Seeing Without an Object

Lead Tin Yellow has arisen from the distant past

2011-11-28T22:28:00.001+01:00

Rublev Lead Tin Yellow, type 1 (Lemon)

Check out Natural Pigments - rare artist's colors and materials. They produce a lead tin yellow, a color of primary importance to the old masters.

Based on an article in the German trade magazine Maltechnik, I produced and applied this color to my paintings from the early 1970s. It has a remarkable hiding power, and thus a luminosity unparalleled by any other color.

I can highly recommend trying this pigment.

October 18th is St. Luke's Mass!

2011-10-19T10:19:00.000+02:00

St. Luke displaying a painting of Mary by Guercino (wikimedia commons)

One day late, but yesterday, October 18, was St. Luke's Mass. Did you know St. Luke is the patron saint of painters? The Guild of St. Luke was the most common name for city guilds for painters in Europe. In 16th century Italy these guilds developed into art academies!

St. Luke is symbolized by the winged ox.

From Thame Parish Church, Oxfordshire, England

For more information in English, see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guild_of_Saint_Luke

We've made a Facebook page for Bruchion!

2011-09-16T01:22:00.001+02:00

Check out our Facebook page for Bruchion! And please do give us a "Like"!

Here we'll publish in brief information about all our activities, both in Norway, France and the US. But of course, the blogs and our other websites will be where you find in-depth information.

Dolmen Land!

2011-08-07T18:22:00.006+02:00

Quite amazing! The area is filled with late neolithic/early bronze age grave monuments. We're awed!

So, on July 24 we decided to go to Poitiers with Jan's daughter, Elisa, to see the effigy of la Grand'Goule at the Musée Sainte-Croix in Poitiers, as well as visit the grave of Saint Radegund in the Église Ste Radegonde. (Remember, Elisa is our official goule-sculptor!).

Just as we had passed the city of Thouars and were driving past some wide farmed fields, Elisa yelled "dolmen." She had spotted several of those ancient tomb structures in a field that we had simply ignored. So, on the way back from Poitiers later that evening, we stopped to look at the magnificent dolmens in the field. You would not believe how packed this area is with history! What is a Dolmen? Shortly put, a late neolithic/early bronze age grave monument. The long explanation you can find on Wikipedia: Dolmen

What to say but "WOW!"?

You can see one to the left, and a big one in the far distance. Absolutely fantastic!

Unpacking Boxes with Magical Contents :-)

2011-07-29T19:24:00.005+02:00

Jurassic Park! Or a treasure waiting to be re-coded/de-coded/modernized/digitized.

While unpacking some old boxes in France a couple of days ago, Hanne stumbled across a until-then unknown treasure (to her anyway): A collection of about 80 audio tapes containing Jan's art lectures from 1978 to 1993, Bakersfield, Malibu, Bruchion... And wonderful Heather Williams had labelled them conscientiously: lecture themes, dates. Really easy cataloguing work to do for us now! So Hanne has spent the day registering all the data into an Excel sheet. Now we can start a digitizing project sometime soon!

The list of lectures is now available at our historical Bruchion site. (And the site itself you can find at: http://www.bruchion.org/)

One minute silence at noon today

2011-07-25T11:48:00.003+02:00

In memory of all the victims at Utøya and in Oslo.

Colours! & Elisa :-)

2011-07-16T23:53:00.000+02:00

On July 4th Hanne and her mother, Greta, came down (with the plane that took the course parcipitants home to Oslo). A week of sightseeing, doing Deux-Sèvres and some Loire. Then Greta went back home to Norway, and the very next day, Elisa, Jan's daughter came flying in all the way from Los Angeles! And what a busy-bee she is. