AMAZING WOMEN

WOMEN'S GLOBAL FORUM, DEAUVILLE 2013

Amazing is an over-used word but I'm going to use it lavishly because it's too much of an effort to hunt for alternatives and I have an excuse: bunged up sinuses knocked out my cognitive faculties since I got back from France and writing a blog post, let alone thinking of one, has been about as feasible as climbing Everest. But here I am now so it must mean that the wool filling my head is starting to unravel and will, I hope, evaporate if I continue to inhale menthol-infused steam. 

Everything was amazing from the start of my privileged journey on Eurostar in a Premier class seat, breakfast served by solicitous attendants, and at the Gare du Nord my name was on a card held up by a chauffeur who took me to Deauville, a two and a half hour drive from Paris, without my having had to lift a finger or spend a single Euro just because I was one of the invited speakers at the Women's Forum. I was awed by the mind-blowing logistics of organising such an event, involving 207 speakers and 1200 participants from 70 countries, 600 organisations, 143 journalists, and much more. Amazingly, it all ran like Swiss clockwork with never a hitch, at least not visibly. 

My hotel was at the top of a hill, on a vast golf course overlooking the town - that pale blue strip in the distance is the ocean. Below is the view from the window of my room and below that, moi-même in the mirror on the first night, ready to go out to dinner (flat golden shoes) to meet the organisers. The dinner was at another luxury hotel where the company and the food were....amazing. Normandy is known for its gastronomic delights but don't ask me what I ate, or drank, because I don't remember except that it was all super-delicious and frequently timbale-shaped. 

At first I wondered if I'd have to make a long trek down from the hotel every day to Le CID  - Centre International de Deauville - where the Forum was held, but I soon realised that all possible contingencies had been taken care of: a fleet of navettes (coaches) appeared at regular intervals to transport participants to and from the venue. So much was going on during the three days of the Forum's duration that I saw more of Le Cid's interior than I ever saw of Deauville but in the few glimpses I had of the town, it seemed to me like a designer film set, all posh boutiques, hotels and shuttered second homes, deserted except for weekends and holidays when the well-heeled from Paris and elsewhere roll in to play at casino, race-course, golf or yacht. 

The nostalgic old-world, old-money ambiance surviving in a hard-edged new world was summed up when a well-dressed elderly gentleman hobbling with his cane down a shiny main street came up to me and said apologetically: Pardon madame, quel jour est aujourd'hui? (excuse me madam, what day is today?) It wasn't a chat-up line and he was perfectly sober and when I replied, he thanked me politely and hobbled elegantly away. 

There couldn't have been a more vivid contrast between that tiny melancholy incident and the forward-facing, high-powered, high-achieving, high-heeled goings-on at the Women's Global Forum 2013: compete, cooperate, create. There's no way I can give an adequate report of the event or do justice to the myriad praiseworthy projects happening, or about to happen, in many countries thanks to enterprising, inventive, energetic, courageous and clever women world-wide and to organisations and individuals who support them. It seemed odd that I was there at all: moi, an art-worker usually found sitting in her imitation-ivory tower, making things of no discernable use to the real world and occasionally blogging about it: what on earth was I doing in such real-world company? I was very happy to be there but wandered around in a daze, not sure where to focus my attention. Most interesting to me were the conversations I had with some of the fascinating women I met. The Creativity and Aging session (the reason I was invited) was probably the least interesting part of the Forum, in my opinion. But I'll write about that in the next post. 

One thing I did was to take photographs and, looking at them when I returned home, I see that visual content almost always holds my attention more than the verbal. The images I gathered and remember from this experience will, I'm sure, serve me for paintings or other media. I share some of them below. More words and pictures tomorrow. 

 

Heels and mobiles at the Forum

Welcome party given by the Mayor of Deauville at Villa le Cercle

 

Russian-themed party given by Cartier at Deauville casino in honour of the Russian delegation

 Cooking Boeuf Stroganoff

 

Serious Russians cooking

 

Blue dress, red lighting

 Listening to Russian musicians

In a Russian sled 

 

African winners

 Busy legs, shiny surfaces

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AU REVOIR

Am off to France early tomorrow morning but here's the link showing yours truly on the Forum website. And if you click on Speakers on that page, you'll get the whole photo-gallery of the beautiful...intimidatingly beautiful...people I am going to be mingling with. Full report later.

