cantique des verres

"sur nous tombe et s'endort un Dieu couleur de miel..."

it is almost that time again...of winter lightness, solstitial solace, celebratory clinks...
sometimes we come upon each other in the most unexpected ways, sometimes we part in silent revelry, sometimes we sing to ourselves in off-key delirium, and sometimes we revolve towards each other once more...

"Chacun immole son silence à l'unisson.
- Que portez-vous si haut, égales radieuses?
- Au désir sans défaut nos grâces studieuses!
Nous chantons à la fois que nous portons les cieux!
O seule et sage voix qui chantes pour les yeux!
Vois quels hymnes candides!
Quelle sonorité nos éléments limpides tirent de la clarté!
Si froides et dorées nous fûmes de nos lits
par le ciseau tirées, pour devenir ces lys!
De nos lits de cristal nous fûmes éveillées,
des griffes de métal nous ont appareillées.
Pour affronter la lune, la lune et le soleil,
on nous polit chacune comme l'ongle de l'orteil!

Il dort content, le Jour, que chaque jour offrons
sur la table d'amour étale sur nos fronts."

[lines excerpted from "Cantique des Colonnes" by Paul VALERY, 1871-1945]

by the real sea...

"thoughts that found a maze of mermaid hair
tangling in the tide's green fall...

a lone beachcomber squats among the wrack
of kaleidoscopic shells
probing fractured Venus with a stick...

though the mind like an oyster labors on and on,
a grain of sand is all we have."

[lines are from Sylvia Plath's "Two Lovers and a Beachcomber By the Real Sea"

les aquarelles de morbihan

a few pages from my watercolour pad, all painted en pleine air, sometimes en pleine vent!
...to revisit the loveliest month of May on the cliffs and beaches of my secluded and seductive stretch of the Morbihan coast...

sentir la marine...

a sea-mossy green heart cradled in a shallow tidal pool...

marine still-life basking in sun-warmed thalassotherapy...

invisible pelagic life-forms in a secret rock triangle...

a tidal guided seaweed-swirl around an unbudging stone...

strands of algae hair mimic the cracks in the rock...

black-winged birds and a spotted skull mark the rockface in mystic symbols...

abstracting into a study of blackened nubbly relief on gilded pile...

spreading ebonized filigree set with gemstone shells...

to a briny view of a sirenic "origin of the world"...

stone-aged

the ancient stones of Brittany exude a sense of immutability even as they have been used for various functional purposes...they evoke the forever placement, the quotidian usage, the deeply solid rootedness to this enchanted land...

the ever-flowing fount into a large shaded bassin where the healing waters kept cool by stones formed on holy ground can only soothe fervent minds...

a miniature stone temple dome to protect a well...

the village stone oven now long-cooled and draped with wild ivy...reminds one of the jungle-swaddled ruins of lost civilizations...

and these flower garlanded stone steps must rise up to "...des archipels sidéraux! et des îles dont les cieux délirants sont ouverts au vogueur: est-ce en ces nuits sans fond que tu dors et t'exiles, million d'oiseaux d'or, ô future vigueur..."*

[quoted french verse from Arthur Rimbaud's "Le bateau ivre", 1869, written when he was fifteen!]

signs of the times

"ghost signs" such as this old advertising sign for DUBONNET are not as easy to find anymore as buildings get repainted and renovated or demolished altogether...and even if they have been left on the walls, the elements will soon enough wear them away, fading them into oblivion...

an intriguing name on the side of a building in Vannes...

another "ghost sign" for an old scuba-diving gear company is now barely legible, but beautifully abstracting paint patches remain...

the name plate carved in stone for a house I covet facing the côte sauvage, somewhat protected under an overhang from the wild ocean sprays... [le courlis is a curlew, a wading bird with a long slender curved bill]

and in the dungeon-y depths of La Citadelle we find on a darkened wall these ancient depictions of two pose-y female saints - Sainte Anne being the patron saint of Brittany...

