The Parisian Collection
If a soul could claim a place as a home, Paris would be mine.
Since I can remember, I’ve held a profound love of all things French. As a Francophile, I was fortunate enough to visit France for the first time during the summer between my sophomore and Junior years of high school. It felt like a homecoming, a remembering of sorts. Despite my aversion to big cities and large crowds, Paris has never overwhelmed me; instead, it felt like a part of me. Its streets are familiar as if I’ve wandered them countless times before in a past life or two. Continued below…
The Parisian Collection
There’s always been a touch of magic whenever I’m in Paris. This collection is my attempt to bring you a bit of that magic.
My second visit to France occurred the summer before my Freshman year of college. Then in 2016, I experienced a life-changing week-long writing retreat with my mentor, Kimberly Wilson. My most recent trip to Paris was in November of 2017, during my self-prescribed year of travel.
On that last trip, I went as a birthday present to myself over the Thanksgiving week. I stayed in an Air B&B studio apartment, walk-up about a block behind Notre Dame. It was perfectly sized for me and in walking distance of my favorite things like The Rodin Museum, The Musee D’Orsey, and long runs along the Seine. Because of the location of my Air B&B, I had magnificent views of Notre Dame that I photographed from multiple angles. I’d try to get up early in the morning and grab a Nutella and banana crepe at the creperie next to the magnificent cathedral before getting lost on random adventures of the day.
In April of this year, I attended an art show in Winston-Salem and stumbled upon a talented photographer Lissa Watson. She’d photographed Paris in hauntingly beautiful ways, and I had to buy a few of her prints. On the drive home from that art show, an idea hatched. I decided to look through my own photographs of Paris and see if any would make good watercolor paintings, and that’s how The Parisian Collection was born.
Thinking back to another April, the 15th of 2019, I received a call from my mom telling me that my dad had died unexpectedly. In shock, I quickly packed as much as I could into my car and bucked up for the 10-hour drive home that was keeping me from my family. Engrossed in my own thoughts, I can’t tell you much about that drive aside from receiving another startling call around 9:30 pm while still in the car from a friend telling me that Notre Dame was burning. I thought it had to be a joke. I can’t look at pictures of Notre Dame now without thinking about my Papa, and for that reason, you’ll find more than one piece that includes Notre Dame in this collection.
This year I celebrated my 40th birthday and I promised myself: I would return to Paris this year. It’s my hope that I not only fulfill that promise but that this collection will mark the beginning of many artistic journeys capturing my past and future travels. Notably, you’ll not find any pictures of yummy croissants, pink Vespas, flower shops overflowing with peonies, or the Eiffel Tower in this first collection. All the more reason for me to head back to Paris this year.