VCCA France, Revisited

When I first participated in this residency in 2018, I didn’t speak any French. But I took a few classes since then, and that minimal knowledge opened up a world of interactions that I couldn’t have experienced the first time I was in Auvillar. Familiarity with the village compelled me to learn more about it. This time I also sought out the people who didn’t speak English in order to try and join them in conversation.

My residency in July 2022 was sandwiched between two other month-long contracts, one in upstate New York and the other in Wyoming. Traveling to Auvillar from Pine Plains, NY, was one of the more exhausting and strange experiences of my life. It involved six trains, two airplanes, and two car rides, all with an exactly 50 lb suitcase full of drawing paper and art supplies that I couldn’t lift due to an inflamed elbow. It felt as though I was traveling to the end of the world.

I met several interesting people in the process of jumping from train to train and flight to flight. While standing in one of the long lines at JFK, I met two delightful artists from Pennsylvania, Lisa and her partner Drew. Later, at the Paris airport, I met Alison who had the same connecting flight to Toulouse, which we both missed and had to reschedule. She was an astrophysicist at NASA, headed to a conference titled “Cool Stars” (about low-mass stars, exoplanets, and solar physics). In Toulouse, I couldn’t find an affordable way to get from the airport to the regional train line when I came across a crew of archaeologists in their 20s and 30s who had just arrived from Africa. They were headed in the same direction as me, so they helped me buy a shuttle ticket and later a metro pass. They were carrying a huge device for topographical land surveying, and their guide was a young man with beautiful and intricate parallel lines of scarification covering his whole face, a kind of body modification that I had never seen in person before. In downtown Toulouse I connected with Jo, another artist headed for Auvillar. We took the train together and then got a ride from Sabine, one of the residency staff. By the time I got to the residency, it felt like weeks—not two days—had passed.

After the initial Covid tests and isolation, we were free to gather. I was so happy to see that Cheryl, John, Sabine, and Fatiha were still running the program. They normally have 4 artists/writers/composers participating at any given time, but the contract dates are often staggered. Jo and I were the only ones who overlapped for the full month of July, and as luck would have it, we got along splendidly. During the first week we met Brian, a writer from Ohio, and Jeff, a composer and guqin player from Edmonton, Alberta.

A day or two before leaving the residency, Jeff put on a concert for us at the 14^th Century St Catherine chapel, which was basically a ruin open to the public, located only a few doors away from us. In 2018, I photographed this building from the outside but never went inside to see the crumbling medieval walls and light filtering through the rosette window.

Jo was especially taken by the chapel and decided to use it as an installation site. Among other projects, she was developing a series of cyanotypes (using the Mediterranean sun, which worked in her favor). Her artwork referenced both nuclear and spiritual “radiation” as it embeds itself into time and memory. There was indeed a nuclear power plant visible in the distance from the village overlook. I mentioned in my previous journal entry how our ideas and sensibilities ultimately influenced each other. Embodiment meets emission.

After the first week at VCCA France, a composer from the Boston area, Sid, arrived. For approximately two weeks it was just the three of us—me, Jo, and Sid. We ended up spending lots of time together: going to the market, having dinner, doing studio visits, meeting up in the village. Sid was quite the bon vivant. He shared copious amounts of all sorts of strange foods along with a bottle of Armagnac.

I was so glad to discover that many of my favorite places in the village weren’t marred by the pandemic. I visited La Savonnerie de la Tour, where the owner, Virginie, hand-crafted beautifully scented soaps. I purchased baguettes at the only boulangerie in town, whose breads (only the breads) were amazing. I had a chance to hang out with Daniel and Nanie, a fun couple who run the Arkad Art Centre. And I bought hand-painted and extremely affordable greeting cards from Isabelle Foulon, who sells them at the outdoor market both in Auvillar and in the larger nearby village, Valence D’Agen. Jo and I were obsessed and couldn’t stop going back to her. I’m not sure how many cards Jo purchased, but I bought exactly 40.

This time I also revisited the outdoor antique market, which takes place in the village center only once a year in July.

At the antique market, I came across a bin that had approximately 300 postcards, some over 100 years old, some used, some still blank. The price posted on the bin was 12 Euros, which seemed incredibly steep for an antique postcard, so I asked the vendor if I had read it correctly. He gave me an exasperated look, sighed, and said (in French) “Can you please take it off my hands for 10 Euros?” Wait, the whole bin for 10 Euros!? I hurried across the square and found Jo at another stand. She and I split the cost of that bin, and the vendor dumped the cards into two plastic bags. The next few evenings were dedicated to sifting through the cards, reading them, and compulsively organizing them by category. Somehow these cards stand out as a strong motif in my memory of the entire residency. We were overwhelmed by cards in general, both from the antique market and from Isabelle. They ended up scattered across the dining table and coffee table in the living space, in our bedrooms, on the patio table, on our studio walls… As I mentioned in my previous entry, an image from one of the cards even made it into my artwork!

Having many postcards to mail meant that I had to pay several visits to the post office. Their only employee spoke incredibly fast, faster than anyone else I encountered. I couldn’t understand him, and I couldn’t remember the words for “fast” and “slow”, so I said “Vous parlez très umm…” and he finished my sentence “Vite?” He smiled in amusement and tried slowing down, but only the pauses between his words became longer.

On my first visit to Auvillar, four years ago, I missed the village museum. With my ceramics background, I don’t know how this could have happened. The village is known for its history of pottery production, and the museum featured mostly antique local ceramics.

Speaking of ceramics, I gave Sabine a few pottery lessons four years ago. This time, a lovely friend of hers, Muriel, had acquired a potter’s wheel and was trying to teach herself wheelthrowing via YouTube. She didn’t speak English, and I didn’t really speak French, at least not for something as nuanced as ceramics, but we made do and I gave her a couple of lessons with the help of my translator app. Despite the language barrier, we got through it and even had dinner at a popular new restaurant in the village, Chez Tati. I remember discussing how difficult it is to pronounce the word “squirrel” in both English and in French.

In 2018, there was the soccer World Cup. This time around, another important sporting event happened to pass right through the village: the Tour de France. The race was literally visible from our building, but I walked down to the road to get a closer look. People were ecstatic. The hilarious sponsor floats went on for about two hours, driving fast and flinging candy and various other merch at onlookers, including children. The race was even faster than the cars. I didn’t think I’d be moved by cyclists, but they were pretty sensational.

I already loved VCCA France four years ago and thought it was perfect, yet they managed to improve the program. Some additions include mosquito screens on studio windows, renovated bathrooms, a laundry dryer, and two scheduled weekly communal dinners with invitees from the village.

I made over a dozen pieces during my stay; Le Moulin à Nef is a truly stimulating place to work. My previous two journal entries have images of the new artwork along with a description of how it was influenced by François Rabelais, a French writer from the 16^th Century. As expected, people knew more about Rabelais in France than in the United States, which made for some interesting conversations during our open studios event.

I hope to return again someday.

The residency and travel costs were partially subsidized by VCCA, and partially funded by an International Professional Development Grant from the Global Studies Program at Oakton College.