Thursday, June 24, 2010

Super Hero Day Before We Leave Lyon + Etchings!

Today is the day before we leave lovely Lyon. The 11th graders at the kids' school organized a fun activity day for the rest of the school with a super hero theme. Here is Harper as Super Snow White and Guthrie as a Super Viking Spiderman - in the morning, 7am, before leaving for school...






Yesterday Guthrie tried on his borrowed costume over his clothes.....

Here is Guthrie with his best friend here in Lyon, Jacob Hammers, in Jacob's cool + modern apartment with a funny handpainted wallpaper and an amazing view of all of Lyon......

Harper asked me to take this picture of her sparkly lit tummy......
Harper after school....

Yesterday after school, the kids and I went to URDLA to sign my etchings - all 80 of them (edition of 16 of 4 etchings + archives print for exhibition, 1 for the Bibliotheque National de France in Paris and artist's proofs). Here are more pictures of amazing URDLA, blotting paper:

Phone book weights used to dry prints....

Harper making a collage while Vincent packs up my prints in the background -
Guthrie exhausted....
URDLA fingerprints (for Amy White) -
Guthrie asked Harper to dance with him et voila!



Cloth on the URDLA wall.....
URDLA's broom handle -
Guthrie's scowl, bored, waiting, sick of me taking pictures.....

Here are the 4 Resistance etchings, photographed at an angle.....




Vincent, the best and nicest assistant one could hope for, counting and organizing my etchings URDLA keeps 8 and I keep 8 + proofs.
Vincent and me with the Assan Mati show behind us....
Cyrille, my friend and Director-Curator of URDLA, and me.....
Cathy Lutz, Matt and beautiful Lianna came to visit last weekend for 3 nights. We ate amazing food, including this yummy picnice dinner at our place. Here is the perfectly ripe St. Felicien cheese, a regional speciality -
And our favourite melon in Nyons olive oil, rock salt and pepper -

3 frommages: beaufort, goat in ash, and a briallat with truffles....
Tomorrow is the kids' last school day, a half day with an assembly. We will hand in our keys to the landlady, drive to the airport hotel, return the rent-a-car and fly out tomorrow morning at 8am. We will be at the White House June 29! I am verklempt...........au revoir Lyon, au revoir France, we will return! Thanks to you all who followed and appreciated this blog.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Lyon in June

The above beautiful drawing of a recipe is from sweet + brilliant Luci Martinez (val + Laura's girl). We have made this soup twice now and it is delicious. My friend Lesley added basil. I think mint would taste great too. We do not have a blender here in France so we just hand-mashed it and it was perfect. Thanks Luci!

Here is Harper Ursual after their school's summer fete last weekend. She had her face painted as a butterfly. Guthrie was a vampire and he won a small portable radio in the raffle!

Here is Guthrie painting while Harper eats her popsicle. Those were the good old warm days. It is chilly again and non-stop rain all week. Hope it's sunny next week, our last week. We are busy packing, shipping, purging, wallowing in the bittersweetness of our pending departure.....but luckily, we are going to the White House June 29 - a fantastic distraction!


Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Last Week in Vaison Le Romaine, Provence, Part III: Everything Else

This is the final set of images from our magical week in Provence. Our rental house was an old farmhouse with a big "garage" that once was a wine producing site. Here are the presses:
A detail of one of the walls in the kids' bedroom -
Here we are in Vaison Le Romaine, a gorgeous town with Roman ruins (complete with sewers and ampitheatres) and a medieval neighborhood. David's wearing the pork pie hat he bought there -
We went to dinner the last night in Vaqueryas, at Les Dentelles (the name for the teeth-like mountains nearby), where Val and Laura and we had a great lunch a couple months ago and where David, Andy and I had eaten 10 years ago. We had fun and so did the kids, but the food was disappointing.
Typical trees in Vaison Le Romaine -
On the way to the delicious cherry trees, down the road from our house -


A view of the pool from the upstairs kids' window. The pool water cascades over those stone steps where lots of passive bees hovered all day....

Zillah lounging by the pool....

Throughout the medieval neighborhood of Vaison le Romaine, the city has installed large black and white photographs of the people of Vaison. I love this project!
You can see the b+w photo of children at the fountain in wintertime in the background and the summertime fountain in the foreground - so simple and moving....
Boule and Rosa's little hands on the edge of the frame, reminding me of Meatyard....




We stopped in Nyons for lunch on our way home to Lyon. Nyons is home to the best olive oil on the planet and delicious olives, both of which you can purchase at the big cooperative downtown. We had a lovely lunch where we learned the olive oil drizzled over melon trick. I had roasted eggplant, a disk of fresh goat cheese sprinkled with thyme, green beans, fresh bread and a roasted tomato sprinkled with rock salt. This memorial to those who died fighting against the Nazis, was near the restaurant on a very public and alive square. Made me wish Chapel Hill had a square of cafes and memorials....


My new "sandals" from Vaison....
Reading the saddest book I have ever read, One Thusand Splendid Suns, while everyone gets ready for dinner out.....sipping a margarita.....

The war memorial in Vaison....
Standing in my favourite Vaison doorway in my new Mado dress.....



This is where David and I stayed, our own little private loveshack!
I just can't resist these doorknockers. (Try as I might, I can not seem to find one to bring home for val and Laura....)

The reflection of our Les Dentelles restaurant in Vaqueryas.....
David getting ready to leave....
My movie star man on the cherry picking road.....He reminded me of Stranger Than Paradise all day long.....



CPR signs that one can find in every French town, posted to walls.....

While finishing another Andy-prepared exquisite meal on the lawn, I looked up to find this cool beehived lady in the trees!