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The Perks of Being an Artist

Tag Archives: travel

Rouen

02 Friday Jun 2017

Posted by emilypageart in art, culture, painting, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

art, artist, Europe, european building, france, painting, painting of france, painting of rouen, rouen, rouen france, travel

One of the things I like about painting the places I’ve visited, is that it makes you stop and examine the details of the things you hurriedly snapped photos of as you wandered around in a daze exploring a city. I tend to take photos with paintings in mind, so there’s not a ton of cropping or other editing necessary. But I’m still so busy photographing everything I find even vaguely interesting, that I don’t process what I’m seeing fully. So, I love sitting down with a paintbrush, examining the photos I’ve taken, and recreating the photo in a new way. Sometimes I’ll do the same scene in different styles, sometimes I just create a quick sketch, and other times I get really detailed with it.

These two paintings are of the same street in Rouen, France, but from opposite ends of that street.

Painting - Rouen 2

Rue Malpalu, Rouen, France 8″ x 6″ watercolor on paper

Gene

Painting - Rouen

Rue Malpalu, Rouen, France II 6″ x 8″ watercolor on paper

Generally, getting shots of a street without people in it is a challenge. I take a series of shots from the same angle so that, as people move in and out of view, I can see what’s there when the people aren’t in the way. That way, if someone is blocking a doorway or some shutters in one shot, they won’t be in the next, so between the several photos, I can get an accurate idea of what that doorway or shutter actually looks like. Then I can selectively add or delete people as I sketch out the painting.

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Pere Lachaise Cemetery

01 Thursday Jun 2017

Posted by emilypageart in art, culture, painting, Uncategorized

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Tags

art, Emily Page Art, french cemetery, graves, mausoleum, painting, paris cemetery, pere lachaise cemetery, Raleigh artist, travel

After my crisis where I thought I’d try not painting for awhile, I realized that that’s stupid. I just can’t not paint. I’m still in a crisis as I try to figure out how the hell to sell all that art, but I can’t stop making it. Today, I sat down and did a little painting of the Pere Lachaise Cemetery that I visited on my trip to France last month. At the end of our river cruise, my mom and I tacked on a couple days in Paris because our cruise didn’t include a couple of my favorite spots on their tour. One of those spots was the Pere Lachaise Cemetery where all sorts of famous-y-type people are buried. It’s fun hunting down the various graves, but honestly, even if you don’t look for any one marker in particular, it’s a gorgeous, peaceful stroll. There are huge, monument style markers, mausoleums, and small, more modest headstones. Some date back to the 1800’s, and some are more recent, and they are the final resting places for everyone from Moliere, Chopin, Delacroix, and Oscar Wilde, to Jim Morrison.

A couple tips for anyone interested in visiting: if you take the metro, get off at the Gambetta station, not the Pere Lachaise station. That will allow you to enter the cemetery from the opposite end, which means you’ll be walking downhill most of the way through the cemetery. If you’re visiting in the summer, wear bug spray, because the gnats and mosquitos can be intense. Fair warning: if you don’t have a map and wander around long enough, drunk guys will offer to show you to various graves and expect payment when they get you there. Their English is generally good enough to get basics across to you, and, honestly, we had fun chatting with our “guide” as he weaved us through the cemetery, but there is some haggling at the end for how much you pay them. Start low, because they’ll ask for more.

Anyway, here is the painting I just knocked out – one of the shady paths through the cemetery:

Pere Lachaise Cemetery.jpg

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Regensburg at Night

08 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by emilypageart in art, painting, Uncategorized

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Tags

art, artist, cathedral, cityscape, clock tower, Emily Page, Emily Page Art, Germany, Raleigh artist, Regensburg, travel, Viking River Cruise

One more sketch from my favorite stop on my trip down the Danube last summer, Regensburg.

Regensburg watercolor 3.JPG

Prints available here.

