I’m taking this one down to the Collingwood Gallery Winter Show tomorrow. Hopefully it won’t get rained on being a watercolour and all.
It’s called ‘why don’t you get a new one? II’ And it is 56 x 76 cm, my favourite size. The first in the series was the Sigg bottle. It has gone to Sorrento to the Continental Hotel Winter show.
Last year on September 8, all i could think of was,
“We are soooo #$@*ed!!”
And in response all I wanted was to wander the streets of Northcote in a daze wearing a t-shirt that said,
“I am an educated, smart, funny, witty women who says FUCK alot.”
Then I left the country. Now I am back. And now we have a budget.
And so it is the time to put my feeling into print, with a nice sharp scalpel knife and a couple of lino tools.
But making a print that just said FUCK was just a bit harsh.
So i have started carving and what I really like is that if you don’t look too carefully, it almost reads as “JEFFed”.
Into week four in Provence and feeling a bit local though each sentence I utter has a least one Spanish word and two German words, often with a few rolled r’s added for good measure.
We arrived to an early Provincial spring with the wisteria out but few leaves yet on the trees and vines. The plane trees were brutally pruned down to lumpy stumps and looked pretty terrible. Over the three weeks, the landscape has transformed to vista of greens; light green, mid green, yellow green, blue greens… my palette does not stretch that far. I have dreamt of the early morning light that so beguiled the impressionists, but have not managed to get up to experience one crisp morning. Some days we don’t leave the apartment till after 2 pm and four warm baguettes, two coffees and a couple of pot set yoghurts.
Apart from sightseeing, we have been stocking up on all things fatty and porky at the twice weekly market and bought some stinky cheese that makes Appenzeller (my parent’s local stinky cheese) smell like ricotta. Everytime I opened the fridge, I gagged. But it tasted great. I have been trying some ‘new’ french recipes, Boeuf Bourguignon, and aparagus and leek tart. I also did a Carnard Magret, which was fabulous with the pear wine sauce. It was only after the scrumptious meal that I learnt that these are the ducks force fed for the foie gras. Hmmm, my greens credentials are waning with every sentence.
I have been trying to see some contemporary art here to shake me from my – dare I say it – insipid watercolours but my attempts to find some have been thwarted as most smaller places were still closed till this week. Hopefully I can drag myself away from still lifes when I get back. I think a few days of staring at Northcote grafitti will drag me out of my provincial dream state.
In the meantime, some more watercolours for my fans.
Been keeping busy with some still life paintings. I did try to be more abstract but keep on reverting to what comes naturally. I do enjoy it, taking a couple of hours, a couple of coffees and a couple of sacristains to paint a pic, with Lala for company and some Josh Pyke mixed with Vanessa Paradis.
I had a young visitor yesterday so we set up a scene for painting, a al Cezanne. Although I am a slow worker, we did manage to finish, before the fruit went off….
I am in a minimal mode, possibly as a response to Spring’s glorious overloading of colour and scent.
Spent an hour at the hairdresser reading crap mags and learnt one new word., Snelfie, a selfie taken in the snow. Mrs Head, my French teacher would not be so pleased with my progress.
Today it is raining, somewhat surprisingly, as it has barely rained in 7 weeks.
Still the rain is good as the streets are flowing with black water for it hasn’t rained in a while, Hopefully the black water will take some of the multicoloured dog poo with it (the things you notice when you have been painting all day).
We are having a home day today as we had planned another bike ride to some lovely town, with a lovely view, on a lovely hill…. but Mick got lost jogging yesterday and was barely walking when he returned. We have put our home day to good use, having finally booked tickets to Geneva to get us home.
You would think that getting from Lyon to Geneva should be a cinch, but it has been a comedy of errors. First we were informed that there are track works, so no trains from 7am till 2pm. So we tried the bus, of which there is one. This we could not book as they would not accept ours or in fact anybody’s that we asked’s credit cards and, although you can buy the tickets at some travel agencies, none around here sell them and the bus line doesn’t reply to emails asking where I could get them. So I looked into hiring a couple of cars. We are too big big for just one car. Two quotes, one 30 euro per car and one 300 euro per car, which made me a bit doubtful about the 30 euro price, so we went back to the trains and now have booked tix for 6.30 am, which gives us pretty much a full day to kill in Geneva. I am tired just thinking about it.
This afternoon, I will dedicate to painting, but before I do I will extract some info from emails I have been sending to random peopleto fill in those of you who missed the small dramas of the last few weeks……
France……
In mid March we travelled by train to Winterthur in Switzerland from St Martin de Belleville, travelling via Moutiers, Chambery, Geneve, and Zurich. We anticipated arriving sometime mid-to late May…. but in reality it only took about 11 hours.
