Bonni Brodnick Blog

I took a semester abroad to study art history, painting & drawing at the renowned Leo Marchutz School in Aix-en-Provence. The school today is thriving! Here I am with one of my former teachers, Alan Roberts, who holds a copy of my book, My Stroke in the Fast Lane: A Journey to Recovery. Several teachers lived at Château Noir, a frequently painted motif by Paul Cézanne. It's located just outside of Aix, on the Route du Tholonet. Even in the daylight, it's eerie and mysterious. Whenever there's a Cézanne exhibit, you'll find me staring at the painting, mesmerized, and remembering the wild dinner parties we had there. We'd drink lots of local red wine, roll up the rug, and dance the night away.

We spent the afternoon visiting the splendor of Château de Varennes, a vineyard in the family since the 16th century. The current family is the 15th generation of that lineage. Here is a photo of me with Monsieur Charvériat  in the tasting room.  This is a photo of the five wines they produce. We tried every single one of them. I am not showing the photo after that when I was trying to squeeze around a barrel with empty wine glasses on top. My pocketbook bumped into them, and they all hit the floor, shattering. I tried to cover up the faux pas  by gently kicking sawdust over them, but it was hard to hide the shards. Slightly embarrassing (to say the least). But what a landscape! "Stunnnnning!", as my mother would say.

These vibrant, geometric floor tiles are from the Palace of the Popes in Avignon. Approximately 120,000 of the original designs are from ... get this ... the 14th century! They were so hip back then, n'est-ce pas?  

 Viviers, a village in southern France that's perched above the Rhône River, is known for its narrow cobblestone streets and well-preserved medieval and Renaissance architecture. Can you imagine living in a house built in 1500 or earlier?  You know when you move into a place, and there are all these holes in the walls from previous tenants hanging stuff up? Imagine all the holes in these walls.

When I was an art student at the Leo Marchutz School in Aix-en-Provence, France, an old Army bus would pick us up in front of the Palais du Justice & drop us off in the fields to paint Mont Sainte- Victoire.  In spring and summer, breezes carry the scent of lavender.  Cezanne was born in Aix, so it's sort of Cezanne this, Cezanne that. At the restau above, I had the delicious meal below. (And I hate it when people take photos of food before they eat it, but I wanted to capture it before the burrata ran into the heirloom tomatoes.) Here I am standing in front of  La Rotunde , a fountain at the bottom of Cours Mirabeau, the main thoroughfare in Aix. Built in the 1860, it represents justice, agriculture, and the fine arts. Come along with me on this trip to southern France, filled with cherished memories and friendships that have endured for decades.   * All photos by the author, except for the last, of course.  

Seeing the world through my eyes would make most people either dizzy or feel like they were going to throw up.  Like they just stepped off a roller coaster at an amusement park or were living in a perennial state of hangover. I see everything in double. And there are times when I also see a ghost image hovering over the primary image. I've tried patches and prisms to try to correct it. In fact, the goal of every ophthalmologist or optician I see is to merge these two images, or at least line them up on the same visual plane. Nothing works. It's hard for me to imagine what it would be like to see straight. Would I be me if I didn't have the character-building "pirate" episode in the popsicle line at Maplewood pool when I was five years old? (See part one in a series of three: "Seeing With Crossed Eyes: My World in Double Vision" ) Or, to strengthen my eye muscles when I was seven, I forwent after-school sports for something even more challenging: after-sc...