California 2

Chose promie, chose dûe... voici quelques autres photos du voyage californien. 

Le Golden Gate embrumé

 Le quartier Chinois de San Francisco

  L'hôtel Hyatt de San Francisco, et son architecture atypique. Construit en 1972, conçu par John Portman.  

Carré de faïence sur un trottoir de Monterey, ancien port producteur de sardines. 

Un Majestueux arbre Red Wood à Big Basin

Un Red Wood troué et toujours vivant

La baie de Monterey

Des cormorans dans la baie de Monterey

Les vélos Google sur leur campus à Mountain View.

California!

It has been more than a month since I last updated this blog! Shame on me.
I am currently in California, visiting my aunt and uncle in the Palo Alto area. We went on a week-end road trip, and went all the way to Lake Tahoe (splendid!), then down to Mono lake (which is a mineral lake with sediment towers called Tufas,also home to brine shrimp and flies ) then to Yosemite park (beautiful pine trees, snow capped mountains and impressive water falls).
Earlier in the week, I got to go to Pescadero beach (desolate, beautifully eerie) and Santa Cruz (laid back beach town, with a world-renowned university), And tomorrow, we will go to San Francisco.
This is such a wonderful vacation!
I also had some time to work on a writing piece, and remembered how much I enjoyed writing in coffee shops. It has also been cool to leave the East Coast for a while and to be in completely new territory. Because of my dislocated shoulder plus the mono, I was wallowing in the aftermath of injury.
I'm incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to relax for two weeks, and now fully understand the benefits of vacation.
But anyway. Here are a few pictures to get a glimpse of California's diverse landscapes.

 Stanford University Quad

 Stanford University church

 Buzzard on a dead seal, Pescadero Beach

 Wood and birds, Pescadero Beach

Santa Cruz

 Lake Tahoe

 aunt Christine at Lake Tahoe

                                             High desert evening, California/Nevada border

Cute motel kittens

Going towards Mono Lake - Sierra Nevada mountains

Mono Lake

 Sediment Tufas at Mono Lake

 Tonton Jacques at Mono Lake

 Yosemite National Park rapids

Bridalveil fall, Yosemite National Park- 188 metres (617 ft)

Sketches

I have a scanner, and it is a magical thing. My cousin Eric gave me a super machine: printer,copier and scanner all in one. And it's compact, too! I have been approaching the machine tentatively, figuring out one feature at a time.
So I scanned sketches. I remember loving to leaf through my friend J's sketch book, seeing what was new as well as revisiting old-time favorites. We were in 7th, 8th, 9th grade, and she was good. She was extremely talented. I felt lucky to see her process, to have access to the beginnings of her creative journey. I loved those sketchbooks so much.
 J and I lost touch since. We're still friends, but from afar and on occasion. She's still (thank God!) an artist, and I'm sure that she has filled her fair share of sketch books since high school. Lucky are those who browse through them.
J's talent was unquestionable at the time, and I knew that my creative strenghts lay elsewhere, in writing and theatre. But nonetheless, her sketchbooks inspired me deeply, and I have since kept the habit of sketching. Not all that often, sometimes so badly I have to throw the paper in the trash out of sheer shame, but frequently enough to have a sketchbook I can leaf through.
So here are a few.I'll give little explanations along the way, because I'm a writer and I can't help associating those images with words, memories and sometimes stories.

Jimi Hendrix -From Electric Ladyland album photograpy. I was listening to the album on the beat-up cd player in the Henn House, Fillmore Street, Bethlehem. It was my first year of apprenticeship at Touchstone. No internet to distract me, possibly Lehigh students screaming in the background. Zach in or out, Michael cooking. 



Ray Lamontagne, Till the Sun Turns Black album cover. Probably drawn the same night. I had just discovered Ray Lamontagne's music after having heard a lot about him. One of the first second hand cd's I ever bought on amazon. 

These were characters I wanted to write: Claire et Aurélien. But I felt the need to draw them instead. I wasn't basing my work on photos or previous drawings. But when I looked at what I had done, I realized these characters looked a bit like my French grandparents. Especially the man. Perhaps the similarities are only in my head. It doesn't really matter. 
                                                 

When John Updike died, they published a striking picture of him in the New York Times. It was all contrasts, very luminous and soulful. I tried to find that quality again in the drawing, but I made his face a bit too wide. 

Study of a hat, based on a real hat that I own (different color, but same shape). I was trying to understand volume, and wean myself out of drawing from pictures. 

Jacques Prévert, qui me toise - ce visage ancré sur la couverture de l'édition folio de Paroles. 

Ma grand-mère et une amie, à Kersiny, Bretagne. Je n'ai pas réussi à convier la perfection de la journée, le soleil éclatant, etc. Mais bon, il faut bien commencer quelquepart... 

Veille de première

Veille de première... on joue notre spectacle Fresh Voices: The Matter of Moments demain. J'ai hâte.
Je m'aperçois, avec chaque spectacle, de la chance que j'ai de faire du théâtre, d'avoir l'opportunité de créer des choses qui se dévoilent sur scène. Et ça me conduit à réfléchir de plus en plus à ce que c'est,  exactement qu'une opportunité. Un article là-dessus à venir sur ce blog, j'éspère.

En attendant un billet de blog plus fourni, voici un petit passage du Tiers Instruit de Michel Serres, que je cite directement (le deuxième paragraphe ici retranscrit) dans mon spectacle Where is this Place? :

Ailleurs alors n'est jamais comme ici, nulle pièce ne ressemble à aucune autre, aucune province ne saurait se comparer à telle ou telle et toutes les cultures diffèrent. La houppelande portulan dément ce que prétend le roi de la lune.
Voyez de tous vos yeux ce paysage zébré, tigré, nué, moiré, chamarré, chagriné, fouetté, lacunaire, ocellé, bariolé, déchiré, à lacets noués, à bonnets croisés, à franges mangées, partout inattendu, misérable, glorieux, magnifique à couper le souffle et faire battre le coeur.

Lyon

J'avais presque oublié que j'avais pris beaucoup de photos de Lyon, donc en voici quelques-unes. J'étais enthousiasmée par les points de vue lyonnais, certains bâtiments, et la lumière.


Quartier du Vieux Lyon



Un fruit d'hiver et deux ballons



Vue de Lyon en montant la côte de la Fourvière

Statue de la Basilique de la Fourvière

Détail d'une mosaique dans la Basilique de la Fourvière

Un des nombreux escaliers lyonnais

Vue de Lyon en montant la côte de la Fourvière

                                   

Pont piéton sur la Saône

                                               

Henry IV, au musée de Cadagne

                                     

Quartier du Vieux Lyon

Quartier du Vieux Lyon, vue de la Basilique de la Fourvière

                                  

Cables de tram dans le quartier de la Croix Rousse

 

Vue prise d'une côte dans le quartier de la Croix Rousse

                                            

Quartier de la Croix Rousse

 

Quartier de la Croix Rousse

 

La Grande Roue de la place Bellecour

Vue prise du quartier de la Croix Rousse

       
                                              

Vue prise de la Croix Rousse

    

Vue prise de la Croix Rousse

La nuit arrive...