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Any milestone is worth taking these days, even the ones we all ineluctably see pass by at the year’s end and beginning. May 2007 be kind to us all.
THREE AND COUNTING…
Next year promises to be an especially busy one. I am putting the finishing touches on a new book, writing like mad and doing step-by-step imagery for another, and have begun a third book – text and images – to be delivered by the end of 2007.
Add to that all the little things that come one’s way, and the preparations for the busy summer in St. Ursanne, 2007 promises to be… eventful.
Thus, having kept last year’s New Year’s resolution to do a newsletter every two weeks, even I am not foolhardy enough to try that again. I’ll do my best to remain as punctual as possible, but there will inevitably be times when I won’t keep up. Thus, if I fall silent for a while, it’s not out of sloth or prolongued idleness, just that I’m madly scribbling away at something else.
OF GREEN FACES, SANDSTONE FOLIAGE, SPIRAL STAIRCASES AND UNDER-SEVENS…
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Green faces or green men of course originated as an art form in the Middle East several thousand years ago, but they appear everywhere, as growing things have that irrepressible habit of doing. This particular one is likely quite late – perhaps even 18th or 19th century, and tucked away under a cornice on the corner of a building. He is very fierce-looking, though, so I always make sure I drop by to pay my respects.
Most of the Strasbourg cathedral has been recently restored. (In fact, they have been at it as long as I can recall. I think the edifice has always had scaffolding hiding some portion of it over the last three decades.) These intricate and foliatious arabesques are more or less at street level, and will undoubtedly be replaced one day..
The spiral gothic staircase in the Cathedral Museum must be one of the most exceptional anywhere. It is so perfectly proportioned, so extravagantly decorated and so elegant, that it might well have grown rather then been sculpted.
We did have a very pleasant if slightly hectic time in Strasbourg, but signing sessions where the line-up stretches across the shop and into the street and around the corner leave me with a lasting impression of a blur. My happiest moment, though, was when a father-daughter team, who had patiently stood hours in line, asked if I could do a little drawing. Generally, when the queue is just too long, we scrap the idea of drawings from the start, so first of all I explained how unfair it would be to everyone else to do a drawing for only one customer, and then said to the little girl, who had been concealing her growing deception remarkably well, “How old are you?” “Six and a half”, she replied. “It’s your lucky day,” I answered, “today I’m ONLY doing drawings for people under seven.”
Well, it’s Christmas, isn’t it?
There are quite a few photos of the session here. I feel like one of those cardboard cut-outs people pose with to have their picture taken… But, seriously, it was well-organized and very friendly.
Take care all,
J
