Carol Larson - textile artist

Considering every reasonably sized city in America looks identical with miles of strip malls, big box stores (many vacant) and subdivisions, European architecture still rocks my world. At least there is character and imagination.

The Eiffel Tower of course is stunning from any angle, any time of day. I took probably 50 images in the daylight, at night and at a distance and distilled it down to just a few:

I also shot a number of classic French architectural gems including many side streets, passageways and the view from Montmarte

and Notre Dame..

As we moved further out of Paris the architecture became much more intriguing.

Rommel’s command center along the Seine

the half timbered houses of Vernon…

and the many styles of homes along the river

the charm of Giverny…

and then at the edge of the old city stood the ultra modern artistic skyscrapers …in what seemed a competition as to which one could be more outrageous.

This one had overlaid thin vertical columns which twisted like ribbons

This one was oval

while this Novotel was built with right angles

and this one seemingly built of legos…

The pièce d’résistance goes to this gorgeous building. The embellishments looked like glass shards while the entire structure reflected the clouds above…spectacular!

so much for looking like every other city!

Next: patterns & textures

Honestly I could not imagine a trip to France without their fabulous pastry so I was a tad nervous about my wheat gluten and dairy intolerances. Knowing that butter, cheese and flour are staples of the French diet I loaded my luggage with bags of raw almonds, cans of pop-top tuna, pitted dates, dried apples, and LARABARS. Most of it returned home with me, a little worse for wear.

The first few days in Paris I ate a high protein breakfast from the huge buffet in the hotel and often a salad nicoise for lunch. By dinner time we were too weary to dine so instead went to sleep.

In Montmarte these sandwiches were sold on the street. They looked like grilled cheese which would be double verboten so I only took a photo.

We met Dutch friends for kaffe at our hotel in Paris. After lazing over capucchino my friend asked the waiter if they had any pastry? He said no, they only had chocolate cake. Only chocolate cake? she said and then ordered three as I was abstaining. The cake arrived and it was a work of art…a volcano with vanilla sauce, a lace cookie and a dollop of ice cream…triple WOW!

Once we boarded ship, I met daily with the hot young Portuguese maitre’d to go over my food options for the day. Every day I mentioned it was just too much food as they served 4 and 5 course lunches and dinners. Soon I was skipping breakfast entirely, just eating the salad for lunch and eating dinner. My new friend would not allow me one iota of anything with flour or butter as he clearly did not want it on his conscience should I have a reaction. The chef was very cooperative but when they gave me a piece of gluten free bread that both looked like and tasted like cardboard I knew I needed a croissant and soon!

So when the ship docked I managed to slip into the village and ferret out a patiserrie-boulangerie to snag some pastry to reward myself for eating all that lamb, veal, beef and heavy meat that I avoid at home. It worked just fine until the 3rd try when I got sick. I ate NO cheese however!!! (cue the halo)

Each bakery wraps their treasure like a work of art. There were two apple tartins in this parcel…and yes I did share!

Word on the street was this bakery in Conflans made the best pastry in France. I was there drooling at the window the day before Easter. It was enormously busy and I just decided a photo was far better than humiliating myself with my broken French on this very busy pastry buying day.

Monday at home I popped into Starbucks for some capucchino to offset the jet-lag and saw they were selling pain au chocolat. I decided to not even go there. I am no longer on vacation…and really how can a croissant from Starbucks even compare to that of France?

Even doggies in France love the smell of the boulangerie!

Up next…architecture

We have just returned from a fabulous vacation in France … in celebration of our recent 40th anniversary. We chose France because the flight was shorter than Oz…which remains on the bucket list.

We spent 4 days exploring Paris. We did not see nor do everything everyone said we should, but rather enjoyed our time at our own pace with accommodation to my weak knees. We did the hop on-hop off tour bus for two days and saw a lot.

On the 4th day we boarded the Viking Spirit and cruised a week on the river Seine to Normandy and back. Hubby crossed Omaha Beach off his bucket list as did many others. As for me I found the incredible beach sculpture and the one art gallery!

As an artist on vacation I did go a little nuts with the photography. So much so that I came home with over 1000 images on the camera and iphone combined. Ack!

Since I want to retain what morsel of vacation creativity is left I will not be resizing and uploading 1000 images anywhere! Instead I will post to this blog some of the best according to subject matter. Today it’s reflections.

The reflection from the water of the Seine was awesome. Nearly every shot of homes, bridges, wildlife and nature contains a reflection.

As an artist I have always been drawn to reflection, but not quite sure how to create it. Now I see it is simply a matter of positive-negative, light and dark.

There were a number of homes we shot as we sailed both directions including this one. My hubby might have captured one from the sundeck while I got it from the room coming back a few days later!

A fellow passenger who was also a shooting fool suggested we capture our reflections in the water! Clearly we had too much time on our hands.

We saw so many swans-a-swimming. They seemed to be like the seagulls at home… scavengers of the sea. I love this Rorschach swan.

In Paris we stood in line for well over an hour on a Sunday morn to get into the Georges Pompidou Centre where they house the modern art. The controversial architecture of that building reflects in the windows across the street.

After we got into the museum we learned we had stood in the wrong line for an hour…we were in the line for the library!!! There was no line at the entrance. So much for my minimal French.

And the final reflection for today is the interior of this incredible sculpture in the Pompidou. It was constructed of a film material with all sorts of foil and punched out dots. I wish I knew the artist. I neglected to note it as I was so captivated by the reflection.