C'est la fête!

*

I'm just popping in to wish everyone a happy quatorze juillet... or joyeux Bastille Day, if you prefer:  a nice day off for everybody!

From picnics and an Amorino ice-cream cone...

Pont Neuf

Pont des Arts

Ile Saint Louis

...then to a nice terrasse..

5ème arrondissement, near rue Saint-Jacques

...and finally, dancing under the lanterns at your local Bal des Pompiers

Robert Doisneau, La dernière valse du 14 juillet 

Save the last dance for me!

As for me, I am still here— but between working hard on some projects and getting spirited away for summer activities (many of which involve being under water and getting my hair wet most of the time), I think I will be posting infrequently until autumn arrives.

So Pause Estivale for now... and see you when I get back!

PS. *Top image is a vintage firecracker package, from my personal ephemera archive. 

Sàrmede in summer

I spent part of last summer at the art workshops of Sàrmede (pictured in the fresco above, by Jozef Wilkon). For those unfamiliar with it, Sàrmede is in northern Italy, in the hilly region at the foothills of the Dolomites about 70 KM north of Venice. Not the kind of place you'd expect to find an international illustration exhibit —nor, more to the point, a highly respected school of illustration. One way or the other, this calm green corner of Italy attracts artists and students from the world over.

Workshops are held from April to September, covering a good variety of techniques— everything from acrylics and gouache, to watercolour, egg tempera and all kinds of printmaking.  What they all have in common is a focus on some aspect of children's book illustration: storyboarding/visual narrative to making a composition work (graphically, chromatically and otherwise) to character studies.  All the elements of vocabulary needed for the language of illustration. An embarrassment of riches!

I ended up taking two courses, with Linda Wolfsgruber and with Svjetlan Junakovic —both of whom I have long admired as artists, and now appreciate as teachers.  Each one with their own style (both in art and in teaching) they succeed in getting the best out of us students, whether it was in struggles with the medium or in our search for a personal style. I really got a lot out of my time with them!

Mind you, the other teachers there also come highly recommended— including Chiara Carrer, Eva Montanari, Simona Mulazzani, Octavia Monaco, to name but a few: the crème de la crème of children's illustration! If you don't already know their work, do click!!

Svjetlan's workshop focussed on acrylics.  One of the topics for illustration was "Tales from India", which is the theme of this year's exhibit.

     

In Linda's workshop, the technique focussed upon was printmaking —monoprints, mixed media and collage. The subject was "Rodari and his tales"— using Gianni Rodari's wonderful stories, or his creative approaches (eg, the binomio fantastico) as outlined in La Grammatica della Fantasia (English version here).

In addition to the coursework, we had a few extracurricular treats, including visits from publishers (Andrea Rauch from Principi e Principi, and earlier in the season Topipittori).  We also got to see a mesmerizing documentary film (directed by Karl Bachmann) about Stepan Zavrel, the wonderful Czech illustrator who founded the school /exhibit.  And best of all, we had our end-of-term party at Stepan Zavrel's magical home— unforgettable!!

All in all,  these workshops had an atmosphere just fizzing with energy and enthusiasm and concentration, much more intense than art school. More than one person remarked that it was like being in another dimension...

And of course, you learn a lot from the other students — the people I was with came from as far afield as Tblisi, Sao Paolo, Vienna, Bangkok, Barcelona, Wales, as well as all over Italy (there were up to 7 languages flying around at any given moment!). Ranging from 19 to 70 years old, with all kinds of experiences:  published book illustrators, seasoned print-makers, art students, teachers, graphic designers... the lot!  There was a real esprit de corps — an atmosphere of camaraderie and generous exchange.  For those of us in this solitary profession, it comes as a real source of energy.

I'll be back, Sàrmede!

PS.  If you want to see more photos, look here.

Paris and posters

                   

Here's a page from my sketchbook, revisited with the odds and ends that always find their way into my pockets.

These Colonnes Morris—part of the Parisian landscape since the mid-1800's—are advertising pillars originally built to combat rampant advertising and graffiti. Some of them contain telephones and automatic public toilets.  And sometimes—startlingly— they serve as a broom cupboard for street cleaners.

