Tony Pro's Art Drivel - Musings from behind the easel

The trip only dreams are made of…

Finally, I have enough time on my hands to get around to writing about our European tour that was a whirlwind of fun.

It all started when Jeremy Lipking, Alexey Steele and I received an email from Heather Goldstein from Jerry’s Artarama in the early summer of 2011 with an invitation to travel to France and Italy to visit the factories of Charvin paints and Belle Arti Canvas and several spots along the way that were must sees for any artist. At first I had to reread the email several times as I couldn’t believe that someone would be willing to take the three of us clowns on a trip to Europe and expect to return alive or with any money leftover…

Needless to say, after a few months of planning and bribing the Mrs. we headed out on my birthday, September 19th, 2011. The customary few shots of vodka at Alexey’s studio was just the start of our LONG journey to Paris. Boy did I need those shots too as our flight was quite cramped. This photo spells out what it was like.

Cheers to me and our trip!

God help us!

After 10 hours of Alexey’s elbow in my ribs, we were picked up at Charles De Gaul airport by the lovely Bruno and Laurence Charvin from Charvin paints. They were our gracious hosts all through France and even delivered us to Italy! We went straight to the Charvin’s lovely Parisian apartment where I began my 2 week long excursion of stuffing my face with the best cheese and meats in the world.

Starting to stuff my face.... Alexey already having fun.... photo by Heather Goldstein

Paris was amazing in the fall as always! It’s one of my most favorite places to visit in the world. I can just feel the spirits of all the artists before me in that city. I can almost see their ghostly spirits standing on the River Seine with their pochades in hand, capturing that Parisian light dancing across the water.

Ahhhh.... Paris

Laurence Charvin getting us our supplies from the store.

Our gang in front of Charvin Store

The Charvin’s toured us around the city and we painted in a few spots. The first being Versailles, the amazing home of Louis XIV with it’s expansive gardens and fountains. We found ourselves parked in front of one of the fountains painting and drawing and studying the light. Alexey drew a crowd as usual with one of his masterpieces.

From here we went to paint down by the Seine and that was wonderful as usual. So many amazing artists that painted here before me, you can almost feel the pressure to do something well here. Here’s Jeremy during our painting session.

The next day we went to the Musee d’ Orsay, my favorite museum to see the all the fantastic works there. One of which was a painting that Jeremy and I almost purchased off of eBay about 7 years ago(another long and sad story). It was a painting by Emile Friant called “Cast Shadows”

Cast Shadows by Emile Friant

We were able to sit and stare at what could have been on our mantle and the annoying bit is the museum didn’t allow photos anymore, but we learned quickly how to snap shots discreetly.

After a few hours of drooling at the museum, we headed over to the Charvin store in Paris for a tour. What a fantastic store! So many amazing things for the serious artist in such a small store, nothing like what we have here in LA.

Charvin Paris

Bruno and Laurence treated us to an amazing meal at one of Paris’ oldest restaurants, Le Procope. It’s been open since 1686 and wow I can see why it still hasn’t closed down. The food was amazing and like nothing I have had before.

: Young Veal Stew

DELICIOUS!!!

The next day and perhaps the entire trip was capstoned by an amazing experience not everyone has or will have the chance to be privy to. We were invited by Richard Thomas Scott to come out and meet with the incomparable, Odd Nerdrum at his chateaux about an hour outside of Paris.

We jumped at the chance to meet the maestro so we left Paris via taxi at 8:30pm and we’re STARVING so we found some little pizza place that was just closing up and grabbed about 3 pizzas and hit a liquor store and grabbed a case of wine and showed up at the Nerdrum Chateaux about 10:00pm… we were greeted by huge iron gates in a dark street and we entered after Richard opened the automatic doors with an eerie, creaking sound.

We were met by Richard in the foyer of the large French home and in we went. Out comes the larger than life maestro himself wearing his black scarf and overcoat. You can see the graciousness in this mysterious man after speaking with him after only a few minutes. I was delighted when he wanted to know which one of us painted the girl with the feathered collar and after putting the painting with the face he congratulated me on it. Wow… so not only did he know my work, he liked it enough to congratulate me.

