours. We finally finished out the interviews, and on the way home I ordered a Papa Johns Wolverine Extreme Extra Large Pizza. It was fucking amazing.
We came back downstairs about 20 minutes later, our eyes about the color of a fine pinot noire, and our mouths all slightly open. This was not our finest hour. The interviews started back up, and it was a shit show. This is what would happen. The interviewee would be talking about how they would approach sexual misconduct coming up in a meeting, and my roommate would start to breathe really loudly and then choke back a laugh of some sort. I would then bury my face in a cup of pepsi to avoid laughing, and inevitably make a funny slurping sound, and Kate would lose her shit, laughing in the face of the poor freshman interviewee. It was a disaster. After about 45 minutes of this, Kate finally had to excuse herself, informing us that this had been her eighth time smoking in the past 6 hours. We finally finished out the interviews, and on the way home I ordered a Papa Johns Wolverine Extreme Extra Large Pizza. It was fucking amazing.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Another Anecdote
Here's another anecdote, again not my story but it's funny and ridiculous regardless.
So this happened a couple weekends ago at my friend's frat (Kappa Sigma if you're reading this Mike). They were having a party. There was a girl there. She was drunk to the point where she couldn't string three words together to make coherent conversation. She hooked up with my friend's roommate and some other dude in the frat. Nothing too out of the ordinary I guess, but here's where it gets messy, literally.
At one point in the party her shoes come off and she steps on broken glass. So this girl is bleeding EVERYWHERE. All over the bathrooms, the floors of the hallways, he even said blood managed to get on the walls and the ceiling. So this girl is going nuts bleeding all over the place. So a couple of the guys grab her take her to a room, prop her foot up, and begin to administer the best quality First Aid they can. They proceed to pour cheap Aristocrat (you may be familiar with the brand) vodka on the wound and wrap it up in duct tape to help stop the bleeding. It stops and she passes out on their futon.
However, in the morning my friend wakes up and sees her sitting on their coffee table with a blank stare. He hears what sounds like water hitting a cup. He notices a putrid odor and realizes that this girl is peeing on his coffee table mistaking it for a toilet. He begins to cuss at her and kick her and she just looks at him with a sort of what-are-you-doing-in-my-stall expression. She walks back to the futon, mutters "hm...quiet night" and passes out again.
WORD.
So this happened a couple weekends ago at my friend's frat (Kappa Sigma if you're reading this Mike). They were having a party. There was a girl there. She was drunk to the point where she couldn't string three words together to make coherent conversation. She hooked up with my friend's roommate and some other dude in the frat. Nothing too out of the ordinary I guess, but here's where it gets messy, literally.
At one point in the party her shoes come off and she steps on broken glass. So this girl is bleeding EVERYWHERE. All over the bathrooms, the floors of the hallways, he even said blood managed to get on the walls and the ceiling. So this girl is going nuts bleeding all over the place. So a couple of the guys grab her take her to a room, prop her foot up, and begin to administer the best quality First Aid they can. They proceed to pour cheap Aristocrat (you may be familiar with the brand) vodka on the wound and wrap it up in duct tape to help stop the bleeding. It stops and she passes out on their futon.
However, in the morning my friend wakes up and sees her sitting on their coffee table with a blank stare. He hears what sounds like water hitting a cup. He notices a putrid odor and realizes that this girl is peeing on his coffee table mistaking it for a toilet. He begins to cuss at her and kick her and she just looks at him with a sort of what-are-you-doing-in-my-stall expression. She walks back to the futon, mutters "hm...quiet night" and passes out again.
WORD.
O'Neill's Top Two Review
Well, here it is. 4/21. A day of reflection, and making up excuses for why I didn't do my homework last night, because I don't want to admit to myself that it was because I was high as a fucking kite. So I didn't do any homework. Big fucking deal. One thing I did do was watch a lot of youtube and eat half a Papa John's Extra Large Wolverine pizza. That's right. Extra large pizza with a full pound of cheese on that mo-fo. Anyway, while lying, pregnant with a pizza baby, in our common room, my friends and I had a mini-marathon of youtube videos. Some of the usual suspects came up, for example, David After Dentist, and some clever responses, such as Darth Vader After Dentist, but there were two (and a half) that stood out in my otherwise cloudy and easily distracted mind. So I'm gonna put my Carson Daly hat on and give you my top two countdown.