Here's a Colonne Morris (seen from my local café on Fontaine Saint Michel)—also doubles as as hat!)

But most of all, they are adorned with beautiful posters: only those advertising cultural events (films, concerts, theatre, etc) are permitted. With such a steady stream of work (some of it publically funded) and abundant places to display it in, the flowering of French poster art was the inevitable result.  From Toulouse-Lautrec and Alphonse Mucha, to A.M. Cassandre and Raymond Savignac and Hervé Morvan, not to mention André François, Nathan-Garamond and Jean-Michel Folon —they all contributed to the rich visual feast on the streets here.

Newer practitioners you may want to look at:

• Michel Batory (who had a retrospective at Musée des Arts Decoratifs recently)
• The fabulous Zeloot (and much more here)
• Michel Quarez (and here)

In general:

• French posters: a huge collection organized by era (don't miss the ones after World War II...)
• Chaumont: International Poster Festival 
• And further afield: there's the International Poster Bienale, at the Poster Museum in Wilanow, Poland (which is held in June of even-numbered years).

Road trip, anyone?

One more thing...

To finish off these past few posts on Montreuil, I want to give a special mention to my friend Constanze von Kitzing, who was my guest during the Salon... her first time here, but not her last!

Constanze is a children's book illustrator and author from Germany who has not only published several books with a variety of publishers in Europe, but has also been awarded, both at the Bologna Book Fair (where she was a selected illustrator in 2010) and at the CJ Picture Book festival of South Korea.

Here she is at a signing at Montreuil, for La Joie de Lire, the wonderful Swiss maison d'édition who have published many of her books, including her series on the little lion cub:  Cache-cache, C'est moi le meilleur, and Dormez-vous. (Inside images here, here and here ... do look!)

(She signed my copies too — yay!)

(Even Pomelo had his portrait done! Very happy he is with it, too...)

Her most recent picture book— Pingouin glacé (also published by La Joie de Lire)— came out just last month.  It's all about a little penguin who feels a bit chilly and goes off in search of warmth (in all its varieties) — sympathique and clever!

Thanks for everything,  Constanze.  See you soon — a presto!

Resolutions

(from 1963)
The new year has started a bit slowly for me (on account of injury! hospital!! yipes!!!), and I feel I am just now catching up to the calendar. Is it too late to be thinking of resolutions for the year to come?  Well, if you too are mulling over your resolutions, good intentions and promises to yourself, you could do a lot worse than considering these rules, from Corita Kent:

Corita Kent, better known as Sister Corita, was an artist, an activist and a nun who was active — indeed, ubiquitous— in the 60's and 70's.  She grew up in Los Angeles and entered the Immaculate Heart convent when she was just 18. She continued her studies, learning printmaking and getting a Master's in Art History from USC.  Her vivid serigraphs combined strong colours, text (in handwriting or inventive typography, way ahead of her time), all combined in bold and startling compositions.

(from 1968, quote from Peter Beagle)

Corita was also —perhaps above all— a teacher, teaching art for 30 years at Immaculate Heart College.  She was, in fact, my teacher's teacher (Hi, Mrs. Slike!) and so I've always thought of her as my 'art grandmother'. Corita was often spoken of, and our art room was emblazoned with her prints—beautiful celebratory works in their incandescent colours.  They would have been affordable back then;  now they are included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Los Angeles County Museum of Arts, the Library of Congress, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and countless others all around the world.

All these years later, reading excerpts from Learning by Heart (her book on teaching, published posthumously in 1992), I see that many of her ideas and methods were in turn used by my own teacher way back when. It all sounded so familiar, but always seemed fresh and new.

(from 1968, quote from Theodore Roethke)

She was a woman of contradictions, according to what I've heard and read— someone after my own heart!  Outspoken and candid and charismatic, but nonetheless cloistered, her circle of friends included Charles and Ray Eames,  Saul Bass, Ben Shahn,  Buckminster Fuller, Henry Miller and even Alfred Hitchcock—often they would drop in on her classroom or invite students to field trips.  A person who took vows of poverty and chastity, but famous for both her art and her politics (appearing on the Johnny Carson Show, the cover of Newsweek and in Time Magazine...) 

(from 1965, quote from Ugo Betti)

It would be impossible to do justice to the life and work of Corita in this puny little blog post.  But I urge you to read some of the links which I include below*, if you are interested to know more. And there is a recent book— Come Alive!:  The Spirited Art of Sister Corita, by Julie Ault —a serious and insightful monograph that examines her work in context.   And above all, to look through her collection of serigraphs and other art— it was hard to choose just a few to show!

Lastly:

(from 1970, her book, Damn Everything But the Circus—a silkscreened alphabet larded with quotes and poetry and artwork).  The full quote, from e. e. cummings, reads:

damn everything but the circus

damn everything that is grim, dull, motionless, unrisking, inward turning.

damn everything that won't get in the circle, that won't enjoy, that won't throw its heart into

the tension, surprise, fear and delight of the circus—

the round world, the full existence...

Good thoughts to start the year!!

*LINKS:

Eye Magazine (excellent article by her biographer), Design Observer, AIGA, Dear Ada, Drawn, Daddy Types, Under Consideration, L.A.Times (a book review), and  ArtNet.

and of course:

The Corita Art Center.

Click!  Then get to work....

Begin afresh, afresh, afresh...

Happy 2011!

I don't know about you, but I am so ready for a new start.  So here's to a clean slate, a new page, and fresh beginnings! Tabula rasa and carpe diem, amen.  All the best for the new year!
x
PS.  The title is from a favourite poem, here.
PPS.  I have just been informed that I won Mr. Spoqui's competition... thanks, guys!

Il fait froid, gla gla gla!

I'm back!  

Il fait super froid here in Paris, and there has been so much to see and do lately....  everything from art openings to the Salon du Livre to out-of-town guests—even a funeral in a snow-storm (but that's another story for another time).  

Anyway, I have been running-running-running (and occasionally slipping and falling on the ice), but I will return in the next post and show you some of what I saw.

À bientôt, alors...

Bumping into Serge Bloch

I was on my way back from the swimming pool (26 laps today, yay me!) when I noticed a gallery on rue Dante. Galerie des Arts Graphiques, specializing in illustration, graphic design and bande dessinée, just put a new show up. Serge Bloch, one of my heroes!

"C'était Fatal"

"Un Bon Gars"

If I had 600 euros burning a hole in my pocket, I'd certainly be tempted by this one!

As for the gallery, they've got an interesting fall season lined up including Loustal and Jean Jullien. So I shall certainly be returning — stay tuned!

PS. I was told by the woman running the gallery that La Poste (the French mail service) would be putting out a set of postage stamps designed by Serge Bloch within the next few months. You heard it here first!

On the rue des Écoles

And speaking of Michel de Montaigne...

This statue of him is near where I live, and the inscription below it reads:

"Paris a mon coeur des mon enfance.    

Je ne suis français que par cette grande cité —  

grande surtout et incomparable en varieté,  

la gloire de France et l'un des plus nobles ornaments du monde."*

This quote has always resonated with me — like Paris was saying a welcome to newcomers like myself! I have been living here for 18 years (already!) and it still makes me smile every time, to bump into this man, these words...

*(in English)

P.S. Montaigne, the first blogger

Pets... in unexpected places

I got a lovely surprise in my boîte aux lettres from Hazel.

This "Pet in the Post" is a cheerful little spider... she even came with her own web!

The other pets seem to be taking to her just fine...

...and she seems to be right at home in Paris. Thanks, Hazel!

For those of you who don't know, Hazel is a painter and a teacher from Scotland, and the blogueuse responsible for the wonderful and inspiring blog, The Art Room Plant.
So much treasure and inspiration — go look...right NOW! Run, don't walk.

You're welcome.

Scenes from rural France

I'm back from my little break. It's good to get away from town —yes, even Paris!— every now and again.

New things to look at!  Fresh air!!

.  

Just what the doctor ordered.

New friends...  

More new friends... drawn "on the hoof", as it were.