"to be a window..."*

"Doctrine and life, colours and light, in one
When they combine and mingle, bring
A strong regard and awe..."*

the vitrail above filters in holy light in the beautiful little stone church of "La Vraie-Croix", named for a tiny piece of the real Cross stolen by a magpie from a pilgrim and whose nest was on the tree where this church was eventually built upon...

windows... the eyes of houses to look out upon the world, and sometimes, to let us see the secret life within...
but other times remain firmly closed as in the above weather-worn wood shutter of an old stone "shed" in a farmer's field aging gracefully along with the primitive face carved in stone...

"He is a brittle crazy glass;
Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford
This glorious and transcendent place,
To be a window, through thy grace."*

a narrow wood-slatted window on the side of the most unusually elevated façade of the church of Sainte-Avoye...

in a courtyard in Nantes, we find these wood framed windows guarded by baby lion's heads[??]...

on a large guardhouse across from the most enchanting and undisturbed chappelle [I am not allowed to reveal the name in order to protect its location!] are these two medieval window styles - the above round one with a delicate cruciform grille and the square opening below covered with its cruder and sturdier keep-out iron grate...

and on another ancient barn, this upper-level window/door has its hinged-side opening stopped up with all manner of rags and debris...an indication of what is stuffed and stored inside, or more likely a desperate attempt to keep out pests, wind and even the slightest sliver of light...!

[*verses are from "The Windows" by George Herbert [1593-1633], appropriately written when most of these windows were first opened to let in the light...]

passion de la voile

sailing vessels are omnipresent on the waters of Brittany... they glide into view wherever and whenever one gazes out to sea... they stir the passion for steady winds and moderate waves and the freedom of boundless directions, wide open skies, and adventurous childhood dreams...

a partial glimpse of a colourful sail past towards the annual week-long sailboat festival in May around the Gulf of Morbihan, which is swamped with landlubbers and sailors alike and which we valiantly tried to view more of...

at dockside in La Trinité sur Mer, the contrast of a classic ketch with the latest in high-tech design at rest before racing off halfway around the world...

eager children rigging their boats for some lessons on the water before also racing off around the world!

from an island in the Golf we watch a sailboat glide past a row of beach cabanes...as we sit in the afternoon sun waiting for our bateau to come in...

the distinctive orangey-brown sails of a traditional sinagot waiting for the wind to pick up to move it through the islands of the Golf...

the windy waters around La Citadelle de Port-Louis usher sailboats of all sizes by the entrance to Lorient's harbour... this 16th century fortification was originally constructed by the Spaniards under Philippe II, then partially demolished at the end of the Spanish occupation and rebuilt again under Louis XIII... it now houses both the Musée national de la Marine and the Musée de la Compagnie des Indes [East India Company's museum], the only museum in France to depict the history of the great trading companies of the 17th and 18th centuries...

at anchor across from the massive German-built submarine bunker-base in Lorient, now disused, but still much too colossal to demolish...
nearby is the architecturally stylish Cité de la Voile dedicated to the legendary breton sailor Eric Tabarly and to the technology and adventure of sailing... "un lieu unique en Europe pour comprendre et partager le plaisir de naviguer"

architectural anomalies

as we wander around unassuming towns, seaside villages and bucolic countryside it is not difficult to spot the odd architectural specimen sticking out from among more conventional structures...

this lighthouse had been converted into a single hotel room with a 360 degree view, and le petit déjeuner is hoisted up on a seaworthy rope!.. [it is apparently the only lighthouse B & B in France]

near where we were staying is this solitary minimal castellated villa overlooking the sea, a little forlorn and stoic even on brilliant days softened by effusive expanses of wildflowers...

and of course, tumbling down old stone barns are always a poignant sight to behold... this one with a graceful roof curvature balanced so precariously that a strong gust of wind could reduce it to a mound of rubble as we stand and watch...