We left Frenchy behind with her exchange sister, M and her family, the K’s. As usual she was calm and mature about being away from us. There was only a minor crack in her ‘whatever!’ teenage facade: Twice in one conversation she said “But they will only speak French!!”
We have just had a wonderful week with the K’s, generous hosts and we left exclaiming that we now have new friends. One doesn’t often make brand new friends in the space of a week, at our post-anything goes age. M did tell us when she was in Melbourne that I was like her Mum; dont wear enough make-up, don’t drink much (?), like galleries, don’t go to church, makes her eat her veges (sounds like all of the Northcote mums I know). But we didn’t realise how much until S and I both got a cramp between the same two ribs when doing a forward bend in Yoga. Freaky!
Not only were we treated like very special guests, with nightly Savoie traditional dishes served up by S, but we were the first guests in their newly built chalet. Last time we spoke with S she said she hoped the stairs would arrive before we did.
We also had a great week skiing. The girls improved out of sight (particularly Lala who came from behind to nearly match Frenchy in speed). The man and I gave up trying to keep up, but travelled together nicely. It was very “looking forward to retirement’ to spend so much time together ‘exercising’ at the old peoples’ pace. M had just had a week of competitive skiing and a heavy cold but still wizzed down at about four times our speed. The Man and I fell over a few times but no broken ribs this year (not clear on that point, there were grumblings for weeks afterwards). Frenchy said the highlight of the week was watching me fall over (this one I did put on facebbok – if you cant beat ’em, join ’em – be my guest).
If you wish to see the village you can google St Martin de Belleville. We were actually in a tiny village 1km away called Villarabout, but I think it is more of a locality, as it has town square and Chapel but no shops. There was a regular if somewhat random bus shuttle which we took to the slopes, that usually got us to where we wanted to go, though sometimes we ended up where we started before getting home. Not quite Swiss but lots of fun.
AND THEN TO SWITZERLAND….
We have just had two fantastic weeks in the home country – La perfect Suisse – We are now passing on the TGV from the Savoy area of Switzerland back through the Savoy area of France to Provence. Things have become immediately more dilapidated and rustic looking. Not a bad thing. Whist there is decidedly more grafitti in Switzerland than 20 years ago, it is still is terribly neat. I felt immediately more relaxed once we were over the border and let Laila put her feet up on the seat, without shoes of course. This was good for the seat but possibly bad for the woman next to her, given we were down to our last undies, and socks were at a premium.
For those of you unfamiliar with Switzerland, it is about a quarter the size of Victoria. But what it lacks in width, it gains in height and beauty. Within its tiny borders are four languages. My personal favourite is Romansch, though I only speak one word of it, G’day, “Buen Dgi” which you pronounce like you have chewing gum stuck to the roof of your mouth. Romansch descends from Roman times and is largely unadulterated by Italian, French or German, but sadly it is only spoken by a few thousand people now. Apart from linguistic differences, there are hundreds of regional culinary specialities in Switzerland- all of which we tried – and a public transport system that makes my green heart ache. http://discuss.amtraktrains.com/index.php?/topic/58604-rail-advocacy-international-major-win-in-switzerland-referendum/
This trip we bought a 15 day swiss rail pass, which go us on trains, trams, buses, ferries, and cable cars/funiculi. You’ve gotta love it when gondolas are part of the system.
Rather than merely waxing lyrical in general terms about the swiss public transport, let me put my appreciation of this efficiency into context. This year my ‘cousin’ Helen (she is my Dad’s cousin) and her partner Gallus, took part in their 20th Engadine cross country skiing marathon,which has 13,000 participants. The race course goes from one small town to another, and over the course of the morning all the participants deposit their bags and then are transported in buses (this year in very heavy snow) with their skis to the beginning of the race. At the end of the race their packs are all there waiting for them in a coherent order. No problem, according to Helen. Thats 13,000 back packs – and the rest- neatly and safely stored and returned to their tired and cold owners.
It’s a far cry from me getting up at the crack of dawn on the day of the Melbourne Marathon to drive the Man to the G, as there is no public transport at that time on a Sunday morning. And then him having to decide which old jumper to take and ditch beside a tree, as he can’t make heads or tails of where to store it whilst he runs. I did ask Corina, Helen’s daughter, where they find enough busses for 13,000 people and was told that every unused Postie (swiss post buses that run to every village in the country) is commandeered for the day.
With people able to to do that, I still have some hope that the world will be able to pull itself out of this appalling mess.
Whilst geographically we only traversed the swiss railways from Bendigo to Traralgon, over the two weeks in terms of the political spectrum we travelled from Brunswick St, Fitzroy to Moe. Each conversation we had was a potential mine field. Never have I feigned not understanding Swiss German so much as when I was in ‘Moe’.
