Whistler

(This is also a month late.... I will eventually catch up and talk about fun things, like me transferring colleges!) 

It was the thursday before Spring Break. I don’t have class friday, but I had an art history paper due the next day that I hadn’t started. The paper required us to go to a museum and find a work of art and relate it to another work of art from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century. Most people went to something a little more obvious or concrete (the portrayal of women, differences that existed within the Renaissance period, and storytelling in paintings with the Virgin Mary for example) I should have done something like that.

Instead the pseudo-pretentious art history major in my wanted to so something off the wall. I was trying to connect Flemish still life with James Whistler’s Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1. It was a bit of a stretch. At the time, I thought the connections between pretty things being pretty things that you see in still lifes (lifes not lives...) and Whistler’s “Art for art’s sake” attitude was pretty clear. This eventually lead me to write a paper about Tulipmania (look it up, it was a thing) and the history of celery in Western Europe.

Anyways, part of the assignment is that we could sketch the art work if we couldn’t take pictures at the museum. I couldn’t take pictures are D’Orsay (where Whistler’s painting is) so the pretentious artist in me said I should sketch it. So deep part of me knew this would happen, and I packed my sketchbook and all my pastels. I came prepared and pretentious. I sprawled out on the museum floor to begin sketching the work (note this was the busy impressionist hall with a lot of other “important” works.) People started wondering what was so important about the painting I was sketching. It made sense, here are all these colorful works of art filled with color and provocative poses and here I am sketching an only lady sitting in front of a grey wall. 

Naturally, people started wondering why I was sketching this, at first glance, boring painting. I had just enough sleep deprivation to ease-drop and offer them a response. I talked about how the placement of the objects was what the artist was focusing on, how it was very “contemporary”, how it could be seen as a bridge between a impressionist art and later movements. They seemed to have enjoyed it. Later on a German woman asked me the same thing, and I offered her a response also. Knowing art history (or at least being able to fake knowing art history) has it’s perks. 

Strawberries, Watermelon, and Asparagus

(This is from like a month ago.... I write but I'm too lazy to post.)

So today I went to the open air market at Bastille to buy some fruits and vegetables. It’s normally quite fun, if not slightly hectic and panic inducing. There are a lot of people and   a lot of vendors all hollering out discounts. Seeing that it’s spring (or whatever the French call spring here) there were some new things at the market. Along with the allergies and insects springs along brings with it asparagus and off season watermelon from Costa Rica. These will eventually be my downfall. 

I saw one vendor selling whole watermelons for five euros and, like a panther stalking prey, I sprung. In retrospect, watermelons at this time of the year is too good to be true. However, I still went ahead and bought one, but in the process of carrying the watermelon over the counter from the vender to myself I knocked over a “panier” (read: basket) of strawberries. Luckily, the weird mix of clumsy and grace my parents gave me allowed me to catch the strawberries. With my leg. Mashing them into my pants. Staining them. The rest of the basket was saved, but the amount of awkwardness that comes with having a watermelon in hand and a basket of freshly thigh-smushed strawberries in the other was too much. I made a weird dying noise and shouted out “merde!” (literally: shit!)

I think the vendor took pity on me and reassured me that it was okay “Ce n’est pas grave! Ce n’est pas grave!” (Literarily: It’s not serious! It’s not serious!) I apologized, wished him a good day, and got away from there as fast as possible. I would have ran, but there were too many people for that to be possible, plus running is not a thing here. 

I spent about an fifteen minutes looking for asparagus at the place. I’m not sure it’s it’s just a French thing, but I could only find thick white stalks of asparagus. I’m a bougie person that likes my asparagus pencil-thin and green. Like models on St. Patrick’s day. Asparagus is my favorite vegetable, but thick stalks are tough and woody and white asparagus is too bitter. I wonder if the French are trying to undermine me though asparagus. Anyways, after wandering around the market I finally found a vendor which sold green asparagus. No awkward interactions besides me not being sure how to say apsaagus in French. 

I am currently sitting the café across the street writing this. I needed to de-stress. I’ll going into my non-existent spring break plans later.