27 01. 08 This place never ceases to surprise me. Last Friday I had to go to the mairie for some information and,whilst waiting for the lady to get off the phone, picked up the local newsletter only to discover that we had a film festival this weekend. It was billed as a festival celebrating the relationship between film and architecture and the special guest was Peter Greenaway. As a long time fan of Mr Greenaway’s work I was delighted, so duly turned up to the round table discussion on Saturday afternoon. This was mainly conducted in English (not sure what the Clermontais thought of this) with Mr Greenaway passionately declaring that since the invention of the remote, cinema as we know it was dead. All of which didn’t seem to have a lot to do with architecture but was very interesting. In the evening there was an advance screening of his film on Rembrandt entitled Nightwatching, a fictionalised bio of the painter based on his famous painting The Nightwatch. Fascinating movie with the usual Greenaway trademarks of a certain exuberant bawdiness and wonderful painterly lighting and colours. Worth seeing.
Shows
Christmas in Canada
I spent Christmas in Toronto visiting friends and generally trying to stay in touch, house sitting Maryann and Gregory’s house and looking after their dog Jake. Julia and Daisy stayed with me whilst they were in town so Jake was quite happy having all this new company and in particular he enjoyed Daisy who was always either taking him for walks or bathing him! Snow before Christmas allowed Daisy to renew her tobogganing skills and just after Christmas I was also lucky enough to be around when Poppy first began to walk. She is now really mobile and is constantly exploring and keeping everybody on their toes too. En route back to Clermont stayed with Julia and Daisy in Windsor for 10 days before heading back down here. Whilst in the UK visited the Sir John Soane Museum in London and also went to an exhibit of Sickert nudes at the Courtauld. The Soane is really worth a visit to see what he did with natural light in a Georgian house and also to see the collection of original Hogarth paintings.
More Merrickville
29/30. 09. 07. Spent another weekend in the studio and finally sold a painting to Pam Chiles who had bought two paintings from me previously. She chastized me on not using archival tape for mounting my paintings! Sunday was the day for friends to come by, Virginia Clark from Toronto and Roy and Suzette MacSkimming from Perth (Roy’s new novel Macdonald has had great reviews in the Citizen and the Globe). The other good news is that I met Judith Moore who has taken 14 of my paintings to hang in her gallery in Merrickville.
Merrickville
Friday. Spent the day hanging our paintings, pricing etc.
22/23. 09. 07. Perfect weather, warm and sunny. We did not have quite as many people through as last year but, both Martin and I agreed, they seemed more knowledgeable and more interested than last year. Martin sold two paintings and I have one out on approval.
Musée Fleury
11. 09. 07. Went to the art gallery in Lodève today which is part of the Musée de France and always has well curated shows. Today was the collection of Oscar Ghez, a French industrialist who made a fortune in rubber. The show is mainly French painters from the Impressionists to the 1930s, mostly unknown to me. Apparently Ghez liked to buy artists that he thought were good but were frequently not well known. He had a good eye and it is an interesting and inspiring show. I particularly liked Gustave Caillebotte, Armand Guillaumin and Michel Kikoine. Great ride to and from Lodève – I have now found a new route which snakes up to La Coste and then on single track roads around Lac du Salagou with great views across the Languedoc plain.
Montpellier
30. 08. 07. I went into Montpellier today to take Carole and Daisy to the airport and also to drop the car off. It was even easier this time with the drop-off – the Renault lady was waiting for us in the parking lot. Took the Navette from the airport to downtown Montpellier €4.7. It takes about 20 minutes and drops you off at the Place d’Europe at a Tramway stop from which you can go to the station or bus station. Very impressed with the Tramway which is clean, efficient and easy to use. One ride is €1.3, all day €3.5 and a family €5. Dedicated lanes and you buy the tickets at the stops from a machine that makes change and even takes Visa! They also have Velomagg which is a bike rental service. You can pick up a bike at several central stations and rent them for as little as 1€ for 4 hours. Aluminium bikes which are chainless apparently. I will try one the next time I’m in Montpellier. I walked from the Place d’Europe to the Musée Fabre where I saw a show of Impressionist paintings mainly from collections in the US. A good show with a number of pieces that I had not seen before. I also hadn’t realized that the bulk of Impressionist paintings were in US collections because the nouveau riche, turn of the century, American industrialists bought whilst the French were still deciding whether this was art or not. After a morning coffee I then took the tramway to the Gare St Roche where I caught the bus back to Clermont – very civilized and gave me a chance to look at the paysage. All inspired with the show, I decided to begin painting the room that will become my studio. After finishing that, a quick piperade omelet and then to bed in a very quiet house.