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Nuremberg

03 Tuesday Jan 2017

Posted by emilypageart in painting, Uncategorized

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art, artist, cityscape, Danube, Emily Page, Emily Page Art, european castle, european streets, Germany, Nuremberg, paint, painter, painting, Raleigh artist, street scene, travel, Viking River Cruise

This is another watercolor study from my trip down the Danube last summer. Our first stop was Nuremberg, where we hiked up a steep hill to a castle, and then were able to look out over the city.  What a perfect introduction to Germany!

nuremberg-watercolor-2

Nuremberg Views 6″ x 8″ watercolor and pen on paper

Prints available here.

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Why Are American Doorknobs So Boring?

07 Wednesday Sep 2016

Posted by emilypageart in art, culture, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Danube, doorknob, doors, European door, travel

Remember how I said I was done posting about my trip down the Danube? Well, apparently, I’m a jerkface who lies. I forgot about this post. On the trip, I started getting obsessed with doors, doorknobs, and locks. I took almost 100 photos of just doorknobs. Seriously. We’d be on a tour and I’d be cutting off my fellow travelers, cars, bicyclists, horse drawn carriages, furry woodland creatures – all to cross the street to snap a shot of a cool doorknob. I have no idea why. They were just…neat. I’m going to spare you a massive photo dump of the shots I took, and just do a tiny photo dump instead. I’m sorry and you’re welcome.

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Last Danube Stuff, I Swear, Sort Of

18 Thursday Aug 2016

Posted by emilypageart in blog, culture, humor, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

airport, airport security, Amsterdam, birds, Danube, Detroit, Kandinsky, Passau, patterns, travel, water ripples

I think this will be the last post I make about my trip down the Danube, but you never know. I’m at least not planning anymore. These are just random observations I made that don’t fit neatly into posts of their own:

  • In the Raleigh airport, which is a reasonably clean space, there were two little birds hanging out at our gate. So many questions: How did they get in? Are the crumbs they pick up off of the ground appropriate food for them? Are there worms somewhere inside that we can’t see? Why isn’t there bird poop everywhere? How do they make nests if there isn’t any plant life to swipe? If there aren’t other couples around, are their babies going to mate with each other? If that keeps happening, will they turn into mutants that take over the world?
  • When  we were flying into Amsterdam at night, there were low clouds hanging over the water, and it looked forshortened or compressed, like they were on the same level as the boats floating along. It looked like something out of The Life of Pi – pure magic. Boats floating through clouds.
  • Watching the water, from the boat while we were docked, it reminded me of Kandinsky circles. Rings within rings within rings. I wonder if that was ever something he noticed or in some way subconsciously influenced him?
  • Also watching the water, I noticed these really cool ripples, and then looked at the chair I was sitting in and saw the same pattern repeated. Intentional?

water ripples

chair ripples

  • In an art gallery in Passau, there was a sign that said, “If you plan to haggle, please give us advanced notice so that we have time to raise our prices.” I NEED that sign.
  • Do the workers at the Amsterdam airport who don’t use deodorant not smell themselves?! Because I sure as shit smelled them.
  • Why was I pulled aside at EVERY SINGLE SCREENING POINT for extra special uber screening?!
  • When we got to Detroit from Amsterdam, they made us uncheck and then recheck our baggage, and go through security a couple more times. They said, “The water you got on the last airplane can’t go through because it’s over the 3.4 fluid ounces, so throw it out.” Two things about this: if you know that it came from the last flight, and that we haven’t been able to leave the airport since getting off the plane, why can’t we take it through to the next plane? And if it is a bottle full of BOOM, how does dropping it in the trashcan next to the line help? It can blow up just as many people there as it can on the plane. Anyway, the Detroit airport is its own special brand of hell. Avoid it at all costs. This is me once we finally got through the 18 fresh rounds of security:

Cranky me in Detroit

 

 

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Viking River Cruises

10 Wednesday Aug 2016

Posted by emilypageart in culture, gratitude, humor, kindness, Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

boat tour, foreign languages, get to know your crew, hassle free travel, how to see Europe, travel, Viking River Cruise, walking tour

So, remember how I told you that I was going on a Viking River Cruise with my mom and that I’d probably be the youngest person on the boat? I wasn’t far off. There were a couple teenagers there with their grandparents, and one couple who looked to be in their late 20’s/early 30’s, but other than that, I was just about the only person under the age of 55 on board. I was also the only artist – at least who was actively creating art on the ship. This made me somewhat a celebrity. So did the fact that I made friends with a bunch of the crew. By the third morning, I was notorious…apparently.

