April in Paris...
.... is pretty darn cold and rainy. But it probably sounds better to a lyricist than "May", so that's why a bunch of first-timers - representin' - end up shivering - albeit still thoroughly entranced - with our maiden visit to the City of Lights.
Because of a fortunate connection in Houston, a dear friend, Martha Terrell, a fantastic artist in her own right, told me about a buddy of hers with - you gotta hear it with the Texas twang - 'an atelier in Angers'. His name? Butch Peace. Best expatriate Texan name in all of France, we venture to say.
And although he ran with a very European crowd of accomplished abstract expressionists, Monsieur Peace, as you can see, was clearly grounded in the real.
There is a long story to this drawing, but best left in my memory bank. Suffice it to say that I modeled for this inadvertently, at the end of a tiring, wondrous day gallivanting through museums and galleries of Paris, ending up in a real studio in Montparnasse - even negotiating the public transport there with, oh, so little French at our command. It is reflective and can see traces of the woman I'd age to become in his work. Spot on - on a good day, I might add.
Butch sure did surprise me with this:
I was staring at the watercolors of Odilon Redon at the time - right before I began to weep at the sheer, delicate beauty of his work, in some redneck version of Stendhal's syndrome. True story, on this last. And it is worth looking up.
Thank you, Butch.
Thank you, Martha.
And to Paris...
Je vous remercie toujours
Because of a fortunate connection in Houston, a dear friend, Martha Terrell, a fantastic artist in her own right, told me about a buddy of hers with - you gotta hear it with the Texas twang - 'an atelier in Angers'. His name? Butch Peace. Best expatriate Texan name in all of France, we venture to say.
And although he ran with a very European crowd of accomplished abstract expressionists, Monsieur Peace, as you can see, was clearly grounded in the real.
There is a long story to this drawing, but best left in my memory bank. Suffice it to say that I modeled for this inadvertently, at the end of a tiring, wondrous day gallivanting through museums and galleries of Paris, ending up in a real studio in Montparnasse - even negotiating the public transport there with, oh, so little French at our command. It is reflective and can see traces of the woman I'd age to become in his work. Spot on - on a good day, I might add.
Butch sure did surprise me with this:
I was staring at the watercolors of Odilon Redon at the time - right before I began to weep at the sheer, delicate beauty of his work, in some redneck version of Stendhal's syndrome. True story, on this last. And it is worth looking up.
Thank you, Butch.
Thank you, Martha.
And to Paris...
Je vous remercie toujours
posted by Dustin at
1:10 AM 
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