Sacre Bleu! It’s Bastille Day Again…

And the Huffingtons are ready to throw a fete. With our usual frantic buzz of activity, we have been cataloguing, photographing, framing and pondering our hanging strategy for the gallery’s most fun event of the year.

Laura Shubert, La Fete, 30 x 40, acrylic on canvas

We’re not quite sure why this event garners such a devoted and happy crowd – we chalk it up to being held in the middle of the week, in the middle of July, in the middle of the summer…and just when you think the whole world is on vacation, it turns out that lots of people are around and ready to play.

Last year, we all wore our French espadrilles that Madame brought us from Provence…

We always have Jaques (aka Don, his real name) on hand to belt out the French classics and what a great job he does. We can promise plenty of nice wine, delicious nibbles and, of course, some drop dead new art from our gallery French and American artists.

On Madame’s last trip to Paris, she called me to excitedly tell me about some new paintings she had found. She sent me some photos but I couldn’t really appreciate them until I saw them in person.

These small watercolors by Fanch Lel are deceptively simple but a closer look reveals a real talent by the artist to capture the essence of all things French.

Fanch Lel, Moutons en baie du Mont St. Michel, 5 x 7, oil on board

We love his graceful treatment and skilled hand…but especially love the sweet and charming ambiance of these. They are painted on plain and simple board and are very small, but we love the way they gussied up in their new ornate and chunky frames.

Fanch Lel, Les Quais de Quimper, 5 x 7, oil on board

Fench Lel, Maree Basse, 7 x 5, oil on board

And that’s what makes the art business so pleasurable. The art doesn’t need to have any special heritage, nobility or accolades (although don’t get us wrong, that doesn’t hurt!) to make it special and meaningful. We always go by what our heart says and this time it was an easy decision.

And, our fete doesn’t just celebrate our French artists. Many of our wonderful gallery artists have caught the bug and have been bitten by that certain “je ne sais quoi” – Nancy Franke comes to mind with her spontaneous and deft use of color, shape and light. We adore this one that portrays beautiful Isle sur la Sorgue in Provence.

Nancy Franke, Dimanche a Ile, 16 x 16, oil on canvas

(By the way, we’re delighted to announce that Nancy is leading not one but two painting trips to Provence this fall. We can only imagine what fun the artists will have with this spunky, lively and talented teacher.)

Also joining us for our fete is artist extraordinaire and master of brushwork, Bill Davidson and we are so thrilled to have his pieces gracing the walls.

Bill Davidson, Provence Colors, 18 x 24, oil on linen

We welcome guest artist Lesley Powell to the gallery. We fell in love with her poker-faced and ever-so-French waiters who look like they could be rolling their eyes as their customers struggle with their bad French.

Lesley Powell, Maitre D’, oil on canvas, 20 x 16

And, we can’t get enough of Laura Shubert's light-drenched French exteriors and interiors. You can just about feel the warm sun and smell the lavender when you study her work.

Laura Shubert, Chandelier and Stairs, 36 x 36, acrylic on canvas

Laura Shubert, French Facade, 36 x 36, acrylic on canvas

So, if you’re in town, don your beret and slip on your espadrilles and stop by the gallery for a French fix: Thursday, July 14^th from 6-8 p.m. Bonne Fete!

Ta ta. See you Thursday!

HH

Paris in Sepia

We love it when people reinvent themselves and come up with things that, later in life, they are passionate about. That’s probably because at one time or other, we have all done that at the gallery. In fact, between us we have worn so many hats in our collective professional lives that it would make your head spin! We’ve had careers in marketing, advertising, real estate, public relations, food service (remember waitressing your way through college?), college admissions, teaching (English, French, theatre and even skiing!), flight attending, retail, interior design, and much much more. And that’s without even including Sam Jones, our real renaissance lady, whose resume would take up five pages!

One of our favorite clients, who not only has collected art from us over the years but also been to Provence with one of our groups, recently reinvented herself and has become passionate about photography. She is so excited about this new found passion and so charged by the enthusiasm of those who’ve viewed her work that it has given her a whole new lease on life, following a few tough years with persnickety health issues and a variety of interesting careers.

We first met April Dilbeck when we were babies in the art gallery business and selling out of Scotts, the famous flea market located near the airport. April had the booth next to ours, and she featured beautiful European antiques. We instantly bonded and became friends and April went on to becoming a cherished friend and client, who accompanied us on one of our first tours of Provence, a few years ago.