On the second night, I had had a bourbon cocktail, plus a couple glasses of wine, plus a shot of schnapps, at which point I had the crew teaching me how to curse in Filipino (the crew consisted largely of people from the Philippines, Romania, Bulgaria, and Croatia). Meanwhile, I taught them useful American phrases like, “mad props,” “slacking off,” and “busting your balls.” When I went up for breakfast the next morning, I was greeted with shouts of my name and cheers, and the crew that hadn’t already met me was lining up to do so. This reinforced my belief that all good things come from alcohol.

All good things also come from learning your crews’ names and how to say “thank you” in their native tongue. On the second to last day, I called one of the servers by his name to ask him something, and later, he came up to me and said, “You knew my name, and I wasn’t even wearing my name tag. Thank you.” This made me really happy and really sad. Of course I wanted to learn their names. They were waiting on us hand and foot like we were royalty or the pope or something (that is, if the pope regularly drank too much). So I was pleased that I had managed to do so since I’m notoriously bad with names in general (just ask my customers), but I was also bummed out that it’s a rare enough thing that he was shocked that I had done it.

Anyway, none of what I wrote is the point I had intended to make with this post. I’m rambling. Blame it on the jet lag. What I really wanted to do was give a general overview of what a Viking River Cruise is like for anyone interested. First, I’ll say that it is about as pressure-free a way of visiting a new foreign city as possible. Everything is taken care of for you. They arrange for flights and transportation to and from the ship. Food is all covered and wine is free with meals. You can also buy other drinks. The food is good, but carb-heavy, and there weren’t a lot of vegetarian protein options – especially at lunch. It was pretty red-meat-and-pork-centric. But the breads were delicious (I won’t even tell you how much weight I gained because of the breads and pastries). The staff is unbelievably, almost awkwardly solicitous and won’t let you do anything for yourself. They also have excellent senses of humor. The rooms are immaculately cleaned daily, including turn-down service. Internet access and television are spotty, but present sometimes. There are optional excursions you can take in addition to the free guided morning tours. There’s on board evening entertainment. Pretty much anything you could wish for, they’ve got covered.

Generally, you wake up relatively early either to discover you’re cruising along the river and are almost at the next port, or that you arrived and docked during the night. After breakfast in either the downstairs dining room or the upstairs deck, you grab your gear and load onto a bus to be driven to the city center (if it’s not close enough just to walk to). There, you’re broken up into smaller groups and met by guides, and you all wear your voxes (quiet voice box). This is the most humiliating thing you’ll do on the trip. The guide speaks into a microphone that transmits what he or she is saying over a radio frequency that your vox picks up and relays into your ear piece. Super convenient because they don’t have to shout to be heard, and you can wander a little farther off to snap photos while they talk without missing anything. But, damn, those things look awful. You might as well attach neon signs to our heads that say “aging tourist.” Shudder. They’re also pretty uncomfortable. But still, super convenient. The guide does a walking tour of some part of the city. Depending on the day, you may or may not go into any buildings, and the tour can last anywhere from 45 minutes to almost 2 hours. Then they let you loose to hide the vox in your purse and wander on your own. Mom and I made a habit of seeking out a good cafe in each town to sit and watch the world go by. It has ruined me for Starbucks. I never knew a latte could be so good. We also did a little extra exploring, checking out local shops and galleries. More on that in another post.