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AND FURTHERMORE...

Here is a relevant comic strip which I drew in 2009. 

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STILL CREATIVE EVEN IF...aging?

A few months ago I was invited to be one of the speakers at a prestigious conference organised by the Women's Forum for the Economy and Society which will take place from October 16 to 18 in Deauville, France. Of course I accepted, as you can see by checking the list of speakers here. 

UPDATE: the 'here' link doesn't work properly, at least on  my browser. It should go to the main Forum site with all speakers pictured and full program as a PDF. Try simply entering Womens Forum Deauville in Google.  
 
The subject I've been asked to participate in discussing on Friday, 18th October, along with Russian author Ludmila Ulitskaya, and Professor David Galenson from the University of Chicago, and Pamela Ryckman, American author and journalist, is: 

Creativity and, ahem, Aging

 

The ahem is entirely mine and explains why I am simultaneously flattered by this invitation and stupefaite that I have turned into someone who can actually be described as ageing. Moi? Vieillissant? There isn't even a French word for the process. I hear you say: fact of life, deal with it! I deal with it by the effective method known as denial. 

Who says denial is bad? For example, it is perfectly sensible to deny entry to burglars or cockroaches or poisonous fumes. So, by denying entry into my psyche of the concept 'aging' I am sensibly keeping out all the heavy baggage that comes with it - prejudices, stereotypes, theories, surveys, statistics. I'm not ignoring death, that would be idiotic. But let me cross that bridge when it comes. The period between then and now is the present and creativity is always in the present tense. 

Does creativity change in the same way one's body changes with time? I've spent my whole life in the creativity game - it is a serious kind of game - and I can't detect any great differences between past and present in terms of creativity. Rather than time, what has always deeply affected creativity for me are life experiences, relationships, places. I chose art as a child, never considering any other profession, and choosing to be a full-time artist is basically giving yourself permission not to join the adult world, the world in which people have proper jobs and proper careers and go on holidays and retire eventually and do that thing called 'aging'. A full-time life-long artist doesn't retire, doesn't like going on holidays, and denies aging. Voilà. C'est tout. 

Next week I'm off to Deauville. Will report, with pictures when I return. I leave you with a photo of 84-year old Matisse creating with cut-out coloured paper in 1952.

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LESS OPINIONS, MORE WORK

It's hard not to voice an opinion on the crisis in Syria and the world powers' current stance concerning it but I'm resisting the temptation to add to the debates, at least online, though in conversation with friends I can't help saying what I think. I'm aware that my knowledge of the complex factors involved in the situation, being based only on what I read in the media, is so limited that any words I can say on the subject are about as much use to the problem as the meowing of a cat or the tweeting of birds and Tweeters. Therefore I'm posting more artwork to distract your attention from more serious matters, if only for a minute or two.

Here's another of the rough black & white sketches for the book, with one stage of the cut block lying on the table. The vinyl tile is about 2mm thick and quite bendy so the block is fragile because of its large open areas. But after it's been textured with gesso, I glue it to a second vinyl block which acts as backing and brings it up to the right height for eventual printing. The vinyl is quite resistant and cutting blocks with a scalpel requires a lot of effort - I wear a thin leather glove so as not to get sore between thumb and index finger where the handle of the knife rests. Stanley or other chunky knives are not suitable for intricate cuts. The second photo below shows the block upright. 

And now for some entirely different artwork. I did the little painting below a few months ago, working fast and loose as a break from slow, concentrated effort. As sometimes happens, such exhalations can turn out surprisingly well - this one's going into my Apple Series.

A Happy Apple NdA 2013. Oil on canvas board. 25 x 30cms (10" x 12") 

Another artwork, this one from a very long time ago: a portrait of my late ex-husband Reg which I painted in San Miguel Allende, Mexico where I first met him, when I was an art student and he was a teacher at the Instituto Allende (see this part of my autobiography). The portrait will soon be going to Vancouver where some of his grown-up children and grand-children live. It was painted in Duco, the industrial paint which was used at the art school and by many of the Mexican muralists. I like this painting, it captures Reg's personality, the sunny time and the enthusiasm I felt. 

Reg in San Miguel, Mexico  NdA. Duco on board. 24" x 36"

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