Into his study we went. There was a fireplace that was burning and warming the high ceilinged, wood paneled room with several chairs that surrounded Odd’s “man chair.” He was seated in the corner with a small table in front of him with a little hand-held TV on it. He would sit and talk to us and listen from his chair, all the while whittling wood and using them as toothpicks. Alexey did most the talking while Jeremy and I just sat taking the whole surreal evening in.

We covered many topics about art and philosophy of art. It was such a blur to me as we were still pretty jet lagged. He graciously allowed us to look through his sketchbook, as he said “I have nothing to hide, God sits on my shoulder and sees everything I do.” Seeing his sketches and his thought process about composing his paintings was a treat. I took a few pictures here and there but out of respect for Odd’s privacy, I am refraining from posting them.

Me in Odd's studio....

His studio was humble but large enough to do several larger works at once. There are several images of his studio online that you can see. One thing that struck me was his table where he had his palette resting. There was an 18 inch high pile of “paint mud” that protruded from the center of it. It’s very peculiar and I am not sure what it’s for but it was sure cool to look at and it added to the mysterious studio of this living master.

Without any fanfare, at about 2AM Odd was very tired and got up and went to bed with a simple “good night” as he walked out of the room. We kept the night going with fantastic conversation with Richard and some of the other pupils of Odd’s in the study. About 3:30am we thought about figuring out how we were going to get back to our hotel as we had an 8:30am train to catch. It took us until 5:30am to get a cab out of there and we all squeezed into his little Mercedes back to the hotel. What a night to remember!

TRAIN TO PROVENCE, FRANCE

We boarded our train about 2 hours after we got back to our hotel from Odd’s. We ordered 2 taxi cabs to pick us up and one showed up and then just decided to leave so we separated from our Jerry’s hosts soon to meet up after the train ride.

After a 3 hour train ride, once again we were picked up at the train station in Provence by Bruno and Laurence Charvin. We were then taken to see the Charvin factory where they make their world famous paint and canvas. We got a tour of the factory and they showed us the process of how they make their paints. It’s poppy oil based and loaded with pigment.

Alexey about to pillage the Charvin factory photo by HG

The gang at Charvin

Bruno also demonstrated their stretcher bar machine and how they prime and stretch canvas. So great to see things being handmade by artists for artists.

From there we were carted off to St. Tropez to paint the sunset which was absolutely spectacular. Up on the hillside below the fort, we parked our gear and painted until the sun went down (about an hour). Looking at the setting sun in this gorgeous harbor, Bruno kept yelling to us, “ROMANCE!” I couldn’t agree more!

Alexey sitting on the wall of the fort over St. Tropez. Photo by El Lipbo

Painting at St. Tropez. Photo by Jeremy Lipking

After a quick tour of the marina with all the multi million dollar yachts, I was totally exhausted and crashed at our hotel after a steak tartar dinner.

The boys in the St. Tropez Harbor

Steak Tartar... Alexey ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner....

The next day the boys painted on the beach and I was just too exhausted to do anything so I stayed in for the day in my room and just slept. I needed the break. The Charvin’s took them all to Nice to see the store in Nice and paint there. I was way too exhausted to take part and I felt bad but sleep was a necessity as we were not even halfway through the trip and I didn’t want to get sick.

The next morning, Bruno arranged for us to be driven to Viareggio, Italy and he escorted us there. Traveling by car was great as we drove down the coast into Italy and saw the sites of Monaco and many other coastal cities in France and Italy.

After passing over into Italy, we stopped off for some breakfast at a truck stop. The food at the truck stop was as good as any good italian deli here in the states. Alexey was fixed on getting sliced cheese and salami… thus he did…

Lunch at the italian truck stop

Arriving into Viareggio, Italy we could see the Carrara marble quarries in the mountains above the city proper. It looked like snow capped mountains but the snow was actually marble! Incredible!

