Joyeux Anniversaire Weekend

coffee in the atelier

Yesterday was my twentieth birthday, and the whole weekend was wonderful. It started on Thursday afternoon (SCAD doesn't have classes on Friday, so while there's still a lot of studio work to be done, Thursday after class is the beginning of our weekend) with the perfect photography job.

Ruth is from Ireland, but she's been living here on the edge of Lacoste with her French husband and two-year-old son for over a year. She makes beautiful jewelry from antique ribbon and silk, much of it from family archives. Because she'll be opening an Etsy shop next month, photographs were in order, and I jumped on the opportunity. Marissa came with me on Thursday afternoon to wrist-model the cuffs, then we got to stay for dinner (ratatouille, beef, rice, and a cheese course). On Saturday afternoon, I returned to photograph the cuffs without a model, and drink my fill of mint tea with honey.

Ruth's cuffs in her atelier

bracelets Ruth made from antique ribbon

A preview of Ruth's handmade cuffs, which will go on sale in her online shop on November 7.

 

Ruth gave me some treasure to make my own jewelry (I mostly make brooches, which I can make with smaller ribbon samples): a box of antique ribbon and silk and several pages from old sample books that salesmen would take to shops, or that shops and warehouses would use to order their supplies of ribbon. I've taken pictures and will be doing more picture pairings with them, so stay tuned for those.

On Friday, all the SCAD students spent the day in Aix-en-Provence, a medium-sized city full of fountains and shops. I went to an antique consignment store, where I found a few small, inexpensive brooch-making materials, plus some beautiful furniture that I wish I could buy. Upholstery is so lovely.

In the afternoon, we visited the Cite du Livre - in what used to be a match factory, it's now a series of libraries with an art gallery, where Herboriser is currently on display. It's a series of illustrations of all the plants mentioned in the writings of Camus, done by a friend of his, alongside Camus' original manuscripts.

coffee in Aix-en-Provence

Sunday morning, I went to Isle sur la Sorgue where there is a weekly antique market. Mostly I watched the mallards in the Sorgue river, plus I got an apple, and some thread for my brooches. The afternoon was relaxing; I took a nap. Then in the evening, a group of us students walked up the hill past the chateau of the Marquis de Sade to a limestone quarry where there is a firepit. My friends Ben, Nicole and Serena had gathered wood that afternoon, and Ben had marshmallows and some kind of French cookies with chocolate on them, so we had French s'mores and it was the perfect birthday evening.