We began by spending a couple of days with my friend Barbara in Winterthur, a fairly unremarkable city but most likely a great place to live. Here we saw evidence of the newly returned beavers, called in German, to Laila’s delight, Biebers. One can imagine that Bieber fringe getting in the way when taking down a large tree. The beavers were reintroduced after the concrete channels were removed from the river a few years back, and we passed a few felled trees on our walk. Whilst our friends were happy to see the return of the beavers, others are not so happy as the tidy swiss rivers now have fallen trees in them and untidy – others might say, natural – edges.
The topic of conversation on everyone’s chocolate stained lips over the two weeks was the recent referendum to limit immigration to Switzerland, a referendum which passed with a very narrow majority. This topic was introduced to us by V and A, friends of Barbara’s who visited us in Melbourne a few years back and inspired us to do the motorhome tour of the red centre. The sight of the motorhome parked in Northcote was equivalent to Santa’s sleigh being parked outside.
A has recently become a swiss citizen (he is from Germany, just over the border) and V is second or third generation Swiss, her mother (or grandmother) coming from the Malacan Islands of Indonesia after the Second World War. A went through a somewhat offensive process to get citizenship (Australia is not the only country which make the lives of immigrants hard) involving officials snooping in their yard and very personal questions.
V produced a board game for us to ‘play’ that lists questions that applicants have been asked in the interview process, none of which any of us could answer. The Man thinks he only passed the citizenship interview because the woman at the consulate in Sydney spoke as little French as he did. The questions were roughly equivalent of “Who was Australian of the year in 1962?”, “What is Bendigo’s third largest industry’ and ‘Who invented the Hill’s Hoist’, definitely on the public record, but not something 99.99% of Australians would know – or care about.
Anyway, the referendum’s results seemed to be generally met with scorn and bemusement by most people we spoke with, particularly at how this law was going to be implemented (they have three years to work it out). Some friends were almost despairing, as the industries and regions they work in rely heavily on immigrant labour. As our friend Peter, who lives Davos, pointed out, the region’s history is one of immigration, though perhaps over a longer period than most care to think about. Much of the snow sport infrastructure was first established by the English and Dutch, and the famous Swiss sanatoriums were also started by immigrants. Even the famed local railway was built by an immigrant, not just the labour, but the actual funding and idea (it only took two years from inception to finish – go figure – even now it would not even be designed in two years).
Not all family members were against the referendum’s result and my lack of Swiss German came into itself after a long lunch of wine and schnapps when it was agreed by many at the table, that if Switzerland had an ocean they should also turn back the boats, or sink them, and ‘up you to the bloody greenies’. My German is not that good to enter into this kind of debate. They seem to forget that their brother and sister are also emigrants, and that The Man is a naturalised foreigner as well.
There seemed to also be this impression by the over 70’s set that we in Australia are overrun by Chinese. I have no idea where they get this idea. Even my most liberal thinking family members seemed to have this idea, scoffing at the Chinese tourists and wondering how we cope with being ‘overrun’. On our last morning in Montreux in the youth hostel I had a nice chat to a couple of young Chinese exchange students who were travelling around Europe in between their English studies. They marvelled at the beauty of Switzerland and I thought, ‘What better advertisement for working towards a clean and green world than Switzerland. If more young Chinese (and Australian politicians) came, then hopefully there might be a continuing ground swell to Green-up. Maybe I am I being naive. I certainly was inspired by Swiss environmental movement twenty years ago. Just ask Mum.
Aside from talking politics, we also got out and about and did things. We had a hilarious game of Bocce at the local Italian club where the most important rule is to get your drinks in first, as you pay by the minute for the game. No time to waste going to the bar. Turns out whilst I can’t catch a ball to save myself, I am a dab hand at the Bocce. Look out Thornbury Bowls, here I come.
After Winterthur, we spend a relaxing few days with Mum’s sister and The Man nursed his bruised (and broken?) ribs by going down some MEGA slides at the waterpark, about 20 times.
Then from Zurich we made our way to my beloved Graubuenden. Anyone who knew me pre-The Man (or in the last 6 years) would know of my enduring love for the Grissons (the grey area of switzerland), home to some more well known places – St Moritz and Davos – and also to many a tiny village full of sgraffiti-ed (a technique of ornamentation in which a surface layer of paint,plaster, slip, etc., is incised to reveal a ground of contrasting color. Thanks wikipedia) buildings and a cow or two. We went to the far reaches of the Engadine to the home place of one of Switzerland’s most beloved book characters, ‘Schellen Ursli’. Lala and I took a ride down the mountain on some excellent wooden sleds, one of which made its way down alone (a long and painful story).
