It was a full week of truly being part of a small village in France.  My new class of adventurous women artists (and men!) arrived this week.  We started off with a unique small village event.  Our village, Durfort, has been known for its copperware since the Middle Ages.  We have several copper shops and a copper museum.  A new book has been recently published- written by local villagers- and we had a party to celebrate that event.  I knew there would be wine and nibblies for all the villagers so on our first day here we walked down to the town square in search of the party!  We were invited into the museum where one of the copperworkers was introducing the book and a DVD on the arduous process of creating the beautiful hand-hammered copper pots.  He knew we were Americans and kindly translated every now and then especially for my group.

The two men in my group studied drawing and painting every morning with our local artist Peter Welsford, while I taught my ladies every morning the joys of polymer clay and mixed media book arts and jewelry.  One day we all studied silk painting with artist Ann Mason- also a village resident (and wife of Peter).  Last night we had the debut of the silks, drawings and paintings at Ann and Peter’s

Every days’ art- making was followed by a field trip to places for inspiration and treasure hunting and gathering- we found many goodies at a flea market deep in the Montagne Noir (the Black Mountain) and at the Antiques market in nearby Revel.  On the way back from Albi we were able to stop in a sunflower field that extended as far as the eye could see.

A full week- a joy to share it with these special, lovely, talented, inspirational, and fun people- Merci to Wendy, David, Marcia, Marie, Pat, Mary Joyce, Neala, Carl, Allyson and Nona! I will miss all the laughter and amazing important trivia you all know about so many things! You made my week a happy one!