I should have made this post right after Bastille Day but I still want to share these pics with you. I had a lovely opportunity to share a great dinner and the evening with friends in Castelnaudary- a town about 1/2 hour from here. Castelnaudary is the home of great Cassoulet and the official week-long Cassoulet Festival!

Our friends Roger and Cheryl have an apartment right on the Canal du Midi where the fireworks for Bastille Day take place.

I have never in my life had such an unusual fireworks experience. We were safely behind glass but the fireworks were right over us! Every time a new one went up we felt like we were right inside of the sparkling shower. Of course it’s very hard to capture in pictures but here’s a few.

Le Tournesol (the Sunflower) is a restaurant in Soreze, a charming village five minutes away, that has a single chef/owner who has been there for over 40 years! The restaurant serves lovely traditional food at moderate prices and I have taken my workshop groups there for several years. Gigi exhibits local artists and the art is beautifully displayed on the old stone walls of the restaurant. There are 5 rooms of wonderful paintings, sculptures and wall pieces.

I am honored to have my first exhibition in France there this summer. I have 5 large fabric collages (approximately 2 ft x 4 ft) and 8 small collages (9″ x 12″).

Each wall hanging has polymer clay embellishments including a brooch that comes off to wear.

Thank you Gigi and to the lovely ladies that have purchased my art this summer- means so much to me! Here’s pictures of a few of the wall hangings.

It’s been just a couple days since my workshop gals left.  I want to thank these fun adventuresome ladies for a great time! Thanks for letting me share La Cascade, this wonderful area of France and studio time with you all. AND the sunflowers!

We had a very full week. Started off the week with a silk painting class with Ann Mason- each participant making a beautiful finished scarf. We had studio time each day, making mixed media jewelry, handmade books and some wonderful art figures/dolls.

We visited local galleries and boutiques in our sweet village Durfort, and also the Dom Robert Tapestry Museum in Soreze, the big Saturday market in Revel and a good flea market in a lovely village called St. Michel de Lanes.

We spent an afternoon in Albi and an evening at Le Tournesol Restaurant (the Sun Flower) where I have my first French exhibition going on right now.

Pictures next week of my expo.

Ladies, MERCI a TOUS! Jane, Rita, Beverlee, Denise, Sammie, Pat, Beverly, Linda, Sheeler, and Patti!

Four days and counting til my workshop gals get here! I am looking forward to a fun-filled full week with all of them.

I’ve got a surprise for them- my first exhibition in France has opened. It’s in a beautiful restaurant called Le Tournesol (the Sunflower). We’ll all be going there during the week. I’ll post several pictures next week.

And the sunflowers in the fields have started blooming- glorious!

My workshop at La Cascade arrives in less than two weeks. I’m very excited to share the week with 10 adventurous women!  Dan and I took a brief jaunt to Andorra, for a quick little getaway before the workshop.

Andorra is located high in the Pyrenees and is bordered by Spain and France. It’s about a 3 hour drive from us.  Beautiful scenery- astounding views of the mountains, speckled with wild flowers and horses and cows grazing high on the hills. The last hour of the drive is a long switch-backed climb up hill. Andorra la Velle- where we stayed- is the highest capital city in Europe! The official language is Catalan and in 2013 it had the highest life expectancy of 81 years!

The main reason we went was for a performance by Cirque du Soleil. I found the event on the  internet and it looked so exciting and the tickets ranged from FREE to 18E seats! Amazing- considering how expensive Cirque is in the US. So off we went. I also highly recommend the inexpensive and beautiful hotel we stayed at- Hotel Isard.

This new production is called Stelar. This is the fifth summer that Cirque has had a month long residency high in the Pyrenees Mountains mountains. Taking pics was forbidden at the event so I don’t have any of mine to share. Suffice to say it was awesome- a highlight of the summer.