an evocative touch of chinoiserie to jazz up any street, even in the ancient celtic depths of southern Brittany... a little like me, an exotic anomaly amongst the hardy sailors, rough-and-ready pirates and salty-tongued fishermen...

and hidden above our favourite beach is a shuttered-up comanderie turned holiday-house that has its own gunnery bunker looking out to sea... a somewhat sinister feature to stumble upon on the most tranquil of beaches!

troc et puces

every weekend we plan road-trips to a wide circuit of vide-greniers, brocantes, troc et puces in search of the deal of the century!
from crowded school gyms and playgrounds to muddy fields and forest settings to portside fishmarkets and wharves to city squares and sidestreets, the piles of stuff is never-ending and drive me to crazed impatience, but it is also an excuse to explore the many small villages and towns we would otherwise miss...

on may day sweet children sell fragrant bunches of muguets [lily-of-the-valley] at the entrance to an enormous brocante in a forest grove off a country road...

hundreds of bargain-weary brocanteurs and multi-generational families congregate in organized campground chaos and spill out their dog-eared offerings to the thousands who will venture forth in rain or shine to pick through the millions of bits and pieces discarded from other people's lives...

I don't find much for myself anymore but still keep an eye out for things requested by friends and clients...
although always hoping to discover the unexpected...

this cool old engraving of a grouping of the Reines de France for 10 euros was very tempting...and the cool old gentleman selling it told us that it had been sitting [and deteriorating!] in his attic for decades...
now we regret not lugging it home!

as always, back to portside on the côte sauvage yielding up some elegant rejectamenta at low tide...
sometimes the visual cacophony of all these flea markets and attic sales can quieten down to the odd moment of a sublime grace note imagery...
[of which I don't need to purchase!]

de porte en porte

I know doors are a clichéd architectural feature to photograph, but every once in a while, I can't help myself!
and behind every closed door lies a mysterious interior and the secret ebb and flow of lives unseen...


through a locked and rusty iron gate and shaded by an unkempt garden, we imagine shifting shadows behind dusty window panes...but the white door appears unopened for a long time...

I peek through the crack and spy dirt floor and abandoned detritus scattered about under decades-thick dust...

another lost in time church we could not enter, especially this side door being slowly sealed up by creeping ivy...but through the crack, the light can still get in...

the odd placement of a small planter on the threshold must trip some hobbits up!...but the shaping of the large stone frame is most voluptuous...

and back on the côte sauvage, narrow doors buffer against the strong winds and other wild tempestuous beings!
the delicacy of the brick work against the salt-encrusted stone walls betrays perhaps a more refined soul within, forever peering out through the small round window above towards the crashing green waves...

exuberant blooms

the long-blooming hortensia [hydrangea] is the floral symbol of Brittany, and this is the first of the season with the softest of pink flush...I regret not being there when they are profusely in bloom in every hue everywhere...

along the highway to the Morbihan, golden walls of prickly gorse stretch on in a blaze of spring fever happiness...and their coconut scent mixes with the salty sea air to engulf us in an anticipatory holiday high...

in an old churchyard ancient stones gather around a late spring bouquet of tulips and pansies, as we tiptoe over the finely raked gravel towards the silent church...

heavy clusters of violet glycine [wisteria] defy gravity as they hang pendulous on stone houses and send out perfumed whiffs to already light-headed passersby...

and in one of the many hamlets we come across delicately tiny wildflowers flourish freely with a small red rose bush left to fend for itself in benign neglect against a weathered stone wall...

on an island in the Gulf of Morbihan we stumble upon this lone starburst-blossom stalk [I haven't identified it yet...anyone knows what it is??] in a shady glade under the gnarled branches of sea-watered evergreens...