Gormley Show Hayward Gallery
14.07.07 Daisy and I went up to the Southbank Centre to see the new Anthony Gormley show. En route from Waterloo station we encountered one of the many figures that Gormley has cast of himself and has positioned on numerous vantage points
near the gallery. The show consists of cast iron casts of Gormley’s body, stainless steel molecular-like versions of bodies in various poses, a maze-like installation of concrete pieces called Allotment based on the dimensions of 300 life size inhabitants from Malmo aged 1.5 – 80 years old! A foetal shape cut out from slices of Mother’s Pride bread, a space station and the really disorienting Blind Light which is a large room-sized space filled with fog. You walk in and literally cannot see your hand in front of your face. All this plus prints and, drawings and photos makes this a truly inspiring show.
A day in London at the galleries
Decided to have a day in town so I bought the Travel card and went in on the 9.23. The first stop was the Host Gallery just off Old Street in the city. There was a show entitled Hard Men and Heroes by Stephan Vanfleteren who shoots gritty back and whites. The photos showed scenes and portraits of cyclists and spectators of the various cycle races that culminate in the tough Tour of Flanders. The show coincides with the beginning of the Tour de France in London on Saturday. Great photos of some really tough looking men who live in this cold, drizzly part of Belgium.
From there I made my way to the Tate Britain on Millbank to see the Turner watercolours. En route I passed by the old offices at John Murray where I first worked in 1959 – now but a large hole! The Turner show was partially curated by David Hockney and was brilliant. Talk about ahead of his time! I was really floored by his ‘colour beginning’ sketches which are very gestural and abstract but then you check out some of his studies of architecture and you wonder how he did them – they are so tight and wonderfully accurate. No wonder the guy was successful. I also like the fact that he travelled in the summer and then spent the winter in the studio doing large studio pieces. He owned his own gallery on Harley Street and exhibited once a year. There were also some new Hockneys at the Tate – a watercolour in the Turner show and five of his new large multi canvas paintings of Yorkshire. Interesting idea but I find his new palette a bit garish. Lunched on the steps of the Tate and then caught a bus up to Piccadilly. Rode on top at the front and was again amazed at London. The Horseguards in Whitehall looked younger than ever and I was fascinated by the variety of decoration and the rooflines of the houses. Also noticed how effective the Congestion Tax appears to be. it is still crowded but at least it moves now.
Got off bus at Albemarle Street where I worked from 1961 – 1963 – still a very elegant address. Walked along Piccadilly to the Royal Academy where I bought a ticket £6 – for seniors for the Summer Show. Huge show with every conceivable kind of art. Big Hockney but again weird palette and a massive Anselm Keifer complete with lead submarine and the roots of something sprouting out of it. Loads of paintings of all sizes and a surprising number of large drawings but nothing cheap. Lots of red dots. Also a lot of people looking and taking notes. I think that if you can get in, one can probably sell from here. After all this culture I caught the tube to Waterloo and met Julia and her friend Donna and we had a tasty and cheap fish and chip supper at a place on Waterloo Road just by the Old Vic. Julia and I then returned to Windsor.
Owen Sound
Today went to Owen Sound with Maryann to see the John Hartman show at the Tom Thomson Gallery in Owen Sound. Nice start to the day with warm weather and sunshine. Stopped at Gramma Jo’s in Flesherton for breakfast and arrived in Owen Sound just before 11 when the gallery opened. Gallery is situated next door to the library which was once a Carnegie Library. Carnegie libraries were the original lending libraries before the Public Library system took them over. There were once 2500 of them all over Canada. M suggested that we get a grant and photograph and draw them. We were welcomed into the TT gallery by a very cheerful and knowledgeable woman – we already like this place especially when I get a senior’s discount of $2 off the entry fee of $5. Much better collection of Tom Thomson than the AGO’s! There was also a small exhibition of, to us unknown except for A Y Jackson, Canadian artists who had painted in Europe. We were impressed at the quality of the paintings. Finally went into the Hartman show. Big, juicy paintings. Overhead views of various port cities mainly in Canada except for NY and London. Also pencil sketches and watercolour sketches. What I found particularly interesting was the fact that Hartman added historical details to the map-like quality of the paintings. I was also interested in the fact that he had used concentina sketchbooks. These allow you to extend the sketch ad infinitum or have a series of linked sketches. Drove to Southampton on Lake Huron after the show and did some drawings of the waterfront there before driving back to Toronto.
