Oct 29, 2005

I just broke down and downloaded Mozilla Firefox onto the ancient Dell computer provided for our use here in the great room of the farmhouse in Giverny, France.

It had been running some furiously outdated version of Netscape, which didn’t like typepad or .Mac . So now I can post and email for the first time in quite a few days, though I had been using the old browser to follow the Libby indictment on Americablog.com rather obsessively. Let’s hope that indictment was the warning shot across the bow, so to speak; and that Karl’s still in Fitzgerald’s sights.

So we, the students of Marchutz school, left Aix-en-Provence on the TGV last Thursday, bound for Paris and points beyond—specifically Giverny, a village 10 minutes from Vernon on the Seine, an hour by local train northwest of Paris. Claude Monet had his house and gardens here, where he worked on his “Waterlilies” and other pieces in the later part of his life.

This past Thursday we arrived at the village, a close, quaint place with beautiful Norman architecture and rose gardens in all the little yards. Our residence here is gorgeous. We each have our own bedroom, and pretty much the private run of the place, as our professors are staying in the neighboring house. There is a kitchen for us all, and a bathroom on each floor, as well as cable TV and high-speed internet. The kitchen is crammed with breakfast food and snacks, and lunch and dinner are provided by the Museum’s restaurant kitchen. In other words, it is first-class—just what I needed to help me get well.

Our program here is a sculpture workshop with Greg Wyatt, sculptor-in-residence at St. John the Divine in NYC. Quite the honor, apparently. To be honest, I’d rather have had materials provided, and just have his guidance as we created our own projects out of plaster or wax, instead of specific assignments given by him. I did enough “schoolwork” art projects last year in AFO, the last thing I need is some condescending, self-congratulatory teacher giving me some opaque, oh-so-clever assignment during what needs to be a period of intense self-analysis and personal decisionmaking.

I know, I know, he’s famous and has sculptures at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in D.C. and Shakespeare’s Garden in Stratford-upon-Avon, I’m not worthy to breathe his air or be in the same room with him. I know, I don’t deserve to be taught by him.

But one thing my upbringing taught me is to not be overawed by anyone, even the famous or the wealthy.

My personal code of values places utmost importance on who a person is as a person, their character, their style, their attitude–the work of art that they’ve made out of themselves. And I don’t like him, I am not like him, and I don’t want to be like him. I know that instinctively. It’s the exact opposite attitude I know the art world expects of me. One is supposed to pretend not to notice who the artist is as a person, and focus all attention instead on the works they produce. But in this, as in many other things, I have to hold to my own ethics. I’ve developed them consciously and they serve me well. He may have an enormous bronze eagle in front of the State Department building, but my antenna senses something grim, dark and undeveloped inside him. I can’t draw close.

Instead I wander the village. I collect pieces of wood and color them with oil pastels. I drink merlot and watch the greyish-blue tiedyed Norman sky. I read romance novels and pour myself into my diary. So much writing, after so many, many dry months—why does it feel like coming home, like coming back to myself after a long sojourn as another person? A tight, unhappy, anxious person, pushing away the past, fighting the present, scared of the future. She’s broken open, and myself is spilling out. You bet it’s breaking the containers and overflowing the channels that others set out.

And yes, I watch that collateral damage—undone schoolwork, unsent emails, dusty and discarded to-do lists—and know what consequences it could bring. But the world will never spiral twice through the exact same spot in the universe, and here I am, trying to grab all that I can before it spins away. Living deeply, recording thoroughly. What can I ever truly accomplish that is greater than that?

Au Revoir, Provence
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