I become almost adept at shooting out of a moving car whenever the sunlit floral exuberance splashes into my line of vision...
and as always, I am still somewhat giddy with all these refreshing florescent rites of spring!

domus vernacular

everywhere we go we are always looking at houses - possible new domicile and strong architectural interest in regional style - the older the more compelling, and of course, always unmodified charm!

facing the cote sauvage, a tiny cottage beckons with a grassed over pathway between the two inspired rows of miniature menhirs, no doubt emphasizing the primitive aspects of the siting...

the basic geometry of hearth and home of a built-in oven for this centuries old stone house in one of many ancient and perfectly preserved hamlets that we stumble upon...

in villages, larger and "newer" houses are animated by painted wood shutters of various harmonious hues, and in warmer weather, always enlivened by colourful floral flourishes...

across from the restaurant where we indulge in moules et frites is an almost tumbling down old fisherman's cottage... I feel a need to rescue it from further neglect and maintain its status as the main house in this minuscule port where brown and weathered fishermen still sit beside their boats smoking and looking quizzically out to sea...

[the last day of my stay the rose bushes in front had burst into a profusion of pale pink blooms...making it an even more irrisistible abode to consider...]

in larger towns elegant villas soar into the intense blue skies and are surrounded by generous gardens of exotic plants...this particular manoir stained a burnished burgundy to impart a semi-tropical ambience framed by the thriving palm trees...

and by my favourite beach a quaint stone house meticulously composed of rounded and varied sized rocks and detailed by pristine white shutters...its understated distinctiveness emboldened by the luxuriant dark foliage of a happy and vigorous prunus...

sur les plages

there are two beaches that we frequented - one with the smoothest white sand glinting with minuscule mica specks that reflect the light as brightly as mirror dust...
on this calmer shoreline the water is a crystalline pale green in the shallows and warm enough to swim in even before the heat of the summer sun...
the gentle waves offer up small shells and delicate seaweed strands and when the tide is low, patches of shiny mica bits to be mined...

in between painting, I walk with my camera in hand and with my head down coming across exquisite still-life on the undisturbed sand already perfectly pre-arranged for me to just find the right frame and shoot...

sometimes a sea god drags up serpentine algae and presents it to me proudly - the sinuous frill-edged length stretching out lazily on the sand like some flattened primeval snake...

and as the tide ebbs again, graceful swirls of seaweed mark the silvery sand like rudimentary calligraphy from an unknown aquatic race, punctuated by clusters of opalescent shells hiding secret codes...

I stain my aquarelles with colours of pure light, the moist brush-strokes quickly evaporating into the salty air...and I am in my element on this tranquil beach with so much perfection in every detail around me...

on the other beach of the côte sauvage side, a different and wilder personality emerges...

the crashing waves toss up blobs of poisonous jellyfish to sting unwary feet, but I am seduced by their lavender softness, their translucent helplessness stranded on the pebbly beach, now perhaps at the mercy of children with sticks...

the rough barnacled rockpiles on this coastline create crevices and mini pools filled with shell life and lichen blooms... and like the children, we spend hours examining such wondrously pristine displays of undisturbed marine ecosystems...

we also heave rocks to contribute to a seaside festival of "land" or nature art [à la Andy Goldsworthy], where the artists create their installations out of what is at hand along the beaches...

our efforts are completely spontaneous and primitive and inconsequential to the power of the sea, but we are satisfied with our creations and having had the sheer joy of just playing all day by the seashore...

contemplatif

frequently in Brittany I am transfixed by sightings that are so timelessly resonant of a deeper meaning I am always hopeful to have captured it somehow on my tiny camera...
and going over the images later, I come across ones that manage to vibrate more than I had envisioned...
the breton flag "Gwenn ha Du" waves proudly from every flag pole, black and white bands representing the former "pays" or bishoprics of Upper and Lower Brittany, and dotted by the heraldic black ermines flashing in the hallowed skies...

the suggestive stillness of the tops of just a few crosses barely rising above the wall of a small cemetary at high noon...

the hard point of a modernist church spire pierces into atmospheric holiness, its pink and white celtic motifs softening the angular edges...