Quarries

We check in at the Hotel San Francisco in the cute seaside town of Viareggio, along the boardwalk. A meal was in order…. fresh pesto sauce like I have never had and mussels that were out of this world.

The next day we were picked up by the lovely folks from Belle Arti. They took us by their shop Belle Arti Donatelli to pick up some more art supplies so we could paint.

The boys approve!

From there we went straight to their corporate office and warehouse to see part of the operation. We were given a demonstration of their new stretcher bar system by owner Ricardo Pieraccini which was absolutely amazing. Its a system of routing the bars with a special head and they use a strong plastic heart shaped connector to assemble the canvas stretchers. Talk about solid stretchers! Wow!

I found my heart in Italy! photo by HG

Routing machine

Heart shaped corner inserted

Perfectly straight corners

Then they brought us into where they were stretching the canvases. Boy it would be great to have one of these machines in my studio!

Stretching machine

From there it was off to lunch to have some of the best italian food I have ever tasted in my life.

Homemade Pasta from Ferro in Viareggio

The next day we toured the priming factory, most of which we could not photograph due to confidentiality. It was amazing to see how well they make canvas. I have been using their Raphael canvas for sometime and it’s like no other canvas that I have used. It’s so consistent and accepts the paint so well, I didn’t think it was possible to have canvas this good. The best part about it was to see how it was actually made. Their priming machine looked like a 6 color Heidlberg press. Even before the priming process, they send the raw linen through several machines to get out imperfections and press it flat.

Riccardo Pieraccini photo by Alexey Steele

Was so fantastic to see the whole process. I have also been using their Pissarro line of canvas which has a little more texture and is perfect for landscapes.

The gang at Belle Arti

Later in the day, we were treated to a tour of the Carrara Marble quarries with the manager of the entire quarry. He drove us up and down the mountains and even IN the mountain in his Defender Land Rover…. Amazing to see where all the marble from the Romans, Michaelangelo to current day artists, come from.

Blocks o' marble in the background

King of the quarries!

Cave men!

From Viareggio we trekked east to Florence with a quick stop in Pisa to see the leaning tower. It was still leaning…

Alexey breaking the law in Pisa! photo by HG

Florence:

Hamming it up on our way into Florence train station photo by HG

The city of artists and poets; I fell in love, immediately. The ancient city with it’s grand Duomo and amazing architecture just calls to the artist within me. I have never felt like this before visiting any other place. We checked into a bed and breakfast which was a 14th century home on the 5th floor…. no elevator. It was quite tiring lugging all our luggage up those steep, stone steps. Somehow we survived it.

The tour of the city began for the next 2 days. Seeing as many things as possible.

Alexey photographed every inch of these doors for an hour

Alexey stayed out all night and painted. We found him here... photo by JL

After a day of touring and out painting all night, he dies for 5 hours.

We met up with Daniel Graves, from the Florence Academy, who gave us his tour of the city visiting the Pitti Palace museum. Great collection! Seeing Mancini’s I had never seen before, but yet once again, we were shut down by the security guards for shooting pictures, so I had to run interference a few times.

: Alexey breaking the law!

We as artists need to stand up to these museums that have taken away our RIGHT to photograph paintings that are in the public domain. The museums do not own the copyrights on the paintings so they don’t have the right to refuse us from photographing without flash. We will be figuring out a way to petition the museums as this is criminal to not allow detail shots of paintings.

Florentine snack! with a Havana! I'm in heaven!

I'm in heaven!

Me being handsome and large on the streets of Florence. photo by HG

Lipking and I had to do some laundry, so after loading the washer, we were hungry so we stumbled into the quaint restaraunt next to the laundrymat and it turned out to be a fabulous find. il Gatto e la Volpe… A bottle of wine and 2 orders of Buffalo Mozzerella from Naples by suggestion of the waiter. Incredible! We went back the next day to have it again it was so good!

Buffalo Mozarella from Naples with tomatoes and Balsamic Sauce

From Florence we headed off to our final destination, Venice.