Coming in at the number two spot, this next one is fucking hilarious, not for the stupid stunt that sets it off, but because of the reactions of those involved, especially the camera man. You'll know what I'm talking about. Enjoy this one, which I so fondly call, "Rooftop Piledriver."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCza250hwZE
This next one was tough. I was reluctant to put it on here because the ending is stupid and not funny. But the first 2/3 of the video make the lame-ass ending totally worth it. So here it is, folks, Number 1 on O'Neill's Top Two Review: "Dramatic Lemur."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0MaZ1rdwwU
What really does it for me, is the re-mix of this. Short, sweet, and to the point, this second take on Dramatic Lemur is so funny, I'm going to include it as an addition to the number 1 slot. It is also more scientifically accurate, as this animal is not, in fact, a Lemur.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPMaXuDVwSI
Well that concludes O'Neill's Top Two Review. I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope your festivities were as ridiculous as mine. If I get bored later in the week I'll tell you why it's not a good idea to take bong hits between interviewees you are questioning for applications to a student group you run.
Cushman Out.
Coming in at the number two spot, this next one is fucking hilarious, not for the stupid stunt that sets it off, but because of the reactions of those involved, especially the camera man. You'll know what I'm talking about. Enjoy this one, which I so fondly call, "Rooftop Piledriver."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCza250hwZE
This next one was tough. I was reluctant to put it on here because the ending is stupid and not funny. But the first 2/3 of the video make the lame-ass ending totally worth it. So here it is, folks, Number 1 on O'Neill's Top Two Review: "Dramatic Lemur."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0MaZ1rdwwU
What really does it for me, is the re-mix of this. Short, sweet, and to the point, this second take on Dramatic Lemur is so funny, I'm going to include it as an addition to the number 1 slot. It is also more scientifically accurate, as this animal is not, in fact, a Lemur.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPMaXuDVwSI
Well that concludes O'Neill's Top Two Review. I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope your festivities were as ridiculous as mine. If I get bored later in the week I'll tell you why it's not a good idea to take bong hits between interviewees you are questioning for applications to a student group you run.
Cushman Out.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Harold and Kumar go to JMU
real short anecdote. this just happened to my friend this weekend.
he told me that him and one of his housemates just got out of class and they were both pretty hungover, so they smoked some weed in hopes of cutting that. once high one of them proceeds to express a very certain desire saying, "man...its been so long since I've had my dick sucked."
his friend replies, "you wanna get your dick sucked?"
"yeah" says the first one.
"let's go to JMU"
and just like that they Harold and Kumar it to James Madison University, where women earn unofficial degrees in becoming trophy wives.
...we gotta keep this alive.
he told me that him and one of his housemates just got out of class and they were both pretty hungover, so they smoked some weed in hopes of cutting that. once high one of them proceeds to express a very certain desire saying, "man...its been so long since I've had my dick sucked."
his friend replies, "you wanna get your dick sucked?"
"yeah" says the first one.
"let's go to JMU"
and just like that they Harold and Kumar it to James Madison University, where women earn unofficial degrees in becoming trophy wives.
...we gotta keep this alive.
dick brothers
Well I'm a little rusty after my year-and-a-half long hiatus, but here goes nothing. I think the first thing I need to do is give a little back story. My best friend and body double, we'll call him Jim, broke up with his girlfriend a few months ago. It was messy, but after a while it was time for him to get back into the game. So he hooked up with this girl. The next morning we're all sitting upstairs in our living room, and we hear Jim come out of his room, come upstairs, and ask if he can borrow my other room mate's car. He's told no, and decides to make a better case as to why it is so necessary. "I need to go to Walmart to buy the morning after pill." Apparently during the course of what was described as "sloppy, yet strangely hot, animalistic sex," the condom got lost. So he got the car, went, and that was that.
