day 157

regret nothing..........

"no, I don't regret anything. neither bad or good.".....

katrin's new work based on the edith piaf song seemed pretty appropriate for 5 months of introspection, discovery and revelations.... thank you for joining me - you have been delightful... x

(if I can, next stop: shopping malls in houston)

day 156

packing, cleaning, storing, giving away, more packing, moving, cleaning again, re-distributing, traveling.

last day at cité so we visited some of our fellow artists to say goodbye. this is katherine's (from australia) new work that is being drafted on NAB posters brought from australia. some art and a nice cup of tea makes everything better...

day 145

mannie & maluti drawing at an impromptu party...

day 144

our front gates at cité...

day 141

studio chair and table from the mezzanine above...

day 139

catherine bailey (an australian painter) dancing outside my window...

day 136

every night at the same time, swallows flock around the roof tops of cité.
this was taken from the my studio doorway...

day 134

there was dancing and headphones and binoculars.
I've put a longer description in the comments section...





it was a duet with arun, an australian choreographer now living in madrid...

day 133

we will be dancing...

day 130

the windows at cité during sunset.

tonight we had dinner outside on our 'terrace', which is actually a little step in front of our studio doors overlooking the carpark. but we are making asphalt the new wood...

day 127

party candles...

day 126

hello boys: now, this is a studio!

I was hoping this photo might actually convey the enormity of the space (in paris terms), but that dark patch you see on the top of the photo? well, it's actually the upstairs mezzanine area that’s next to another entire room that is the bedroom. we have gone to heaven and yes, we are having a party tomorrow to celebrate!

I've already scheduled a show here next week: a duet I will make with an australian choreographer from madrid. there is so much space I wasn't sure what else to do...

day 100

what does this city mean to us? the visitors, the flâneurs...

10 artists who have been here for a while, came to share their experiences of what it's been like to live and work as an artist in paris. what has it been like for these foreigners, living here and making art? sometimes for months, sometimes for an entire year?
after the initial shock of beauty has gone, what has paris left these strangers?


click here to see the photographs we took today reflecting on our time in paris...

day 99

martine (from australia) in her writing studio after dinner, cheese & wine.
so very french...

day 96

the courtyard in dusk at 10.30pm...

day 88

watching the tango in the building next door...

day 86

today I went to parc de bercy - a large park in the 12e. which is almost set up for strange pictures: rollerbladers skating on graffitied space-age ramps, a waterfall that looked like a contour map of a canyon (complete with dark-brown suds), an enormous sports stadium covered with grass at 45 degree angles, abandoned ping-pong tables with anti-US stickers on them, an entire vineyard in the centre and formal ponds thick with sludge being eaten by carp the size of my arm. strange and exciting was parc de bercy.

but when I came home flushed with the bizarreness (particularly of the grass-covered stadium) I realised that it couldn't be that easy: the 100 shots I'd taken today were inexplicably erased from the camera.

some days here are hard: the internet has mysterious ways, the bathrooms smell like a men's urinal, there has been a recent infestation of lice from the playgroup and the french like bureaucracy even more than the italians.
some days here are easy: the food, the culture, the art that is being generated at cité, the gentle connections and shifts in practice that are being made.

one thing is for sure - nothing much is my decision. which, for a choreographer, although welcome, certainly takes some getting used to...

day 85

some of craig waddel's (from australia) paintings while he's been at cité...

day 83

dancing into the early hours at the annual micadanse party in our courtyard...

day 81

pierre (from south africa) used to be a painter and now creates works with tonal depth from a single medium. he's been working on this for 5 months and is creating shades and colours with different crochet stitches. when it's finished it will be hung in the middle of the space so you can walk around and see through it. he also embroiders photographs...








.

day 79

juan melé is a painter from argentina, living in buenos-aires.
he told me he's been coming and working at cité each year for the last 20 years...

day 75

katrin ströbel (from germany) is creating a trace of where she has been on every plastic bag she has bought: graffiti she transfers, signs or advertising that affect her or anything else she sees during her travels. every image she re-draws is either imported or exported from france and so the plastic bag is an obvious starting medium when discussing the transference of goods...

day 73

every two weeks Mme. S from mali, exchanges our linen in our annex 15 foyer...

day 67

even in paris the mundane can encroach: in the cité lift with the weekly washing...



and then a quick visit to the louvre...

day 66

working after a long-weekend is always hard, so I re-arranged the studio (enlarge) to make it easier...

day 62

mannie and her pink scarf after an exhausting game of ping-pong at the park.
both of which (pink and ping-pong) seem très du jour for all ages here...

day 58

sharing some wine and conversation with helge larsen & darani lewers in their studio next door:
australian contemporary jewellery artists who hate technology but love cake...

day 45

I was (strangely) up at dawn and saw this lone little plane making the most of paris at its quietest...

I’ve been thinking about desire today, and what happens when it evaporates: what becomes of a life when the wanting disappears? can anyone go forward without the desire for change, for movement, for more?

I heard what a feeling from flashdance today and there is a line in it that says: ‘take your passion, and make it happen…’ but what happens to people who have lost the desire to make anything happen? society doesn’t like a person without desire. they have slipped and we get embarrassed.

everyday I walk past at least three or four people patiently sitting, on streets, in metros, with signs asking for money. did they once have desire and then lose it? how did that happen? who will 'lose' it next?

day 19

finally someone bought me flowers.
denis, my french friend, said he bought these because they matched my floor.
the frenchies are so considerate...

day 17

today the french teacher made me, in front of the whole class, sing + dance the conjugation of
avoir (to have). he wanted it to the theme of the pink panther...

day 16

busy day at the office. andrew morrish came to help...

day 15

making hot chocolate in the studio's kitchen.

day 12

"toujours imité, jamais égalé" - always copied, but never equalled. I love it!

this impressive sign is above a hole in the wall in the marais. truly delightful.

finally at cité des arts. it's not quite what I'd expected...

day 4

finally into paris and cité des arts (at the right of this shot). it took an hour - but the colour hasn't changed.

still grey and wet. but even wet, grey and full of dog shit, this city can take away your breath.
no matter how many times you have been here.

if inspiration doesn't come here, then it's gone forever. I'm holding my breath...