Je suis retournee aux Etats-Unis! Actually I've been back for more than a week, but I was overcome with an utter exhaustion followed by a need to take care of petty chores which kept me away from the keyboard. I also needed to let all the experience sink in and digested before I knew what I wanted to start with.
And I know very well that I want to start with thanks from the core of my heart to those who sent me well wishes and notes of checking whether I was back. Knowing that some people, people I don't even know their faces of, care to want to hear my stories and see my images, enriched my experience of traveling in a way I would have never imagined before. I will slowly get to the heart of this in the course of the next few days, but in short, this trip made me aware of a new type of community, a community that is not bound by geographical perimeters but bonded with aesthetic sensibility and compassion. This was so encouraging to an artist who was increasingly feeling marginalized in the over-commercialized and standardized (art) world.
(http://www.beyond.fr/map/map_d02.html)
This trip was planned back in January to participate in a reunion for an American art program based in Lacoste, a village located in Vaucluse, Provence. I spent 8 months there 20 years ago. The program was started by an American artist named Bernard Pfriem, who was enamored with the charm of this petite village a long time ago and became a resident there. The sponsorship for the program was changed many times through various colleges, from Sarah Lawrence to Bard. Bernard died several years ago, and it is now solely owned by Savannah College of Art and Design.
When I was there in 1984, I befriended a young local man whose mother worked as a chef for the school. He now lives in Brooklyn, and when I told him of my plan, he suggested I should stay in his mother's house, now mostly empty, for as long as I wanted. I gratefully accepted this generous offer and bought my plane ticket.
Then all the transactions for our living quarter emerged. I came very close to canceling my trip, but it so happened that the trip fit just snugly in between the two moves. And I found out that the reunion was canceled due to little interest. But I went anyway, packing 4 canvases, a shoeboxful of heavy metal paints, sheets of paper and a small easel.
In the summer of 1984, Reaganomics was flexing muscles in every corner of the world, resulting in all-mighty American dollar, Madonna had just come out with Borderline, Cindy Lauper countered with Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, AIDS was just beginning to be known in suburban and rural areas of US, Neo-Expressionism and Graffiti art were peaking in the New York art world, Nelson Mandela was the favorite icon, and Cocaine was the drug du jour. In between the summer and fall semesters, for more than a month, I traveled throughout Europe on only 100 dollars and an inter-rail pass. I spent all my nights on trains expect for a few stays at friends' places. I lived on street foods. The only money I spent was on entry fees to museums and postcards. I had one pair of jeans and one pair of shorts, two shirts and a few sets of underwear, all tucked in a small backpack. My Nikon FE was the only heavy and valuable item. Japanese tourists were so few, if you can imagine, that in Naples kids kept following me wanting to touch my long hair, and in a small town of Jokkmokk above the arctic circle of Sweden I was in a local newspaper as the first (or second) Japanese to visit there.
Things have changed.
This time I was able to book everything online, from plane and TGV tickets to hotels in Paris. I did not take any cash or travelers' checks, but took out Euro from ATM at CDG airport with my American local bank card. (This you can do now anywhere--almost--in the world.) Lacoste, a village of 400, completely obscure and isolated from the rest of the world back then, is now one of the desirable spots to visit in a tour of Provence, yielding many results in a google search.
 Lacoste is built on a slope of the east end of a mountain spine, overlooking a valley of cherry orchards and lavender fields and facing another medieval village of Bonnieux on the other side of the valley. The history of human inhabitation goes way back, but most of the village was built in the 1500s and beyond, with its chief icon being the ruins of chateau du Marquis de Sade on the plateau. 20 years ago, we used to climb into the ruins at night to chill out, make out, and to look at the stars. During the mistral, a very strong wind storm unique to the region, the wind traveling through the gaps of the stone walls would make a whistling sound, mistaken by the weak hearted as the voices of the unfortunate village maidens tortured by the infamous Marquis.
 Bonnieux
Now, the chateau has changed its hand--behold the chateau de Pierre Cardin. I don't know how this was possible, but the designer whose name decorates the bathroom goods of every Japanese household, has convinced the village and district to hand the chateau over to him, have him pay for all the repairs in exchange for his private use of the chateau as one of his many luxurious homes! A local told me Cardin spread tons of cash to make this happen. You see a giant green crane on top of the chateau, which of course is off limits to the public, and banners for a festival sponsored by Cardin everywhere.
12:20:15 PM 
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