Fast forward several weeks. I've been broken up with, and I'm recovering. Spring is in the air, and beer is in my system. We were having a rager. My home girl from... well... home... was visiting to come party with us, and it was all around crazy times. By half way through the night there were about 120 people in our upstairs that, on a crowded night, can accommodate roughly 70. There were literally people sitting on top of my roommates closet. By the end of the night, there was a kid passed out on the couch while the music blasted and me and a girl were bumpin and grindin on the dance floor... alone. My roommates and some friends were smoking downstairs so I went down to say hey. I took a hit, then confessed to my roommate that I thought I would end up making out with this girl. I was right. we went back upstairs and made out for a long time.
Now the thing about this girl is that she's VERY ticklish. So much so that she cannot involve herself in foreplay. She goes right from making out to sex. It blew my fucking mind. So that's what we did. In the living room. Next to the kid passed out on the couch. Then that got weird because there was a sleeping kid, so we moved it down to an equally classless location: the bathroom. I can't say it was my finest moment, but everyone involved had fun. Me and Jim were now officially dick brothers.
This was last weekend. This weekend, last night, we ran into each other again, and, again, she astonished me with how quickly she went right for sex. But I'm a generous guy, and I can't say no if someone wants something that I can provide, so we did our thing. only, when our thing was done, we discovered that whatever we were doing (and Jim's description is pretty accurate) had blown a huge hole in the top of the condom. Uh Oh.
So I went upstairs and had to ask my roommate for his car. He said no. I explained that I needed to go to Walmart to buy some plan B. And he had a pretty good laugh at my (and this girl's) expense. The weirdest part to me is that this girl wouldn't let me pay for it, or even help.
Now that's what I call a rebound worthy of taking place during the NBA Playoffs.
Fast forward several weeks. I've been broken up with, and I'm recovering. Spring is in the air, and beer is in my system. We were having a rager. My home girl from... well... home... was visiting to come party with us, and it was all around crazy times. By half way through the night there were about 120 people in our upstairs that, on a crowded night, can accommodate roughly 70. There were literally people sitting on top of my roommates closet. By the end of the night, there was a kid passed out on the couch while the music blasted and me and a girl were bumpin and grindin on the dance floor... alone. My roommates and some friends were smoking downstairs so I went down to say hey. I took a hit, then confessed to my roommate that I thought I would end up making out with this girl. I was right. we went back upstairs and made out for a long time.
Now the thing about this girl is that she's VERY ticklish. So much so that she cannot involve herself in foreplay. She goes right from making out to sex. It blew my fucking mind. So that's what we did. In the living room. Next to the kid passed out on the couch. Then that got weird because there was a sleeping kid, so we moved it down to an equally classless location: the bathroom. I can't say it was my finest moment, but everyone involved had fun. Me and Jim were now officially dick brothers.
This was last weekend. This weekend, last night, we ran into each other again, and, again, she astonished me with how quickly she went right for sex. But I'm a generous guy, and I can't say no if someone wants something that I can provide, so we did our thing. only, when our thing was done, we discovered that whatever we were doing (and Jim's description is pretty accurate) had blown a huge hole in the top of the condom. Uh Oh.
So I went upstairs and had to ask my roommate for his car. He said no. I explained that I needed to go to Walmart to buy some plan B. And he had a pretty good laugh at my (and this girl's) expense. The weirdest part to me is that this girl wouldn't let me pay for it, or even help.
Now that's what I call a rebound worthy of taking place during the NBA Playoffs.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
And He's Back...
Well folks, it's been a while. It turns out being the subject of a blog dedicated solely to telling silly stories about one's personal life and the misadventures associated with it, and having a serious girlfriend are like peanut butter and tuna fish; they're just a nasty combo. But here it is: the time of year when shit starts going crazy, and I'm a single man again. So stay tuned because something tells me shit is gonna get funny (for all parties not involved, myself included) pretty quick. In fact, i did some pretty silly things last night. Here's what I'll do. I'll tell you about them later, because I'm hungry for breakfast.
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