One of my most treasured memories was painting in a little fishing town in France called
Collioure, a small Catalan harbor sheltered on a quiet bay where the chain of the Pyrenees meet the Mediterranean Sea, 15 miles from the border of Spain.
I was in France studying with
Gregory Kondos, a friend and colleague of my mentor,
Wayne Thiebaud.
One morning
Gregory and I sat in a café sipping espresso in the very same place where painting masters including
Picasso,
Derain, and
Matisse had traded their art, still on the walls, for a meal.
After we left the café I set up my easel on the beach to do a quick study of a small simple white chapel perched on a rocky bluff overlooking the Mediterranean. I put it away and joined my fellow students at a nearby art museum.
Visiting artists from yesteryear had their work preserved in these galleries. It was a delight to see the work of art masters reflecting the environment that I was being inspired by that week.
I turned the corner of the museum and what did I see. A painting by
Henri Matisse of a small simple white chapel perched on a rocky bluff over looking the Mediterranean. Just an hour before I had stood in the very same spot that had also inspired him!
I recently found a quote: "In France there is no sky as blue as the one in
Collioure...I just have to close the shutters of my room and I have all the colors of the Mediterranean before me." ---
Henri Matisse