Knowing that we are all Francophiles here at the gallery, and thinking we could suggest a venue for some of her newest photographs, April sent us some examples of her recent work on Paris, entitled “Paris in sepia,” and politely asked for advice.

It so happens that she took these Paris photos following one of our trips to Provence, when she was staying at a quaint little hotel on the Left Bank, and spent much of her time dodging rain storms. Luckily, those dramatic storms became the backdrop for her photography, and that is one of the reasons her work is so powerfully luminous.

We loved the images and are thrilled to introduce a friend, and talented artist, April Dilbeck, who will be a guest artist for our Bastille Day Show on July 14^th. We hope that you will be equally drawn to April’s beautiful photographs of Paris and join us for a fun filled evening of wine, cheese, music and art … one of our favorite shows of the year.

We hope you’ll join us next week as we toast our French artists, and our not-so-French American artists, who have all been bitten by the French bug, and whose work will be gracing our gallery walls starting on Bastille Day, July 14th, 2011.

And we hope you’ll join us in welcoming April Dilbeck as a talented guest artist for this fun show.

A bientot!

HH

Shopping for Paris

Postcards from Paris

With its new kitchen finally delivered and installed, the Paris apartment was begging to be furnished. What better place to shop than the local antique fairs in Paris? (And who better to go with than Huffington pros, Linda Mohan and Sam Jones? Talk about a collective “great eye”!)

Linda and I were pinching ourselves, wandering up the aisles of the fabulous Chatou market, held twice a year on the outskirts of Paris. The first big purchase was the piece de resistance, the gorgeous gilded mirror, for the mantel in the kitchen.

Here I am proudly posing with it before and after its delivery … before I realized that it didn’t fit!

But luckily, we found another spot for it, which worked even better: Over the living room sofa.

Then Linda and I spotted this table that had beautiful Louis XV lines and a wonderfully worn French walnut finish. Of course Linda had to test it, to make sure that we could fit our American legs under it, because a low apron is a typical problem with a lot of antique French tables.

But this one passed the test and fit beautifully in the kitchen, just as planned.

I’ve always loved fabric with birds and this little scrap of fabric, in one of the antique stalls, just jumped out at me:

There wasn’t enough to do much, so I walked away from it. And when I felt the pull to go back and get it, someone else had picked it up. That’s when I knew I had to have it! Luckily, my competition was as fickle as I was, and before she even walked away and without knowing what I could use it for, I grabbed it. How fortunate, because it is the perfect show curtain!

It was love at first site when I saw this beautiful and ornate Napoleon III mirror in the Regence style (note that a real “Regence” Mirror would have been four times the price), and thinking that it would work beautifully in the bathroom, I bought it.

But in the game of musical mirrors that I’ve already mentioned a few times, this elegant beauty ended up in the front hall, and looks even better on the wallpaper (which was hand-carried in my suitcase from Atlanta, by the way!).

And speaking of musical mirrors, this one that Sam Jones (see her little reflection in it?) and I found at l’Isle sur la Sorgue in the South of France a few weeks later, that was originally planned for the one of the bedrooms …

… worked perfectly in the kitchen!

Sam and I fell madly in love with these Louis XVI style chairs that we found in the South of France.

But then we found that they looked so beautiful in the South of France (this will be in another blog, our renovation of Les Murets), that we decided they had to stay there.

So we robbed Paris to feed Provence, and found some other Louis chairs for Paris … whose backsides we just had to cover in pink and white silk taffeta … a move that Meg immediately coined as “Sassy” – which was just the look we were looking for!

One of these chandeliers would have been good enough, but when I found two identical ones … I couldn’t resist!

And a matching pair of sconces to boot? After months on the hunt, I had found just the right ones.

But when I first hung them, I was worried that my little apartment would look like the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles …

But Sam assured me that with a little artwork and a few accessories, it would go from bling to bling to the perfect zing!

Linda and I found this sweet little chandelier at Chatou.

I didn’t realize until it was hung, just how pretty it was. I just love the Swedish lines and how elegant it looks in our little checked bedroom (there’s a story behind the check that will make it to another blog – check that out!).

When Sam and I found the perfect side tables at the Paris flea market, it never occurred to us they would have to join us at lunch, while we waited for a taxi!

And it never occurred to our unsuspecting taxi driver that this merchandise would pop out from behind the bushes and need to be squeezed in to the cab!

