Weekend Waygone 18

Slow and steady wins the race, right?  Work is yet again getting the best of me and knitting has fallen back on the priority list.  My goal is to have this finished by the end of the week.  If I say it then it will come true, right?  We will see!

Weekend Waygone 17

Work still has priority over most of my time... but I have made it closer to the finish line with the fawncho.  I'll be plugging along a few rows at a time this week and hopefully I will finish soon.  This weekend brought some cold air in, so I am even more eager to wear this little fawncho.  So far so good!

Weekend Waygone 16

I am still busy at work, but this week I spied a treasure in the mailbox on my way to and from my night shift hours.  My yarn and supplies needed for the next knitting project arrived!  I am now attempting my first ever pattern, the Tiny Owl Knits fawncho!  This is officially the nicest yarn I've ever used, the first project I've put thought into before starting, and my first time following any sort of pattern.  I am a third of the way through the intarsia fawn, and can't wait to go at it until I finish!

Weekend Waygone 14

Today I continue working 12 and a half hour shifts 6 days a week in my snazzy steel toed boots.  Only, this time I switch to night shift! Hellooooo 6pm to 6:30am! I may need to purchase coffee grounds by the barrel on my way home from work.  Luckily this only lasts for a month or two and not forever.  I am all trained up and ready to have my security background check completed so I can get my "good guy" letter and really get to work. I can guarantee when it is all over I will sleep for an entire day guilt free. Until then, I will welcome the cold Autumn chill and day dream a bunch.

Weekend Waygone 13

A vacation... I know, I know, I just got back from France! Well technically that was for academic purposes. The most wonderful academic purposes. So when the opportunity to take a little trip down to Florida presented itself, I jumped at it. I was lucky enough to sell a few prints at the Vernissage, so what better way to spend that money than on a week long getaway before I start my all too familiar 72 hour night shift work week? (I start training today... woop, woop).

Last Sunday I celebrated Labor Day by jumping on a plane and heading South. I was met by a printmaking friend I made while in France. Her and her family were nice enough to take me in for the evening while I waited for a friend from my bike trip to come steal me away for the week.

The trip, like most I take, was last minute at best, so we didn't have too many set plans. It was simply a nice, relaxing, lazy week. The best kind! I got a bit of drawing done, read a few books, took in a few movies, and chowed down on some new foods and one tasty milkshake. All in all I will label the trip a success.

Weekend Waygone 12

A slow start.  That's exactly what I needed after coming back home from France.  Once I got caught up on sleep I had a few days to slowly ease back into regular life again.  I like starting each day with a nice, slow cup of coffee.  As simple as grinding the coffee beans, making a make-shift coffee pot with extra filters and hair elastics, brewing a cup or two, and sipping the hot, new coffee while watching the goats play in the backyard.

Coming back home after a big trip is always an odd feeling.  A silence after a storm.  It takes a second to realize that maybe not much has really changed.  When I go on big, extended adventures I can completely give in to the wonder, excitement, and the magic of being thrown into an entirely different world or experience.  I love this.  People can live entire lifetimes in big, important adventures, no matter how long or short they may be, but coming back to what was the normal day to day can have an oddly sobering effect.

Coming back from France has been exactly one of those moments.  Coming back to my parents house.  It feels smaller, it feels quieter, and it lacks new excitement.  I'll be here all fall for work before having a new adventure.  I'm sure I'll quickly get used to the day to day.  The only problem with settling back in is that the great adventures seem farther away and less real somehow.  It's a symptom of returning.  As much as I dislike that feeling, I seem to keep coming back home for one reason or another.  Mostly financial reasons, but still.  It's something I hope to break if not this year then the next.

Weekend Waygone 11

This past weekend was our big show here in the South of France.  Today we are cleaning up shop and packing for our early bus ride to the airport tomorrow.  But first, we had our big end of Summer show!  We cleared out all our work spaces and our caves and transformed the entire village into a gallery, complete with streets lined with framed work and installations.  I was happy to have twelve pieces in the show and even happier to have had five pieces purchased!  Yay!

