Art class in France was so much fun, partly because yeah, well, it was in France, but mostly because of the truly kind, generous, wonderfully fun women I got to spend time with. Something I realized about every one of these women, including Dayle, our instructor, and Nese (pronounced Nesha), our chef, was that each one does/has done something I want(ed) to do, or has a quality I've wished for at some point. The great thing about making friends like this is that one can vicariously enjoy far more aspects of life than can possibly be crammed into one lifetime. It's also nice to get an up-close look, to see if any of these long-imagined aspects could be tried on myself, or if they maybe aren't likely to be such a good fit. This might make more sense as you meet the women...
Two who weren't in last week's photo are Anne Beach and Beverlee Stafford. Anne is on the left, in front, and Beverlee is the woman in blue standing up (That's me hidden in between them.)
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| Class at La Cascade, taught by Dayle Doroshow. |
Anne Beach is a mixed media artist from California. Because she has such a love of collecting fun little bits at flea markets, for use in her art projects, she accumulated an overflow, and this led to opening a shop on Etsy. Click on over to Beach Flea Market, where you can purchase game pieces, little china dolls, rusty bits...all the great stuff one needs to fill a proper mixed media artist's toy box.
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| Anne shares the story behind her storybook doll with the class. |
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| It's The Owl and the Pussycat, of course! |
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| Anne slipped out on occasion to sketch some of the local scenery, shown here with a funny little French guy. |
Now, I've owned a once-a-month store, with make-and-take projects that used these cool vintage bits, but as much as I loved curating the collections and creating the projects, I gave it up because it was more work than I had time to invest, in order to do it as well as I wanted to do it. It takes a lot of work to do a brick and mortar storefront, and though I own a house that's situated and zoned for retail, there's still a lot of expense, to boot.
Checking out Anne's Etsy shop though, has me very tempted to establish one of my own (cause, yeah, I need another business to run, right now). I mean, this would, in theory, keep the studio from overflowing with those odd bits that nobody but a junk artist would want, and might even make my flea marketing a hobby that pays for itself...or at least costs me a little less. I knew about selling art on Etsy, and had heard one could sell vintage stuff, too, but until spending time with Anne, I never even considered it for myself. Maybe my sweet little shopkeeper fantasy could be revived! See what I mean about checking out imaginary lives?
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| This picture of Anne is especially sweet, but much of the fun is what's going on that has her chuckling... |
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| Poor woman. She just wanted a dish of ice cream. |
Oh, and speaking of lives I can only imagine, Anne sings like an angel. Many in the group could carry a tune, but Anne can sing. With voice lessons, I can probably carry a tune, should we ever get the group back together for another week of (Off Off) Broadway musical follies, but a voice like Anne's? ...sigh.
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| Beverlee made several of these completely hand crafted journals, using French fabrics and pretty ephemera. She's taken the class three times before, so she had some specific things she wanted to work on. |
Beverlee is stylish, cosmopolitan in a casual sort of way, and cool as a cucumber behind the wheel, in a country with somewhat different driving customs. I imagine myself navigating the world like Beverlee, in a life where my nails are neatly manicured, my hairstyle holds up all day, and retirement means collecting a pension while enjoying the pleasures of leisure time I worked so hard to earn.
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| Beverlee with her doll. My apologies for the fuzzy picture, but it's the best I could do with what I had. You can see her beautiful smile, at least. |
Reality check: My nails as I type this are encrusted with Black DTM, a paint that could put nail polish companies out of business, if it ever caught on. My hair is in cahoots with the capricious gods of humidity and chance, and has never in my entire life held a style for more than two hours. Well, except the spiky punk do, but I'll not be resurrecting that. And driving in a foreign country with a carful of women singing Broadway show tunes? Well, let's just say, I'm never gonna be Beverlee! Lucky for me, my work and play are the same thing, so I won't miss the retirement thing so much. Lucky for everyone, nobody asked me to drive!
So then, load up on some goodies from Anne's Etsy shop, call in well to work (really, don't even fib about being sick. Just say you are perfectly fine, and in order to stay that way, you will be staying home in your jammies for 24 hours) and take a well-deserved art therapy day. Then pop back here on Friday morning to meet a couple more of my inspiring classmates. Have a great week!
1 comment:
WONDERFUL post- absolutely captured the spirit of these two lovely ladies- and YOU ARE TOO!
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