MAYER

August 29^th, 2007

The highlight of this day was sitting in a gorgeous park with Julian and Antoine with a picnic. We sat around powering ourselves with the sun and drawing in our sketchbooks. It is so good to see other artists’ styles – things come out of them that would never come out of me and its such an intimate experience to see visually what occurs in the mind of another.

The Musee D’Orsee had even more inspiration for me. We saw in exhibit on the influential impressionist painters – Money, Van Gogh, Picasso, Seurat, Degas, Renoir and a few others. They really were gifted painters and I was surprised to learn that each one of these painters was represented by the same visionary art dealer – Vollard – who became a legend for finding the best artworkd that was uncommon to the public taste.

The kitchen in the hostel is so crowded. There are three stove tops and each one is filled by spaghetti makers, Muslim stew makers, and Etheopian rie makers. It smells so good- but there is not enough space to cook. If you listen to the actual noises – there are dishes and pots clinking, people talking in a few languages, a French Sit-com on TV, 2 babies crying, One man yelling while the wife is peeling radishes. An English boy burned all his bread in the Microwave and I asked him if he had anything else to eat – he said “Some cheese and meat” so I gave him and his friend my bread. I got my wish – to give to someone who needed.

When I was in Sweden staying in the countryside with Gabi and Ulle – they gave me their friend Annie’s number in nice. I gave her a call today wondering if she has time to meet up and maybe a place for me to stay it turns out that Gabi and Ulle are coming in today and Annie has room for me to sleep – this will be so fun for us all to be together.