Pale green is the color of the leaves on the olive trees.
Burnt faded orange. Limestone. Shorn wool colored facades. Defining colors in the Provencal landscape has captured my attention.
Colors rich, then soften with time, a dry climate and that ever inviting light that bounces off of everything like a graceful ballerina, who makes it look effortless. I am not a painter, though after spending much time with two of the artists that I bought paintings from for our home in Cassis, I am seeing the landscape differently.
The foothills of Provence. Garlaban in the distance.
Marcel Pagnol wrote stories of his childhood memories of these foothills.
Stories that echo the same sentiments, weave the same scenarios of family, life in a small town, living in Provence. Where Pastis, boules, and the blue sky pave a road ahead.
Those colors from the 1800s are still the same.
The colors of the landscape:
Melon, almonds, grapevines, pine trees, goats, rocky and clay soil…
Texture. All those emotions have a color, tell a tale, sway within the shadows, sorrow, song.
Blends into a story.
The almighty paint brush reaching for the sky. Dipping in gold and blue, diving deep to the bottom inspiration in the dirt, then painting colors through the seasons: First hints of green.
Renewed old facades, I love how things are left as is, given history a chance to show its face. I love how France has the "look" without trying. I love how the look has lived, weathered, become, and is. I love the roots it lets me feel, settled and with out pretense.
What colors will last, will speak?
What color am I today?
- When painting on the canvas of life expect the unexpected. Make room for it. Embrace the drops that seem to unsettle the plan. Take your paint brush; Blend and trust it will look good somewhere, somehow.
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