French la Vie

                             Lil's paintings!

 

 

I'm not sure how I found 'French la Vie' (Tongue in Cheek) so many years ago but I was probably googling something French and returned each day because Corey's posts are like a little visit to France or to Willows or to wherever she's ventured. …Here's a little about me and my first visit to Paris.

 

I am half French. My mother's family names are Dozois and Laurence and I remember that on my first visit to Paris in 1974 I saw their faces everywhere. I'd spent most of that college 'year abroad' in Italy and no one ever mistook me for an Italian, but once I got to France I felt at home. People would even ask me for directions, thinking I was a native. 

 

I'd taken six years of French in school and could understand most of what was said to me, but I couldn't speak French. I needed more practice so in January of that year I moved to Paris and lived in a 'chambre de bonne', a maid's room, on the 6th floor of a beautiful building in the 16th arrondissement. It was very romantic and very cold! There was no heat! To get to my room I climbed a dark back staircase and I spent a lot of time under the covers of my bed trying to stay warm. But I was in Paris! The little windows looked out on the rooftops of a beautiful neighborhood and I bought birdseed for the birds and fed them outside my window and wandered around Paris.

 

 

The above is not me but it is a 'chambre de bonne' like the one I lived in.

 

At the end of the school year I applied for a French painting scholarship. There were 5 scholarships which would have provided a studio and living expenses for a year in Paris. I was the first runner up but sadly none of the winners reneged. So instead of the trajectory that an all expense paid year of painting in Paris would have set me on, I moved to New York where I lived in a loft and painted and waitressed. Life was pretty hard in New York on a waitress' income so one very snowy winter I got on a bus for California and after three and a half days I arrived in San Francisco. I was in heaven. The sky was blue and the lighting was Mediterranean. Sun!

  

 

I moved into a loft and to earn money worked for Beach Blanket Babylon making theatrical hats and for the Opera and eventually worked my way into making props for filmmakers. (I don't have any photos handy of my old work or jobs (digging those out and digitizing them is one of my planned projects). I worked on the early Star Wars movies in San Rafael and eventually became an art director and concept artist for films.  

 

 

My painting took a back seat while I worked year after year on films and now 'fast forward' 25 years and many movie projects later and here I am, happily retired. During that time I married the love of my life and we had a wonderful son who is also the love of my life. He's grown now and living in Seattle.

 

 

                 My baby when he was a year old.

 

 

 

 

2020 has been a tough year for everyone with the virus and politics and here in CA we've had the extra burden of the fires and smoke filled air. The good thing is that my husband and I have discovered new beautiful places in the Bay Area to walk. Lately we look at the local air quality map each day to see where the air is clear and off we go. He and I have been together for 35 years now and, luckily, we still enjoy each other's company!

 

Here's a little bit about where we live…

Our house is high on a hill in Marin and we're the last house before Open Space. If you walk up from our house to the top of Bald Hill, this is the view. That's San Francisco in the distance on the right. This photo was taken in March of this year.

 

Unfortunately it hasn't been that beautiful or clear for over a month because of the fires and smoke. As you've probably seen on the news, on November 9th the skies here were orange in the middle of the day. Very eerie. 

 

 

 

But spring was beautiful. We had swallows in our birdhouse in May and bluebirds in the same birdhouse before that. There's lots of wildlife around here; coyote, fox and deer and hawks and turkey vultures. We saw this bobcat sitting on a fallen tree above our property in April. 

 

 

 

Persimmon and lemons 8" x 10"

 

I still paint but instead of the big expressionist paintings I used to do when I started out, I now do little 8"x10" still lives. I'm conscious of downsizing these days and that has included my artwork.

 

 

Someday I hope to get back to France. I want to walk in the parks and sit and listen and just soak up the language and mannerisms. I'll have a croissant and un cafe and maybe work on my French a bit. I don't need to go to museums and landmarks. I just want to 'be' in France.