First Two Weeks in School

Welcome back to France with me!!!

Since returning to France, it has been a totally different journey and I’m thankful for every moment in this experience. We have three new students. Osamu, who is Japanese and is studying at an art restoration college in Florence, Italy for four years and is on winter break. He will not be able to finish the entire six week module, because his winter break will end at the end of this month. He is kind, quiet, sweet and tugs on his little goatee constantly, even while eating lunch or dinner LOL. He’s a darling and is 26 years old. The youngest student we have.

Then, there’s the American Lisa Burns. Lisa and I hit if off the moment we first wrote each other. I was in class one day in the first module and heard Kyoko answer the phone in French and immediately say “yes, I speak English”. I knew in my heart at that moment it was an American and asked Kyoko if I could write her about my experiences here and see if she had any questions about the school. This sweet thing Kyoko gave her approval over; started a unique friendship between Lisa and me. She is absolutely precious and I am learning more and more about the French culture from her as she can explain the differences in the American ways and the French ways. She married a Frenchman this past year and has been living with Tom in Belgium for the past four years. They met in her home state of Oregon. She is delightful and adds so much to our class. She has been doing art for years and I enjoy watching her work, she's great.

Jasque is a French Architect who joined us as well. He’s been an art instructor and is talented. I love how he has moved the window treatment portion of our mural. He swims during lunchtime, while the rest of us chill and eat lunch together and just enjoy each other’s company. He’s high energy and very active and is nervously running around all the time trying to get his things done LOL.

We have been celebrating since our first day back at class, this custom with the French called “The Epiphany”. It is the celebration of the three kings visiting Jesus and Mary and Joseph. They celebrate this custom by putting little prizes into cakes and tarts. If you are the one who gets the prize, you are a Queen or King for the entire year and you have a crown to put on. Then you have to purchase the cake on the following day. I keep winning this stupid little prize LOL. No, actually I and Kyoko won the first two on the first day. Patrick had bought two cakes and then we each bought a cake. Marina and Osamu won those two and Marina bought the third one, as we all said we could not eat four pieces of cake to find the prizes, so we cut this down to one cake, instead of two. When Marina bought the third day, the last piece was left for Jasque and we knew it had the prize in it. When he came back, we told him the piece of cake was waiting on him. Before he could even eat it, a visiting artist came into the studio; we’ve seen her a few times. All of a sudden, the piece of cake disappeared and we all laughed when we realized she took the piece belonging to Jasque and didn’t bother to let us all know. We didn’t celebrate this tradition again, until this week. Michel bought one and started it all over again. Patrick received the first prize and on his tart he bought, Michel won. We thought it was all over, until I was eating my piece and low and behold, there were two prizes in that tart and I had the second one LOL. You’ll love this, the tarts were prizes of The Simpson cartoon characters and our crowns were Simpson crowns.

Getting back to the school and what we are learning. I cannot begin to describe how intense this module is compared to the others. We were warned about this many times before by Michel and Kyoko and none of us could have prepared ourselves for this learning curve. I believe that in the prospective, color theory, where we had a visiting artist and teacher come to teach that portion and then the composition of art we have done in the past two weeks is as much as you would get in a year in an art college. I cannot believe how much information and subsequent change in my life. I’m so thankful I didn’t get to The Louvre before I left Paris and that when I go home in February, what I will see in these paintings will be totally different and my appreciation much greater. This module is exhausting us and by the time we get back to our rooms, we are can hardly function. Our eyes, minds and bodies are suffering LOL. We are all so grateful though, that Michel built this curriculum around giving us, as is his method, everything humanly possible to enhance our growth as artisans. I am now beginning to understand why he said this entire course was the equivalent to a seven year apprenticeship.

I am shocked at what I’m learning and gleaning from all of the teachings of Michel and so are all of the other students along with us. The new students got introduced to a very loving group and they are commenting on how close we all are and we have embraced them as part of our family. I personally am spending a lot of time with Osamu and Lisa taking them around town, introducing them to my favorite crepery restaurant, taking them to Chinese buffet and generally seeing around town. Agen truly is a beautiful experience. I did find out that the population here is around 70,000 and outside the perimeter of the town limits is another 70,000 people.

Oh, and one thing I have decided since my last blog. I said I would tell you when I figured out if I liked the French custom of how long it takes them to bring the check. Thanks to Lisa explaining why they do this, I think it is a wonderful concept. She says the French think that the dining experience is just that, an experience and they consider it rude to interrupt you to bring you the check. They expect you to ask for it LOL. All this time, I’ve been waiting patiently and getting frustrated at times when they were just being respectful of my time and meal LOL. The culture differences are most difficult in this regard, what is meant as a courtesy can be perceived in a totally different manner. I am so reminded of the movie Crash so many times as I see what happens around me in regard to how humans relate and look at each other. I think we could all learn from each other and be better people just by being open to listening and hearing what others feel, sense and how they function in their lives.

You’ll get a kick out of this, on my way into Paris at the airport, I was asked by this couple where the train station was in the airport and I guided them there. Now, mind you, they were totally speaking French and I had to get the woman to speak some broken English with me speaking broken French and I mean broken LOL. When we got to the train station in the airport, they were heading to where they live in Bordeaux, which is one train stop before Agen. While waiting in line at the café to get a cappuccino, they got behind me in line and were asking more questions about me liking being here in France and studying. She told me that she had been in NY quite a few times and that her opinion of Americans was that we all walked around with our head’s off. ROFL. I laughed at this and knew she had not been around many Americans and thought of the biases we all have toward one another. It was sobering. Come to find out, she wasn’t French and was from Amsterdam. This is all saddening to me on so many levels, wishing that we could all just hold hands and love each other. (I know, I hear you Tom, me wanting to sit around the campfire and hold hands and sing Kum BA YAH with everyone and you keep telling me that’s not the case LOL). I still wish for a more united world. My being here is opening up the French more to Americans and me to the French. In that regard, this is a beautiful experience!!!!!

Don’t forget to look at the new pics on the blog (you'll have to scroll down to find them, don't know why they don't automatically go to the top of the page), and the article for Artisphere is completed and it will be coming out soon. They changed their minds from them writing about the opening of Michel’s studio, to me writing the article. They are planning on doing a personal article on me when I complete the course. I’m excited about that as well and have found working through this process of this article an absolute wonderful experience with the Editor, she is awesome. Had an interview and photo shoot while in Greenville for the local magazine called Talk Art, look for that article by Ann Hicks coming your way soon as well. Ann is a good friend of mine and I can’t wait to see what she has to say. She is a wealth of knowledge herself.

Hope all is well with each of you. Thank you so much for going through this experience with me and I am finding out that there are more of you reading this than I knew. I love that you are finding something in this reading that touches you and hopefully, you are being enlightened as to what it is like living in a foreign country. We can all grow from each other's experiences. Thank you for your portion in this.

Happy Birthday to the love of my life - Tom!!!!!!!

Tammy Goben