Chateau Orquevaux

my next adventure

By Ziggy Attias - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79163471

In a little over a week, I’ll be getting on a plane to Paris for a nearly three week adventure in art and culture. I’ll spend a couple days on either end of the journey eating and sightseeing my way through Paris, but the bulk of the trip will be an artist residency spent at the marvelous Chateau Orquevaux, a three hour train ride east of the city in the Champagne countryside. Read all about the chateau, its history and current use by following this link.

Or check out this beautiful video from their website. Gorgeous!

This trip has been a long time in the making. I originally applied for the residency three or four years ago and was not accepted. Then covid shutdowns happened and the Chateau was closed for some time, then I was invited to reapply early in 2022 and promptly forgot about it until I got an acceptance letter the following spring for a residency in August 2023. For a not very good reason, now that I look back on it, I declined the invitation unless I could push it into 2024. I’m very grateful they were able to accommodate me and here we are!

Honestly, I think I will put the time and space to better use now than I would have a few years earlier. I’ve worked at my craft. I’ve learned a lot about not only how to paint, but what and why I must paint. I have a better focus.

While I have a wonderful studio here at home, and plenty of time to make art, this residency will provide an uninterrupted fourteen days, during which I plan to immerse myself in some new ideas that have been clamoring at me from the corners of my mind. And who knows, maybe I’ll be inspired by the French countryside, but that might be tough during a typically bleak January.

Random interjection: I just came across this artist while looking for other things. This is my kind of landscape! I need to go explore more of her work. But I digress…

Solva (Fishing Village in Pembrokeshire), 1936 by Frances Hodgkins

I would like to have had some company in Paris, but I will be alone until arriving at the Chateau, when I will become part of a group of about twenty visual artists, writers and musicians from around the world, all coming to take some space and time to create. We will be housed in the Chateau or nearby guesthouses, fed wonderful, fresh French food each day and have private studios in which to work. What a fabulous opportunity!

I wish jet lag wasn’t a thing, but I’m doing what I can over the next ten days to mitigate the effects by going to bed and getting up a little bit earlier each day. I hope it works; the disorientation and fatigue lasted three days on my last trip to France. I’m open to tips on this.

My next hurdle is to attempt to fit two weeks worth of winter clothing and all my art supplies into a carry on and a backpack. I’m optimistic, but if I’m really honest, I don’t think it can be done and I’ll have to level up to a checked bag. I’ve done it before, but hauling all that on and off a train is tricky. I’m open to tips on this as well.

I’m sure I’ll be popping in here to share the adventure as it unfolds, but for now, wish me Bon Voyage!