“Ahhhh, VENICE…”

That’s about my only knoweldge of what Venice was, based on the 3rd installment of the Indiana Jones movie. I had not been to Italy before this trip and Venice was just as I had imagined, like Disneyland. Loads of tourists and very typical of everything you see about Venice, but until you see the color of the water and experience the city, your life isn’t quite complete.

On the boat taxi to our hotel. photo by HG

I had mixed feelings about Venice. I think it was the over commercialization of the destination and particularly while we were painting along the Grand Canal, seeing the large cruiseships obstructing our views and the loads of street peddlers selling cheap, knockoff purses, it gave me a bad taste in my mouth. Somehow I was able to see past that and see the splendor of the city that Sargent and all my artist predecessors before me, saw. The city in the raw is a marvel and I still don’t understand how it runs but run it does, it bustles.

I think every meal was my favorite time of the day. photo by HG

It didn’t keep us from painting and enjoying ourselves. The gondola ride was interesting as Jeremy was very hot on the idea of painting in the gondola. The gondoliers didn’t even like us putting our feet on the cushions so I didn’t expect them to let Jeremy paint, but they did.

: Jeremy painting in the gondola (c) Copyright 2011. Tony Pro Fine Art Studio

After the gondola ride, we located a great little canal to paint a door at. This was really fun as it was like paitning in Disneyland. People going by in the gondolas taking snapshots of us as they went by, it was kind of a strange feeling. People were having their photos taken next to us like we were Disney characters in a suit.

Painting on the Grand Canal

After a day of painting, I was recommended by my good friend, Robin Balbo, to visit the BEST and ONLY restaraunt to eat at in Venice, Osteria Oliva Nera. This was Michelin Star quality food at it’s best… with service to go along with it. Look at some of the dishes we had:

Octopus on potato puree

: Zucchini flowers stuffed with cheese and lightly battered and fried

Venison LoinCalves liver with potato puree..... AMAZING!!!!!!

I am still dreaming of this food today. I would go back to Venice just to go to that restaraunt.

On our final day, we packed and prepared for our long 36 hour journey home. It was 36 hours of planes, trains, boats and automobiles. Starting with a boat ride to the train station to catch our sleeper train to France. Let’s start by saying it was one of the most INTERESTING travel experiences I have had. 6 people in a tiny sleeper cab, all from different corners of the world. We werre gettting hassled by the conductor because we had luggage up on the top that wasn’t secure so he yelled at us in italian and he knew we were American. Then he shook us down about not having our Eurorail pass stamped. That was ridiculous.We ended up chatting with our bunkmates, a cute elderly Belgian couple, they kind of smelled like mothballs but they were very sweet all the same.

Tight spaces!

BEDTIME…. Jeremy and I somehow got to the top bunks and we barelty could fit in our beds. I was a little worried about keeping everyone up with my horendous snoring but it didn’t seem to bother anyone that I know of. The chinese guy below me was driving me nuts because he was eating a bag of chips in the dark and he was crinkling the paper. I almost reached down and swatted the guy in the head but I refrained…

: You’ve got to be kidding me!!!!

We reached the city of Dijon, where the Grey Poupon mustard is from. We switched trains at about 6:00am, to arrive in Paris by 9:00am. We had a 12:00 flight to San Fransisco which was about 10 hours. Then a short commuter flight home to LAX.

36 hours of travel knocked me out but good, but I would do it all over again anytime.

My sincere thanks to the good people at Jerry’s Artarama, who I have been ordering art supplies from for 10 years. They have the lowest prices, bar none and sell the best quality products for any artist. The Belle Arti folks for making the most amazing canvas ever!!! and to the Charvin’s for their wonderful hospitality and their sincere passion for making the best paint they can produce.

It was an amazing experience and certainly one I will never forget for the rest of my life. Until next time!

posted by Tony Pro, 24th February 2012 , Categories: Blog

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The trip only dreams are made of…

Florence: