Les glycines ~ tumbling down crumbling walls…I am back in France this spring in time to experience the wisteria en fleuri. Here it is climbing up my friends Madeleine and Daniel’s house. The morning light of April blanches the violet to white like the thick spears of aspérges in the marchés this time of year. I am here for six weeks to exhibit a collection of paintings created in and about le Gard, a dream I have had to share my work in its pays d’origine. Each year on the 1st of May, Sauve celebrates springtime with les Ateliers Ouvertes. The whole artistic community opens its doors to springtime exhibiting creativity in every artistic form. All the visual arts and crafts from painting and sculpture to jewelry, pottery, iron work, hand-made lamp shades and exquisite clothing and hats. Live music and Les Giants du Sud, a colorful troupe of enormous puppets, perform in the streets throughout the day and night. In the Place des Vabres next to the Vidroule river, a marché de brocante comes to the village. Vendors display bric-a-brac and antiques, and collectibles side by side under the shade of old plane trees. I will be hanging my paintings in la Maison du Conte, a gracious home-built between the eleventh and the seventeenth centuries in a magical vaulted foyer. Here I am below playing dress-up in a vintage clothing store in Seattle last spring. I loved the dress…it made me feel like a fairy princess…wish I had bought it!
