A walk to galleries in Saint Germaine and horses!

Yesterday, as we crossed over to Ile de la Cite, on our way to the Saint Germaine galleries, three mounted officers of the guard went by us, struggling to get my camera out, I ended up catching only their back ends. The horses were the tallest I'd ever seen in real life. I wish I could tell you how many hands! So big! Even Gita who rides horses in Norway said that they were very tall. We went into a number of galleries with the main destination being the one with the Kurt Schwitters collages on display. They were all for sale but prices started at about 105,500 euros. We bought the catalog for 25 euros. Chuck was so happy to see these originals. They were quite small in size. Some of our students might remember the short film we used to show about him. Here's a photo of the Galerie and one of the collages in the book, which of course doesn't show the true colors or size, but wow it was great to see it in person.

We stopped into a gallery with pieces made of fabric. Gita is a fibre artist. Here we are in the mirror.

Here's the image of the backside of the horses. The really neat thing this morning, is as I was in the post office getting stamps, we heard the clomping of horses hooves outside in the little street, and about 50 mounted officers in full dress of the Guard Republicaine went by. Neither Chuck nor I had a camera with us. Waaa! I asked the postal clerk what was going on, he said "oh nothing, it's normal," with a wink. Hardly normal! There are lots of videos on YouTube that show this group in action.

A surprise on a bridge.

Crossing the Seine yesterday, (I don't know how I got this underline thing, it's annoying me and I can't stop it!) we saw a guy in a kilt putting on a jacket and cap, opening a bag and sure enough, taking out his bagpipe. We stayed for the concert. I really like bagpipe music and appreciated the nice surprise of hearing it with the Seine in the background.

the Nathan Lerner Exhibit

The other day, we went to see an exhibit entitled Nathan Lerner and the New Bauhaus in Chicago. Well, we're originally from Chicago and know of both the old and the new Bauhaus, but we'd never heard of this man, or so we thought. It turns out that we are artist descendents of his. He was the class mate and/or teacher of our teachers. We recognized projects that we'd done as students. We couldn't believe that we'd never heard his name mentioned, or did we, and did we forget. His photographs were wonderful. He did many of Maxwell Street in the 1920s and 30s. As a kid, my father took me to Maxwell Street to buy a jacket once, which I loved. I remember the street being like a big flea market. It turns out that we do know this man, but in an unexpected way. He gave up photography for awhile and did design work. He is the man who designed the honey bear bottle and the sponge mop!! Also, he and his wife owned the building that Henry Darger lived in, and discovered his work when he moved out to a nursing home. We'd seen their names in the Darger catalog from a show we'd seen. Okay, so things are coming together! More than this, we got all emotional about what our teachers passed on to us, which in turn, we passed on to our students. For real, we got out of the museum (MAHJ - Musee d'Art et Histoire Judaisme) and stood on the sidewalk and were all like "can you believe this?" His wife is a classical pianist and is giving a concert in her husband's honor tomorrow night. We're planning to go to the concert.

Dinner with friends.

We were introduced to Raclette de fromages this past Sunday night. An electric devise that heats up cheese which has been placed on little "plates" that get inserted into the device. On top, a place to put food to be kept warm. In this case, some potatoes. There were three cheeses, one specifically for raclette (called Raclette,) one with mustard seeds in it, and a cheese we get at home, the name of which I've just this moment lost. I'll think of it later probably. (Our friend sent us an e-mail with the name of the cheese. It's Morbier! He added, "fromage produit dans le Doubs , qui se situe à l'Est de la France, près du Jura et nous avons aussi bu du Macvin du Jura en apéritif. "

The dinner also included a plate of assorted cold meats, some roasted eggplant, and for me especially since I don't eat meat, some tiropita and a tofu pattie. So sweet of J.Claude and Regine to make sure there was enough for me to choose from. Of course, potatoes and cheese, Yum, what could be better!?!

Vendredi (Friday) More images

Here's a assortment of things that I saw yesterday...the view of the back of St. Paul's church in the misty afternoon. A very large photo by Shirana Shahbazi, an Iranian photographer, who has a show at the Swiss Cultural Centre, (more of her photos on my Flickr) and some beautiful pastries and vegetables that Chuck photographed for me, while I was busy shopping. For those of you who have't tried the radish spread, the recipe is here.

Vendredi (Friday)

Today we started out before noon with a list of places we wanted to go to see more photography exhibits. First stop, the Swedish cultural centre, which we love for it's little cafe, where you get refills on your coffee. The photographer exhibiting there is: Lars Tunbjörk. We liked his large works, that were so quiet. We had planned to have lunch there but had to eat out in the courtyard as it was full inside. It wasn't that chilly so we were happy to be outdoors. Chuck had a sandwich with a slab of blue cheese, slices of avocado, lettuce and cucumber in a very nice light roll. I had an open faced sandwich of tuna salad on a very thin, very dark bread. Pretty soon, a little bird came and perched on the chair across from me. Then more little birds came. I put a tiny crumb on the edge of the table and the bird just sat there waiting for me to let go of it. After our sandwiches, Chuck got us a slice of some cake. While he went in to get the coffee refills, I took a picture of the cake. While I attempted a second picture, one of the birds helped itself to a tiny crumb directly from our cake!! Wow, brave little thing. They were just so used to people. If they'd been bigger, I'd have thought I was in that Alfred Hitchcock movie, but no, they were pretty sweet little things.

Jeudi (Thursday)

Chuck found this nice shop near Village St. Paul. The owner, Sylvie, has terrific rugs that are made in Turkey, jewelry, and gift items. She is very friendly and speaks English. She said: Stop by anytime and chat with me. And we will.

We went to the Maison Européenne de la Photographie and saw several excellent shows. One was a group of artists doing moving images. We really liked the one by Jutta Stromaier. She focused at a window wall in a room and shot it all day long. It was so beautiful and relaxing to look at it. I think you get the idea from these two images.
A fun thing happened. As I was cleaning out the storage closet, I came across a pair of flip-flops that I'd left at the studio last fall. The were under a box, a bit dusty, but otherwise the same. That made me happy, like they'd been waiting for me to return.
I attended the French class today for the first time. I'll go back. It was a lot of fun. 2 hours of conversation, all in French. 16 people from all over the world, all with different language skill levels. The teacher is lively, very animated, and opinionated. Even without a lot of French, one can understand that. The class meets twice a week so I'm sure that my French will improve.