OH La La!!

Gail has arrived and we have gone to our first flea market to find treasures! A French medal, old newsprint....a wonderful old hat and short tuxedo jacket, religious statues and medals, and old worn French flag on a flag pole!..... and a fantastic old corset, dating back to the early 1800's....well worn and tenderly repaired with little pieces of a ladie's kid leather glove.....Oh, what stories this could tell!

A Sunday outing......

A flea market, here in Hawaii, is quite a bit different from a flea market in Provence, France.

But still a lot of fun.

Beautiful pieces of coral catch my eye....

and I have a nice conversation with this Hawaiian man who was weaving his own nets....a dying art for sure.

Would you like a sink...or some dinasours...?

Look at this guy's mode of transportation!  I love the American Flag touch.

How about a painting of a pug, on velvet.....!

Here's a old picture of Hilo, on the big island, in 1929.

Do you remember puka shells??   They were all the rage in the 70's and 80's.

And this lovely lady creates beautiful necklaces using the puka ( meaning hole ) shells.

Little girl's hawaiian dresses dance in the breezes.......

And then we're off to the Waikele Tea Room for a yummy lunch.

This property was originally a sanctuary for women and children in need, in the early 1900's and was run by the Salvation Army.  Robert Louis Stevenson stayed here and wrote much of his poetry.  It is a very peaceful place with great mana.  (mana is the Hawaiian word for power )

A French lady ... and me!

When I was at a fleamarket, in Paris, I purchased a painting of a beautiful French woman.  

It's done in black and white with just a touch of red.

The seller told me the story of the artist, who lived in Paris, and who has only painted one subject for his whole career...and that was always his wife.  AND....he only sees and paints her now as he remembers her, and as he sees her in his mind's eye....beautiful and young, although they've been married 50 years.  Isn't that precious!   

I just picked up the painting from having it framed and I remembered that my husband took picture of me, long ago when I was 18 yr. old...and printed it in black and white....and when I held it next to my French lady painting, we were both at the same angle...the same black and white....the same photo of a young woman in profile.  

My husband and I have been married 41 years now, so this photo was taken a long time ago....but I like to think that he still sees me, as the French artist views his bride and muse....

as the woman he fell in love with all those years ago.

Whaa-La! update

She's emerging......almost done!   I wanted to have this piece speak of my experience of France.

When I visalize images of France, I think of the architecture...the metal work....the history....the inspiration.  So after using the handwritten letters from the 1880's that I found at the fleamarket for her petticoat, I decided to make her gown using grout to represent the buildings in Paris....I crackle glazed it and then added some fabulous metal leaves and flowers that I cut off of a wreath that was hanging on my door.   They were perfectly rusted and weathered. :)

The final touches will be the rhinestones that will add the inspiration that I felt as I discovered France.  

The photo of Amelie ( my fleamarket hand ) shows my box of rhinestones, ready to be applied.  Almost done......

A Brocante in Provence

This was the first Brocante (antique store) that we came to.  It was wonderful, but things were priced high.  Wonderful eye candy, though.  

Hand out...Hand full...an offering

This is one of my treasures from the flea markets in France....this wonderful hand.
I love hands....I love nests and eggs too....but that's another story.
This hand is from some mannequin somewhere...sometime....but it was waiting for me in a funny little flea market in Paris....lying on a table laden with stuff....calling out to come home with me.

It had a connection attached to the wrist that would have gone into the arm of the mannequin, so I stuck a nail in the wood around the window of my little studio and hung it on the nail...and then applied some apoxie sculpt around it to secure it.

Then I added a sleeve of a dress that I found in the south of France, with wonderful metallic gold lace on it. A treasure in it's own right!

Hmmm....you would think that I would have better things to do than dress a mannequin hand!

And here comes my favorite French phrase... Whaa-LA!

The French say that all the time and I love it!! Whaa-LA!
So each day I will be displaying a new and different treasure...offered and held by my French hand.

I think this hand has a name....hmmm...any thoughts on what it may be?

Today's offering is a necklace that I picked up at a vide grenier. ( means clean out your attic ).
It came with the chain and is a wonderful St. Beatrice medallion.
I added another bauble that I found in Paris to the chain and it is my new favorite necklace!
Whaa-LA!