A little bit of salt...

There are times when I realize how close places are and yet how diverse Europe is. I had the chance to go to the Loire Atlantique. I managed to reach the sea and watched the Northern French Atlantic lip gently over rocks. A suburban car park surrounded by holiday homes led to a path between houses and slipped into the cliffs, exposing the ocean.

Pointe de Castelli

Finally I got to see where the salt comes from. Guérande has huge salt marshes that are drained and the salt is left to dry in the sun before being harvested. What looked like white herons were flying from field to field. It is both industrial and feels rural. Fields of pooled salt water look like sea and are suspended between tiny roads. It felt as if we were on the threads of a fragile earth net floating on becalmed ocean.

salt flats

salt flats

looking towards Le Croisic across salt flats

I have been missing sky, these clear horizons gave me eye space. We drove over the bridge to the airport of Nantes. When engineering imposes on the landscape, it can bring something extra and this brought a "hill" and distant vistas over the edge of the Vendée

The bridge over the Loire to Nantes

walking

Dunes National Park Zuid Kennemerland Noord Holland

It was a moment of breathing, open space is so precious. As we walked, in the far distance the chimneys of the Ijmuiden steel works billowed sky messages, planes sliced over the sky but we could hear the sea. The North Sea beach was crowded with people and happy dogs. Huge queues for the parking machines, many, many people buying chips in the only beach cafe- warm billows of fat frying. Back in the dunes the people dissipated and it felt roomy again.    

The land made me think of the Dutch 19th century painter Anton Mauve. He was very fond of sand hills and sheep all becoming a single entity. There were definitely sheep showing willing to pose for more paintings. The weather is crazily warm for the end of December.  

Sleeping sun lights vapour trails

We made it out of the park before it grew too dark and it returned to ownership of the sheep, horses and highland cattle who live there (to manage the dune landscape by keeping the grasses down).  

FIAC, Paris

Foire Internationale d'Art Contemporain, it was a lovely excuse to go to Paris. I was at Frieze Art Fair last week and this week I went to the FIAC. I had not been before but this year I decided to investigate Paris too. It is a treat to see really high-quality work. The art world is so multi-faceted, this seemed to be a window on wealth and window shoppers: there were those who were buying, those who were looking at them, those who were hoping to be looked at and even some who were there for the art. Sometimes I need to remind myself of the world outside my studio life. If the crowds felt too much or if it felt that some pieces were made primarily for the money then I could look upwards.

FIAC au Grand Palais

The ceiling

There was an upper floor with more galleries. Through a large entrance portal I was led up several flights of concrete stairs that felt more like a back fire escape and then I was through long corridors of small gallery booths, finally descending a staircase that revelled in its ostentation.

The sun was out and the day was so appealling. Waiting in the long queue in the sunned yellow dust surrounding the Grand Palais before the fair and seeing the blue glimpses of sky pouring from glazing made me long for outside. Two art fairs in eight days was quite enough for me. After a couple of hours I left to walk the streets of Paris back to the station and my onward journey. The streets smelt wonderful. Wafts of car fumes remind me of childhood experiences in the city. The big Haussmann designed streets split smaller ones and the light poured through the space while I crossed from deep shadows into further ones.  

Sun drops dancing on air

A friend wrote of the strangeness of the sounds that keep her awake in her new rural home and I wrote this to remind her of the city she has left.

This morning a sound appeared: the heavy, slicing noise of a police helicopter hovering overhead. The sound grew so big it vibrated from the walls of the courtyard, it filled the house so solidly that I couldn’t determine on which side the machine was, until I spotted it over the children’s playground. The cutting utterance it makes is so loud it is muted and ends in an absorbed thud. When it left the distant police siren was whimpering.

The double glazing is so solid that the rain dances as silent glazed sun drops in the air eddies. The sound of weather is better heard by the passing of cars and the firm hiss of wet road under tires. Airplanes are boring through the atmosphere above the cloud layer; the birds are flying low after their air space was dominated by the huge metal insect.

This is Sunday in the city. As the minutes pass the rain grows heavier and falls into neat lines. Normally I like to travel or simply to walk and feel the sky around me but today would better be spent indoors and cleaning the windows to watch the rain more clearly.     

growing a little too old...

universiteit van Amsterdam

Some of the university of Amsterdam buildings are being demolished. They were designed in the mid-sixties. The architect was Norbert J.J. Gawronski- a city council architect. The buildings were designed to fulfil a tight brief in their era, they must have been whole-heartedly modern when completed. There was a lovely neat box modernism about them, I liked the pattern of the curtain walling, there was a satisfying rhythm. Now they are being replaced for something of "this century" something more suitable and more contemporary.

This is beginning to become a little personal: this building style was modern for me, I grew up unsure if I truely liked this but I loved the idealism that surrounded architecture of this time. Yes there are far too many really bad examples of rectangular box, curtain-walled buildings around us however there are some good ones as well. Before too many are lost I would like to see them documented and ensure some remain. The sixties had style and it may still be neglected, let's recognise some of the good elements, be selective but remember not everything from this era is too old and too out of date!

...and still the sun shone

I had a day off in London to do exactly what I wanted. I love walking and learning through my feet. The walking scale gives such an intimate view of a place. I walked to Kensington Gardens and the Serpentine gallery. I wanted to see the Peter Zumthor pavillion and the gardens by Piet Oudolf.

 I walked back through Hyde park and took myself for a splendid lunch.

South Ealing Station

Later that afternoon en route to Heathrow I changed tube trains at South Ealing. It is the most gorgeous example of Art Deco. It embodies that zeal for the new, the excitement of the Modern Age and the passion for travel.

Wales is not always wet...

The sun has shone upon me for three days, it is as if I have brought it with me. I began on Tuesday leaving wet London behind me for a day trip to Wales. When I arrived the coast of north Wales was bleached by sunlight. The white and palest pastel houses of Llandudno smiled towards the blue sea. The winter winds and the salt air eat those facades, it is better not too look too closely.

from the beach at Llandudno

 Far from the palm-framed promenade on the faint horizon a wind farm reflects the light, the blades continually rotating like crazed stick men animations.

the promenade

I visited the Mostyn gallery, originally begun by Lady Mostyn in 1901 to exhibit the work of women artists and now expanded into a even lovelier space by Dominic Williams.I'd seen it on television but it was better in reality.