Cafe in Budapest

Budapest (Buda side, near St. Matthias Cathedral)

After you’ve had some time to explore, you’ll meet back up with your guide and head back to the ship for some lunch. Each afternoon (and some mornings), there are optional excursions to check out other areas, go to a concert, visit a museum. While a lot of them looked interesting, I have to say, I’m not sure the additional cost was necessarily worth it, and I was always pretty damn tired and in sensory overload by the time I got back for lunch. A nap in the afternoon was welcome. And I found that I really loved sitting on the deck and drawing/painting what I’d seen in the morning or the day before. It helped me process everything I had seen and heard and helped me decompress. There’s only so much of the whole being-herded-from-one-place-to-another-in-a-large-group thing that I can handle. I found that I liked my travelling companions on the boat more if I hadn’t been around them 24/7, dodging traffic together, getting in each other’s way as we tried to take pictures, waiting for everyone to show up so we could move on. It made making small talk at dinner easier, too. If you didn’t go on any of the extra excursions, you were free to spend the afternoon how you wished: napping, playing cards, listening to the on board piano player and sipping cocktails, headed back out to the city to explore some more on your own. Or if you wanted to do something special, concierge would help you get tickets or appointments to whatever it was in town that you were hoping to do.

When everyone was back on board by a set time, the boat generally launched again and began making its way down the river to the next port. Meanwhile, there was a presentation each evening about something we’d be seeing or doing the next day and an overview of what the schedule would be. Then off to dinner in either of the two dining spots again. There’s no assigned seating, so there’s always that awkward moment if you’re not with a large group where you’ve got to figure out who you’re going to sit with each night, but it gets you chatting with people you might not have otherwise interacted with.  After dinner, they have music or games in the lounge area, or you can sit outside and watch the world go by as you float along. Then back to your room to find turn down service has come and left your itinerary for the next day.

My overall view was that it was a fantastic trip, and a really great way to quickly and safely and hasslelessly (it’s a word now, get over it) see a city and get a general overview of it’s history and people. But what I’d like to do is now go back and book a hotel or a condo and stay for a week or three in the cities I really enjoyed to get to know them better. There was so much more to see, but not enough time to see it when you’ve got strict time frames aboard a boat.

More on the specifics and observations of my person adventure in another post. Auf wiedersehen, peeps. Time to slack off.

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Creeping Towards Normalcy

27 Wednesday Jul 2016

Posted by emilypageart in death, dementia, family, gratitude, mental health, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Danube, dementia, dreams, frontal lobe dementia, frontotemporal dementia, mother, nightmares, relationships, travel, Viking River Cruise

Here’s how I know that my heart’s blisters are starting to heal a little bit. Last night, I had a dream that my dad wasn’t in. My husband, my mom and I were in a woodworking studio (no idea why) and we were trying to figure out where to eat dinner. We all knew that my dad was dead, and we were just doing the normal thing of figuring out where the three of us wanted to go. That’s it. So simple, but it’s the first night in a long time that my dad hasn’t been present in the dream with some stage of dementia. He was in our thoughts, but just as a reality of someone who used to be with us but no longer was. It felt so normal, and I woke up comforted.

My mom and I are preparing for a trip together. Over the last year of Dad’s life, we agreed that neither of us should go out of the country because more emergencies were arising with him. My parents had always said they’d travel when they both retired, but Dad got dementia before that could happen. But Mom still wants to see the world. She has done a couple of those Viking River Cruises, and really enjoyed them, but the women who had gone with her no longer feel capable of traveling. A deal popped up that was basically a 2-for-1 deal, so she asked if I’d like to go with her (on her dime, no less). It’s the slowest time of year at the studio, we don’t need to be nearby for Dad anymore, so there was really nothing to stop me from going. So on Saturday, we’re off to cruise the Danube. I’ll likely be the youngest person on the boat, so I plan on pretending I’m a wealthy retiree. I’m considering getting a top hat and a monocle.

While seeing cities I’ve never been to excites me, what I’m most looking forward to is making new, happy memories with my mom. I’m looking forward to spending time with her away from the city where every building, restaurant, tree, or person, reminds me of my dad. We’ll get to be together, exploring, seeking out joy in this mad world of ours. We’ll be moving past just supporting each other as co-caregivers, to celebrating our friendship.

I think this trip is part of what caused that dream. It’s starting to feel more normal that my dad is no longer here physically. It still hurts like hell. The blisters on my heart are still there, and they refill periodically and at the strangest of moments, but I feel like maybe there are fewer of them. I feel like we are creeping toward normalcy.

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Emily Page

Emily Page

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