Paris Street Style

 

Ah Paris! Les bouquinistes on the banks of the Seine, Notre Dame in the background, the  stylish young shoppers, the café culture....

Photos courtesy of My French Country Home

                    

Danish Tree House

 

I covet this Danish tree house featured in The New York Times T Magazine a few months ago. How do you climb up into it?

Les Distractions de Dagobert by Leonora Carrington

 

Mythical, mystical, frightening, and gorgeous, Les Distractions de Dagobert (1945) is Leonara Carrington at the pinnacle of her abililities. Carringtoon was born in in London in 1917 and moved to Paris to be part of the art scene in the 1930s where she befriended Max Ernst and surrealist artists Salsvador Dali and Remedios Varo among others.  She then moved to Mexico and continued to paint with her fellow artist Remedios Varo. This painting is loosely inspired by the decadent life of Dagobert, a 7th-century Merovingian king (located in modern-day France), who was known for his amorous exploits. The painting includes several simultaneously unfolding scenes that seem to be the imaginings of the monarch. It’s a dizzyingly layered composition

The art Museum of Philadelphia is currently hosting a major exhibition called Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100 which includes Carrington's painting. I was lucky enough to see a similar surrealist show at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in September 2024. I'm still marveling at the fantastical art works I saw there, alongside viewers from around the world.

My two favorite works in Paris were also by women artists - American  Dorothea Tanning and Spanish born Remedios Varo. Both of these surrealists were well represented in the Paris exhibition, though unfortunately the Carrington painting was not included.

Dorothea Tanning. Birthday, 1942

Pappilla Estelar by Remedios Varo, 1958

Lining up for the Surrealist exhibition at the Centre Pompidou 2024

R-Evolution Green Bin Liner

 

My kitchen green bin fitted with a newspaper liner

Dean has been making origami newspaper liners for our kitchen green bin since 2012. We got the idea from the SF Chronicle and never went back. Per my directions, he folds a section of newsprint in such a way that a colorful photograph faces out and entertains me as I cook. The link below contains the full instructions, as outlined in a previous blog post. The liner featured above shows a  photo from an article that reports on an immense art installation in San Francisco's Embarcadero Plaza. We seldom go to San Francisco these days, but we happened to travel to the city on Bart and disembark at Embarcadero station the  very day the statue was unveiled. The massive forty five foot construction that greeted us was an awesome sight and we marveled at it along with a few other sightseers. We didn't learn the whole story until we heard the news a few days later.

The name of the statue is R-Evolution, and you can read all about her in the following link:  R-Evolution. The presence of this towering, breathing creation has caused some controversy, and for me it's a relief to opine about the place of art in public spaces as opposed to focusing on more ominous matters.

How to make origami Greenbin Liners

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2025

 

For more winter bird fun please click this link  Winter Treats for the BIrds

London/Paris Sept. '24

First stop was Chelsea and lunch at the original Ottolenghi Bakery, where his empire all began.

We had just landed in London, but surprisingly we had the energy to accompany my niece Victoria and her daughter Alexis to Chelsea where we stopped at Ottolenghi's original location and picked out some salads and their fabulous brownies. Too bad the salads weren't equally fabulous. Because it looked like rain, we scored a table outside on this busy Saturday and sat down to eat and watch the passersby in this posh district.

Notice my Teva's, the only shoes I could wear after breaking my pinky toe before the trip

We woke up late to a warm, drizzly Sunday. We headed for the Chiswick Farmer's Market by bus, not far from Victoria's house in Chiswick, London. Luckily she and her family keep lots of umbrellas on hand. This is England, after all!

Weekly Sunday Market

The annual  Chiswick dog show was going on in the park so we stopped and watched the judges award the best costume to this smart fellow. The costumes were based on the show So You Think You Can Dance with Mel Giedroyc introducing all the Doggy contestants. I recognized her voice from her role in The Great British Baking Show. She's a faithful supporter of this event

People and dog watching at the show was a blast

Chiswick house and Gardens (pronounced Chizick)

Here's Victoria leaving the Sunday market with chard for our dinner. Baggy jeans are fashionable in London now. That style hasn't caught on in the US yet, or maybe never. After the market and dog events we wandered around the lovely neighborhood and I had a SIM card installed in my phone so we could access the internet while on the go. We didn't realize how important that would be! At our ages we needed all the help we could get. Fortunately Londoners couldn't have been more helpful when our Google maps failed, which was often.

           Monday morning we felt well rested and ready for some serious Museum-going

First, the Tate Modern which was  featuring a major exhibition on the Expressionist painters centered around Wassily Kandinsky in Munich and Bavaria in the early 20th century just before the First World War. There were  paintings by Kandinsky and his partner Gabriele Münter, as well as Paul Klee, Franz Marc and many others. We loved it and felt so lucky to visit during those dates. Also worth mentioning: most museums in London are free.

After finding the museum with some difficulty, our first stop was lunch at the café looking out at St Pauls across the river. All the museum cafés in London were surprisingly good, serving fresh, healthy options as you can see above.

From our table we could see St Paul's Cathedral across the Thames. It survived the bombings of London during WWII and became a symbol of resilience for the British during those dark years

        

                                     On to some favorite paintings from the exhibition

Tiger in the Jungle by Franz Marc

Lady in Moscow by Wassily Kandinsky

I didn't take note of the artist, but I love the painting

Milliner's Shop by August Macke

Kandinsky's painting of his dining room.  The thick application of paint was striking

Kandinsky sitting at the Kitchen Table by Gabriele Mûnter

                                       Back to reality and home to our Turnham Green Tube Stop.

The next day was clear and cool so we took the bus past Shepard's Bush to Portobello Road and Notting Hill, about a half hour's ride on the upper deck, of course.

We wandered around Notting Hill for a while and then stopped for lunch at a typical english pub which turned out to have an excellent chef.

Lunch at The Duke of Wellington on Portobello Road 

Somerset House, home to the Courtauld Gallery

The Cortauld Gallery with its excellent collection of impressionist paintings was on my list of museums

to visit. Somerset House is imposing and stony but the galleries within are modern and welcoming. For an informative and humorous overview of the museum, google the actor Bill Nighey's video on the Courtauld, one of his favorite museums in London where he lives. I wasn't able to import the video here but it's easy to find on Google.

      Three of my favorites by Paul Cézanne viewed in the Courtauld Impressionist Wing

Man with a Pipe by Cézanne

Pot of Flowers and Fruit

Lac d'Annecy

Exiting the massive building was so complicated that again we had to ask directions to the nearest tube stop from a guard outside. As a lifelong Londoner he couldn't have been more friendly and helpful. We had actually exited from the wrong side of Somerset House, so he accompanied us to the back of the building and sent us on our way to a stop on the Victoria Line.

We were so bushed from tromping around all day that we made a joint decision to skip our evening at The Old Vic where we had tickets for Tom Stoppard's play The Real Thing. Instead, we had a relaxing evening at home with my relatives and never regretted our decision.

To be continued...

Passover '24 on the Nob

 

Ricki's table setting

Ricki's cake made with meringue and chocolate layers with mocha-whipped cream filling