Last Visit with My Girls

The residency in France has been planned, tweaked, researched, and packed, so I have one more bit of time with my girls before I leave. Daughter One and I had put as many ducks in a row as possible -- but you know ducks, they just keep bobbing up and down. Daughter Two brought baby Lucy for a visit and we did all the girl things for the day.

Mentally, I'm not as ready as I should be. I wrote this last August when we began to plan:
"I think the preparation efforts will get some remote part of our brains ready to absorb the 'remote country' and that what is produced in the month will only be the beginning of a greater period of change and growth for each of us.

We did no painting in the NY trip, but I believe it made a difference in who we have become and will become as artists. Seeing the art in the museums and galleries let ME have a place in the line-up. This remote area will have some of the commercial images we see everyday, but there is also a space here which is relatively free of 20th-21st C intrusion. It will let us find images in ourselves. There is something about stopping in a 12th C. church or bridge which was built by the Romans . . . .which also lets me know I have a place in the line-up."

The book proposal has consumed so much of my brain since February that I will now need some time to shift from how to put words together to how to put images together. I'm not even taking many painting supplies. Will wait until I get there and shop at the big art supply store in Carcassonne when I know what this time will mean for me.

So . . . I have no projects in mind, no plans for a show, no specific medium or technique to use. I had planned to use one of Daughter One's custom designed sketchbooks, but wound up just buying a couple of fun/not-serious sketchbooks with orange and hot pink covers.

However. . . This is a new adventure. Perhaps it is better to go with few expectations, but to just go! I think this is a good message to leave with my three girls. When an opportunity comes, even if you think you are not quite ready, just do it!