Bonjour Paris! — Diane Griffin Sculpture

Last week, when learning that my husband had a meeting in Paris, it immediately became an ‘us’ trip, rather than a ‘him’ trip. I hadn’t been to Paris since my secondary school days - many times to other areas of France, but not Paris, so I kind of invited myself along. It was to be just a couple of days of exploring, not much agenda other than his meeting and just to see what we find. The Eurostar was fab, except that we were sat across from a woman who literally did not stop talking for the entire two and a half hour journey. I went past the fascination of her ability to loudly chatter on, seemingly without the need to draw breath, and on to just feeling exhausted in her proximity. No matter, on to the Metro which we navigated with no problem and were greeted with a stunning nighttime view of the Seine as we emerged from the station. A picture-postcard welcome to Paris!

It may not surprise you that I was keen to find some independent galleries and thankfully my husband was onboard. Up and out the next morning with a vague route, we stumbled upon a small ceramics business making handmade table ware and decorative items. After a lovely chat with the owner, we were directed to the next street where we would find more ceramics and art. The street had a series of small galleries and some makers workshops with shop fronts! Right in the centre of Paris and literally 10 mins walk from the Louvre! We began to wonder whether the French government helps these small business to operate in such prime locations. Get in touch if you have any intel on this please!

Along this road we found a number of shop units that were operating as gallery/estate agents. Initially I felt like this was an odd but interesting marriage of businesses, but I liked it. Why not? People who are buying houses may need art for the walls and it offers prime location solo exhibition space for artists. The windows showed the property details while inside the walls were given over to exhibition space, which, from what I could gather, was rented by the artists. The estate agents didn’t do the sales, they just handed out the information etc for prospective buyers to contact the artists directly. A very interesting arrangement. It was in one of these that we discovered the work of contemporary artist Anissa B What a find! I love her work. Her paintings are full of layered surfaces, rich textures of thick paint contrasted with graphic elements and finer applications of paint. Magnifique!

Onward to the Louvre & did the proper tourist photo thing. ' “I know!,….” he said (husband), “you stand up there & follow the camera round as I do a 360º” Well….watching the camera and not my feet on that narrow plinth nearly had me off, plus I couldn’t actually see my feet over my scarf! We both got the giggles at my wobbles but I think I styled it out by the end.

While my husband went off across Paris to have his meeting I went to see a fantastic exhibition at the Musée D’Orsay. It was a full retrospective curation of Edvard Munch’s 60 year career. The exhibition was called ‘ A poem of life, love and death. It was VERY busy but worth it for a fabulous enlightening and inspiring look at his work, themes and career. I will write another blog soon that will be just looking at this exhibition and my time in the Musée D’Orsay but for now, my favourite work of Munch’s at the exhibition was ‘Le Soleil’ that was painted in 1912. Apparently in this painting he wanted “to depict the regenerative power of light, the hope that is born with every new day, and the dazzling experience of the awakening of knowledge.” Wow, he nailed it! I got quite emotional looking at this piece. That’s the power of art - it gets you on the inside.

Our journey back on the Eurostar was much more peaceful, I’m glad to report. it was a later train & barely anyone spoke. Perfect.

What a fab couple of days. The city, the food, the art and the people were all just wonderful. A bientôt!