My work in the show was mostly etchings, but I did also have my big drawing of bread on the wall as well. I am one of those gluten intolerant folks that came to France as some form of torture as I passed by bakeries, people strolling around town with baguettes, and dreaming of chocolate croissants and something to spread my brie onto. In lieu of eating what always looked so delicious I decided to draw it. In a very big way. I didn't quite get to put the finishing touches on it, but I was happy to have my big, funny chunks of bread on the wall.
Oh, I also cut all my hair off last month! Back in Paris at the beginning of July a friend of mine and I had a free morning with not much to do before we were meeting the rest of our printmaking group at a museum, so we waltzed right into a little coiffure. After getting a mohawk on my first cross country bike trip in 2010 I was challenging myself to see how long I could go without chopping it all off again. I lasted almost exactly two years to the day.

Weekend Waygone 10

This week is our last before the big Vernissage show and before we all pack up and leave this marvelous French summer home.  This weekend was a busy one etching plates and getting some printing done.  Now I must clean a few pieces up, frame a bunch of things, and work on some drawings.  The show isn't until Friday, but we are going to be in exhibition cleaning mode starting Wednesday, so now is indeed the crunchiest of the crunch time.  You can see from the state of my bed that I have some work ahead of me... and that I am doing my best to prevent myself from getting too comfortable.  I can't sleep away the precious time I have left!  Hopefully I'll have my camera with me throughout the week while we transform our village into a gallery space.

Weekend Waygone 9

This past weekend was a bit busy.  On Friday we took a trip into Avignon, beyond the medieval ramparts, where we took a tour of the Palais des Papes (palace of the popes).  The palace was huge and my favorite room was the kitchen which resembled that of the Willy Wonka fizzy lifting drinks... it was an incredibly tall cone type stone room where they would have a big fire going in the middle and make thousands and thousands of dishes for the feasts.  After listening to a few more fun facts from the whispering audio guide speaking in English, we snuck off to an art museum.

Collection Lambert was an amazing contemporary art museum.  We took our time, and seemed to be the only people in there at the time, and saw Anselm Kiefer, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Barbara Kruger, Andres Serrano, and many more.  Per usual, we exited through the gift shop and I so badly wish I had the space in my luggage to spare for a catalog of the exhibition, or other small souvenir.  They had a beautiful Basquiat scarf that was so very tempting, but a little too out of my price range this time around.

Saturday we earned a bit of a break before hitting the road to Aix en Provence for Sunday.  We were able to visit an art couple's home where they have Louis Marchutz's old lithography press.  They told us about the artist, the press, the materials, and did a drawing transfer demonstration.  This place was an artist's dream world... and they had a pet horse that acted like a big dog.  It was fantastic.

Once we were offered some lunch, paired with some homemade Southern sweet tea... yuuu-uum, we then had the privilege of visiting Cezanne's old painting studio at Chateau Noir.  There is a touristy studio open to the public, but we were able to be spoiled once again by getting a tour of the real deal.  We got to stand in the very places he stood while painting his masterpieces and it was amazing to see how things have gone untouched for over 100 years.

Weekend Waygone 8

Sometimes there are things in the shop that just sort of pop up.  This little figure is one of them.  Now it travels around the room sporting new positions.  I'm not sure if it has a name yet, but it sure does get entertaining on those late nights.  While we are working away, this little treasure keeps a smile on our faces.  Or, rather, my face. 

Weekend Waygone 7

One of the last museums we got to squeeze into our busy schedules while in Paris was the Museum of Arts and Trades (Musee des Arts et Metiers).  It was a crazy museum that took you through the timeline of all thoughts, inventions, machines, buildings, etc.  A fantastic place to nerd out on many, many, many things.  When you got to the last area it was this awesome, dramatically lit, room with old cars, planes, and other odds and ends.  Everything was just so cool!  It was a welcomed break from the more traditional art museums we had been frequenting.  I wish I had taken pictures before getting to that last room, but I was too busy running around like a little kid!

Weekend Waygone 6

Sometimes we are lucky enough to go on bonus field trips. This time around we jumped in our vans and followed the road to Louis Jou's print shop, museum, and home. We got to come face to face with the wood he was engraving, the blocks he printed, and his collection of other art... which includes, but is certainly not limited to, Durer, Rembrandt, and Goya's Disasters of War series. It was unreal. Needless to say, jaws dropped, some folks got a smidge choked up, and I just couldn't believe what was happening.