But how else could we get it home? And how wonderful they look, once we got them there.

Shopping with these two gallery gals is entertaining and productive. But I did have to tell Linda to leave her little friend behind!

Sorry Linda, no room at the Inn for him!

What fun.

Do you want to how all these purchases play together in Paris? Stay tuned for more … as the Paris apartment is unveiled … little by little.

Tata,

AH (with Sam and Linda)

Birth of a Kitchen – in Paris

The Paris Apartment, Part XI

Remember a long, long time ago … one of the Huffingtons mentioned she’d found the perfect apartment in Paris, and she even blogged about it? She called it Heaven in the 7th, and dreamed about spending Christmas there with her family.

That naive but happy Huffington was me. And although the apartment needed a new kitchen, and an extra bathroom, and the bedrooms had to be reconfigured, and all the systems had to be renovated and upgraded, I was assured that it was a quick and easy project and told it would take a “good month,” as in the French, “un bon mois.” It actually went from “un bon mois” to “deux mois” to “quatre mois to “huit mois” to, well, let’s just say I could have birthed this renovation and it would have gone faster!

But never mind. It’s almost done … and we are at the fun part. Now looking back, I’ll share a few stories along the way, to finish the saga of the Paris Apartment.

First off, there was the tough decision about moving the kitchen. The problem was that it was located in the wrong part of the apartment – in the back, miles away from the dining area (as is typical of most Haussmann style apartments). But did it make sense to have a kitchen with a view like this?

When in the front of the building, the view was like this?

Once we made the decision to move it, we realized that the practically brand new kitchen in the apartment could not be reconfigured to work in the new space … a blessing in disguise for me since I really didn’t like the existing kitchen, even if it was brand new. After all, did I really want a kitchen like this?

When I’d been secretly dreaming of something like this?

Luckily, it turns out that we found someone who needed a new kitchen, and our contractor agreed to take it out for free if he could give it to this elderly person – and keep one of the elements for himself. Huge relief!

I wanted a kitchen that was cozy and elegant, and looked as though it had been in the apartment for years. Ironically, I wanted what we Americans call a French style kitchen. But ironically, French style is actually very hard to find in Paris, where tastes run to super modern, high gloss contemporary.

After looking at hundreds of kitchen designs and despairing that none of them had what I wanted, I stumbled upon a small kitchen design store in the northern part of the Marais, and immediately knew I’d found my match.

Luckily for me, the owner was in and I quickly explained what I was looking for. I had a rough idea of the dimensions and so he sat down, with pencil in hand, and literally sketched out a drawing that was completely perfect.

We talked a little more, and decided to expand the kitchen to the whole room, and so he added on another section.

I approved it on the spot, and with a brief discussion of finances and a solid handshake, we agreed to have him build the kitchen.

My contractor prepped the room for the kitchen installation, and for an eternity, I waited patiently while the “kitchen” looked like this:

Meanwhile, the kitchen designer was less than communicative, and many months passed before I heard from him. I persistently phoned or emailed but I kept hearing the same chorus: Soon! It’s almost ready!

And then one day my contractor called and said, “Your kitchen has been delivered!” I was so thrilled at long last that I hopped on the next flight and could barely contain my excitement. But somehow “delivered” hadn’t meant “installed,” and this was what I found when I arrived in Paris that morning!

On my next visit, the kitchen hadn’t improved much more, but at least I could see the color – which, by the way, was not what I’d ordered – but I’ve learned to like it just the same!

The big excitement was when the mirror was delivered, and I proudly posed in front of it:

But when it came to hanging it over the mantel, it didn’t fit! I had carefully measured for the mirror's installation but hadn’t taken the kitchen cabinet molding into consideration, and my gorgeous piece de resistance was just a 1/2 inch too wide on either side. But no worries, I had another mirror that I’d bought for one of the bedrooms, and in a game of musical mirrors, we managed to find just the perfect solution:

The kitchen is now almost finished and I am the happiest camper. We didn’t get in for Christmas … or Valentine’s day … or Easter or Mother’s Day. But as spring turns to summer, and the sun sets at 10:38 p.m. in Paris, I’ll forget about the long months, the delays, the overruns and the costly mistakes and will be drinking up the last rays of sunlight, in my kitchen with a view, ever thankful for a dream come true.

Do you want to see more of the finished apartment?

Stay tuned …

Tata,

AH