on the outside wall of a school, the pale squiggle patterns left behind from the removal of old creeping vines...nervous traces of life that once was and now only the most evocative of ghostly remains of a previous florescent exuberance...

one day I was led to a secret church in a secluded hameau...the doors were opened but within it nothing seemed to have been touched for decades...antique light glazed over sacred objects, cobwebs bound crucifixes in place on the dusty altar, and in a small room off to the side, a niche held ex-votos of such raw poignancy, such primal supplication that it was hard to believe such genuflectively felt potency still existed at all...

les temps verts

one of the most transcendant and loveliest of vernal moments, walking along this muddy woodland path through clouds of freshly in bloom queen anne's lace...we had been wandering around a lesser known menhir site in the morning sun and on the way back to the village we found a backfield trail, coming upon this gloriously romantic scene...I felt like some Flaubert femme in a bucolic daze mincing gingerly through the wet earth dragging my satiny folds, with only melodic birdsong and the soft breezes rustling through the budding trees soothing my fervid delusions!

the stillness of this stone font dappled by a film of viridescent lace receives the water from a nearby source known for curing ailments of the nervous system... perfect for dipping those overly delicate 19th century jeunes filles d'amour!

and just beyond the chapelle, slender yellow irises sway elegant in the shade of pale gold foliage warmed by the late afternoon sun...

always back to the shores where we find the abstract arrangements of marine life on smooth rounded rocks...silken mossy algae draping sensuously on the barnacle-doted slopes...

rocks of ages

from the multi-hued blues and delicate pinks of springtime Brittany to the water-sculpted stones and cliff-faces of the coastline, striated in geometric patterns and abstractly spotted with black lichen patches...

to super-human [or perhaps not quite human!] strength hands that built such dolmen "monuments"against which much, much later settlers constructed their conventional stone houses...

we walk in dew-wet fields dotted by immense menhirs that have been placed there beyond the sense of time...

and feel the enigmatic energy exerted from such powerful and solid presences and we wonder of the mysterious significance of the chosen sites...

in Carnac, thousands of such stones are aligned in rows like some neolithic mega-sized cemetary, but their original purpose will never ever be fully revealed...

we can only marvel at the scale and determination to arrange such megaliths and how long they have stood immutable and silent in fields that bloom yellow for countless springs...

and then there is always an invigorated phallic-fixated queen along the way to commemorate some long-winded adventure by erecting this, "une des plus belles stèles du Morbihan"!

la saison rose

I was already pink sensitive before primrose spring arrived and when we came upon large swaths of tiny shell pink flowers blanketing the clifftops of the Côte Sauvage contrasting with the sometimes steel-grey, sometimes deep azure sea, I became even more awashed in a blush pink mood...

carnal pink floral carpets brush onto opera pink stone walls and la Maison Rose at the narrow entrance to an inlet in the Golfe du Morbihan must always remain that pompeian colour as the marker house for sailors...

lovely gardens large and small lushed out in livid pink blossom-clouds...

and cameo pink villas soften the earth tone palette of the vernacular stone architecture...

by the seashore I find flesh pink seashells and the most wondrous marine still-life tableaux...

the luminous alga leaf in gradations of orchid rose fans and drapes a mica-studded rock...

and my pale petal dress blows softly about me as I walk along the edge of my glow-pink paradise...

breton blues

Brittany is a blue world...the eyes are always absorbing the bright blue or the blue-greys of the skies, the stormy blue or calm blue-greens of the sea...and all the varying hues of blues to be found everywhere...

a fading french-blue DUBONNET sign...

a weather-beaten bleu-céleste door facing the Côte Sauvage....

so many other doors and window shutters and trims, fences, garden gates...

soon the lavender blues of the hortensias will add to the zen blueness in gardens and along pathways...

and the light will deepen into late summer, intensifying this most tranquil of colours...

breton skies

as always, the dramatic skies of Brittany never fail to take my breath away...

as soon as we drive past the Bienvenue en Bretagne sign, the clouds gather to welcome us...

