Hoosiers in Paris

 Wherever you go, there you are. 

One of the patterns of our life in Paris is going to church on Sunday morning and then going exploring. This past Sunday we ended up in the area of Paris known as The Marais. We love walking the streets, turning a corner, and finding something to explore. This week's wonder was an art exhibit along the lines of the summer art exhibits that my Indianapolis readers will be familiar with. 

But what's most noteworthy is that when we turned a corner in the exhibit, we were greeted and drawn in by one of the artists. We identified ourselves as Americans, and she shared that she'd lived in the States for 15 years -- in Indianapolis! Of course we said, "We're from Indianapolis!" And we were off! She is Brazilian, but her husband is French and was assigned as director of a French company in Westfield. Her kids were educated at the International School; 3 of her sons graduated from ISI. Her daughter, who also went to ISI, was there helping out with her exhibit. She is currently studying the business of wine in Paris.

We hope to see more of Christine while we are in Paris.

Thursday morning last week we went to Musee D'Orsay with our niece before she took the Eurostar back to London that afternoon. If you ever have the chance to come to Paris, be sure to go to this museum. It is always a high point -- even for the museum-weary. The building itself is a work of art. It was a train station that was going to be demolished in 1978. Instead, former President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing intervened in 1986 to convert the station into this beautiful museum. I discovered the museum when we were here in 2000. I bought a cheap "guidebook" to Paris (tiny accordion pages in between two magnets) in London, and Musée d'Orsay was featured in it.

We started with the special exhibit "Inventing Impressionism." As some painters of the later 19th century began to experiment with the techniques of what became known as Impressionism, they felt sidelined by the organizers of The Salon, the traditional annual exhibition of Parisian painters. A few artists (Monet, Degas, Renoir, Pissarro, Cezanne, and even a couple of women) held their own exhibition in 1874. This Musée d'Orsay special exhibit honors the 150th anniversary of the firrst Impressionist exhibit.

This show was, in my opinion, one of the best curated exhibits I've seen. I could actually follow the curators' thinking behind the organization of the exhibit. So often when you read the explanation of paintings in a room, it bears no relationship to the items exhibited. Here it all made sense. Just as I was wondering what submissions to the Salon might look like, the next room showed examples of the more realist art of the Salon. 

This one, in particular, reminded me of a painting of Old Rag Mountain
that my brother did in high school.

Having fed the mind, on Tuesday Chris and I sought to feed the body. We tried out another gluten-free bakery in Montmartre. If you recall, the last one we went to was heavy on corn, which I'm also allergic to. So I specified to the vendor that I could not eat corn. She had all kinds of wonderful breads and pastries. I left with brioche au chocolat, a croissant, and a baguette. This will be my go-to GF-and-more bakery.

One could translate this as "Won't you be my friend?"

The past few days have been quiet. Chris has caught a cold and I'm still not breathing as well as I would like. Probably won't be until my next scan in early July. But we're hanging in!