Painting Holidays in Chateaux in Dordogne and Provence, France Provence 2021River Dropt 2 – Wendell Berry on Local Care of Shared Places
Posted on February 21, 2011
Wendell Berry on Local Care of Shared Places:”My wife, Tanya, and I were just in Massachusetts visiting with a friend of ours, Rachel Fletcher, who had organized some of her neighbors in her town to make a “riverwalk.”
A little river runs right through the middle of her town. For maybe generations people had looked at the river the way we Americans have learned to look at rivers—as something to carry things away that we don’t want. The town had just tumbled whatever they didn’t want down among the trees on the river bank.
Rachel began to persuade people to allow a riverwalk to be built across their back lots. She organized cleanups, and people would come and bring their children. They picked up all the trash and cleared the river bank and built their walk, and they made a beautiful thing.
Any walk through the woods gives one a lot to look at, especially a walk along a riverbank. People made donations to put in seats in memory of loved ones who had died and so on. That was how it started.
The next thing that happened was that people who had property on the other side of the river, who weren’t organized into this effort at all, began to clean up their lots. So here you’ve got a neighborhood institution that is minimally organized. So far as I know, it has no trust fund. But it’s cherishing something local that everybody can have in common, and to me a thing like that can’t go wrong. It’s just a little narrow walkway, scaled right, but it’s an enormously suggestive thing.
It was a way for people in the neighborhood to give days of their labor to one another, to give one another shares in their mutual place, to make a place where they would meet each other without agenda or schedule. And as the cleanup across the river would indicate, it has an influence.
So that’s the way my instinct says to work. If you believe in goodness, if you believe that goodness has a power, then why not act on your faith and do something good and see if it won’t call forth more goodness?”
Jack Jezreel interviews Wendell Berry, U.S. Catholic magazine.
River Dropt 1
Posted on February 18, 2011
‘river dropt 1’
watercolour
15 x 11 ” – 28 x 38 cm
© adam cope
Dordogne River Study 2- swans at lalinde
Posted on February 16, 2011
‘Dordogne River Study 2- swans at lalinde’
watercolour by Adam Cope
15 x 11inches
© adam cope
swans at lalinde – foggy winter day
Dordogne river study 1
Posted on February 14, 2011
‘Sunlight Breaking Through’
quarter sheet
28 x 38 cm (approx 15 ” x 11″)
© adam cope
Poplar Grove – Evening Sunlight
Posted on February 10, 2011
‘Poplar Grove – Evening Sunlight’
watercolour
28 x 38 cm (approx 15 x 11″)
© adam cope
Plum Tree
Posted on February 9, 2011
‘Plum Tree’
Watercolour
32 x 24 cm (approx 12,5 x 9,5 inches)
© Adam Cope
heavy with fruit
old fruit tree
still giving
Here & Now
Posted on February 5, 2011
‘here & now’
pencil drawing
a4 sketchbook
© adam cope
teacher taking a breather
Cakes for Tet
Posted on February 4, 2011
‘cakes for Tet’
sanguine drawing
sketchbook
© adam cope
Earth cakes for Tet
Posted on February 3, 2011
‘Making Earth Cakes for Tet’
pen & ink drawing
A4 sketchbook
© adam cope
School Report 2011, Chateaux Painting Holidays, SW France
Posted on February 1, 2011
I hope you are well & happy 🙂
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
calm & creative
NEWS OF THE PAINTING WEEKS AT CHATEAU DE BEDUER
Morning Mists at Beduer
Everybody was good company. There was a memorable group booking from Sao Paolo, (at the time of the world football cup), which was full of laughter & talent. These painting holidays are good places to meet people & spend an enjoyable time together 🙂
http://fcembranelli.blogspot.com/2010/07/about-painting-in-franceetc-sobre.html
attention is the eye opener….
PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE
“To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make the soul grow. So do it. ” – Kurt Vonnegut
Eager attention to detail!
News of Adam’s Painting Practice
“A perfect beauty of a sunflower! a perfect excellent lovely sunflower existence! a sweet natural eye to the new hip moon, woke up alive and excited grasping in the sunset shadow sunrise golden monthly breeze! ” – exerpt from ‘Sunflower Sutra’ by Allen Ginsberg
“Do not fail, as you go on, to draw something every day, for no matter how little it is, it will be well worthwhile, and it will do you a world of good.” ~ Cennini, circa 1400 ad.
I feel this long, fallow period will give birth to something new…something more than the above advice on Practice 😉 …. Maybe a new direction? Work has already started in 2011.
Exhibitions in ‘La Récollets’, Bergerac in August 2011 at St. Avit de Senieur in September 2011 & hopefully at Sarlat and St.Emillion (to be be confirmed).
News of Sue
Ah hem????, said the gruffalo
http:www.artists-atelier/artholidays/us.htm” A painting holiday which glides effortlessly forward like a swan always means that somebody is doing masses of work out of sight to help things run smoothly!” – Katherine Tyrrell
News of Adam, Marie-Line, Valentin & Eleanor
New : Flights from London City Airport to Soulliac/Brive Dordgne Valley Airport
This airport us about one hour from Beduer. We pick up & drop off at 115 euros per journey, which becomes easy when shared with others. The times of the saturday flight seem to be friendly with our course start time of sat 16 hr.
http://www.aeroport-brive-vallee-dordogne.com/
New: we have simplified banking. You can now pay my fees directly via IBAN (free for Europeans) or via PayPal for non-Europeans. Chateau de Beduer has now simplified things by one simple click of a PayPal button.
New : we now offer a reduction of 50 € per painter for groups of four or more painters.
‘PRIX DE FIDELITE’ – There is the usual reduction for returning students of fifty euros per person. We’ve not put our prices up either.
COURSE DATES 2011
Saturday 18 June to Saturday 25 June
Saturday 25 June to Saturday 2 July
Saturday 3 September to Saturday 10 September
Wishing you a very happy, creative 2011.
Paint well.
Best Wishes from Adam, Marie-Line & Sue
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Post-script …..
‘Piere de Ronsard’ Roses at Beduer
An Erotic Poem written at Beduer by Paul Valéry, whilst tossing about sleeplessly in the four poster bed in La Chambre ‘Paul Valéry’ & thinking of Jean Voiler, the then current Lady of the Chateau.
À LA ROSE PROFONDE
Sombre et profonde rose d’ombre odorante,
Ô rose de plaisir, dont le plaisir est pleur,
Rose humide d’espoir d’une caresse errante sur ses bords de calice où la chair se fait fleur,
D’une eau délicieuse, ô molle rose, enivre Jusqu’a l’ excés divin du bonheur animal.
Un coeur fuyant l’affreuse aventure de vivre qui boit ce poison de son étrange mal…
Puisse fondre sur toi la lèvre favorite Dont l’oeuvre fut tendre et sincère irrite
Plus, toujours plus en toi, toujours plus de douceur;
Tandis que la beauté qui te porte palpite Et palpitante inspire une tendresse soeur
Que son soupir appelle et qui se précipite… P.V. Corona & Coronilla.