the salty sea air blows in our faces, the windswept trees bend as low green clouds...

and we find our place in a pristine paradise, on a wild cloud-dappled coast where the light sparks off the water and the colours of the sea and skies change by the hour....

a bedroom in chenonceau*

an architectural titania stretches across the sinuous cher,
sheltering the spectral traces of a line of royal femmes...

here, the white queen had mourned in her chamber of perpetual night,
where silver tears streak the blackwater walls and snowy plumes of bowing feathers flinch from the curious crowns of thorns,
while the muted sound of turbid waters swirling beneath the stone comportment reverberates a prenatal realm to comfort the neglected wiles of many such feminine persuasions as these in the château chenonceau...


[*"a bedroom in chenonceau" by g.verster, 2004]

déshabillé

"Le vif oeil dont tu regardes... jusques à leur contenu

Me sépare de mes hardes... et comme un dieu je vais nu."

["Le Marchante d'Habits" by Stéphane Mallarmé, 1842-1898]

a study of walls

a study of black and white, pristine and worn, smooth and rough, graphic and abstract, playful and contused...
the contrast of aged corrosion, unkempt upkeep, hidden frictions, interior forlornness...

to the freshly painted, swissly precise, boldly marking, exterior exclamation...

the personalities of buildings expressed through their wall treatment emerge in large spatial vociferous instances...to captivate, to seduce, to invite prolonged glances and even a surreptitious touch or two upon unblemished or weathered skin...

aux vieux murs...

"L'heure passe que les mains de la nuit faufilent aux vieux murs...
Mais qu'est-ce qui vous trouble au fil de l'heure pâle qui s'ourle aux mains noires des grilles?

Plus tard, un peu de soleil dore une feuille, et deux, et puis tout!...
Un rayon rôde encore à la crête du mur, glisse d'une main calme et nous conduit vers l'ombre..."

[lines excerpted from the poem "Au Fil de l'Heure Pâle" by Léon-Paul Fargue, 1876-1947]

paris neige

"Rooftops in the Snow" Gustave Caillebotte
[c.1878; oil on canvas; 64 x 82 cm]
Collection Musée d'Orsay, Paris

from the few times it snows in Paris and the snow actually sticks around long enough for an artist to capture his impressions of a whitened and muted city...albeit over a hundred years ago...
[this painting and a few other [snowless] ones by Caillebotte at the Musée d'Orsay draw me back over and over to revisit his luminous and charmed world...]

fiat lux

from a clutch of multi-coloured lightbulbs' haphazard installation in the temple of modern art...

to the ornate clusters of glittering crystal drops in the church of saint-paul-saint-louis...
drawn to the light like so many tired tattered moths...always hoping to behold a softer, sweeter luminosity...

of lamps lighted very late...

dans un coin le ciel délivré
aux épines de l'orage laisse des boules blanches.
dans un coin plus clair de tous les yeux
on attend des poissons d'angoisse.

dans un coin la voiture de verdure de l'été
immobile glorieuse et pour toujours.
à la lueur de la jeunesse
des lampes allumées très tard...

[From "Max Ernst" by Paul Eluard]

*Post 200*

vers le ciel

cast your eyes upwards and follow the symmetry of birds perched on solid notes of stillness...

as the evening clouds gather, dark lyrical movements unfurl slowly across the skyline...

lumière

"quand, ainsi qu'un poète, il descend dans les villes,

il ennoblit le sort des choses les plus viles,

et s'introduit en roi, sans bruit et sans valets,

dans tous les hôpitaux et dans tous les palais."

[from "Le Soleil" by Charles Baudelaire, 1821-67]

joyeuses fêtes!

" Baise m'encor, rebaise-moi et baise;
donne m'en un de tes plus savoureux,
donne m'en de tes plus amoureux:
je t'en rendrai quatre plus chauds que braise."

[from "Baise m'encor..." by Louise Labé, 1520-65]