We also took a bus and a walk to an old caste,which was closed due to the danger of snow falling off the roof (see pic above). That must have been the last of the snow, as the mountains were mostly brown after a week of unseasonable high teens weather (see pic again). After stocking up on my favourite shower gel (go figure), we made our way to Davos to visit ‘the other Lala’, and her family.
The other Lala is the daughter of my second cousin Corina and her husband Peter. We had a great two days, tobogganing on the first whilst the swiss girls took part in the end of season downhill races, and then a trip to watch the Davos ice-hockey team play Kloten (Zurich). Peter was the CEO of the team for about 10 years so he had a keen interest in the outcome. Sadly they lost. However, as we left it started to snow, and by the morning the whole town was white again and the girls spent the morning throwing snow and having a ball.
Then we headed off to plunge in the local pool, which is in the conference centre where the WEF takes place (I do get around). Actually it was more than a plunge. It was a few plunges as we jumped in and out to have, very brief, snow fights. There are a few photos of this. Photos of me in bathers, I would normally not show to anyone, but given that my thighs are largely obscured by falling snow, and given it is not everyday you run around in your speedos in the snow, I may show you a few upon our return.
After Davos we headed to the Rheintal, where Mum and Dad grew up. Again we had a nice time with the relatives. Some of the ‘angst’ I feel about seeing them is a hangover from my time when I was 20 and I stayed with my Oma, who sometimes had a very small-village mindset. Lipstick was definitely out, as were my home made flairs (though I am now with her on that one). We had lots of chats about the past and one uncle produced an old photo of Dad (that is him on the left – see below)
It is not so strange that my mother got stuck in her thinking in 1964 and could not conceive, in 1995, that Oma would let The Man and I stay in her house unmarried. Now I am stuck in 1991 and fully expected my aunt and (now married and mother of two) cousin to have a fight over what frock to wear to mass, when I suspect that neither have been to church since Oma died. Whilst I was fully aware that emigrants often get stuck in the time they left, I didn’t realise it could happen to me.
Whilst in Switzerland we also have many ‘conversations’ about the criminals and how it has gotten worse over the last few years. Strangely I recall this exact conversation in 1991. Whilst we were in the Rheintal there was an article in the paper saying that the crime rate is dropping but had been at an all time high, so I suppose they do have some reason for complaint. I pointed out that I now have a fantastic swiss Tissot watch that I got as a replacement when my other cheap Japanese one was stolen after we were broken into a few years ago. Not all of the family cared to join me in seeing the silver lining.
After our whirlwind trip of the German speaking areas, we crossed into French Switzerland, over the roesti pit as it is known, to visit another castle. This is about as touristy as it gets. Chillon castle the No.1 tourist site in Switzerland. A text book medieval castle on Lake Geneva.
That is the most I have written in a while. It has been a week since I started this email. Lala went back to bed after making her first excursion alone to the bakery to get baguettes for breakfast. I think she was so excited about going she barely slept, or maybe the stress of me driving on the wrong side of the road took it out of her. The Man and I are having a competition to see who gets tooted the least. I was winning until today when he made it to Aix and back, without any toots.
This week we begin our four weeks in Provence and the pressure mounts for the time to be well spent.
Yesterday we journeyed by bike to Fontaine de Vaucluse where there is still a paper mill, producing paper in the old mill from the late Middle Ages. Whilst this would be the last thing that might be of interest to many, I was enthralled and watched the cotton being pounded to a paste. I then bought some of the hand made paper to try my watercolours out on.
When I got back to the house, I did some practice works, looking out the window at he olive tree growing in the neighbour’s yard. Unhappy with my three studies, I gave up and proceeded to hit the Cinzano Rosso with blood orange juice, just the thing for the jaded artist.
This afternoon we ventured a bit further afield to the hospital at San Remy where Van Gogh took himself to when he was unwell, and which houses the famous room that he painted. Feeling once again inspired, I took up my paints again, but with proper water-colour paper, not the ecofriendly bamboo paper I had bought before I left and voila! a painting to my liking. Paper that absorbs the colour without pushing all the pigment off to the side. I shall now stock up on more decent paper and once I get the feel for this bleak early Spring light I will open up my hand made paper and amaze myself.
Just sometimes nature does a a better job at art than me!. Last night the brown and muddy lower fields of the Alps around Davos were transformed as we slept.
Whilst 4 days ago we were back to t-shirts, today we will have to put on what warm weather clothes we did not leave in St Martin and brave the elements for a much needed snowball fight. Strangely everyone else is sleeping still. How can one sleep in such silence?
It would be nice to be stuck here for a few days, but with the wonders of swiss engineering that is sadly not likely.
Today’s vista
Three days ago
Monique Keel - Artist 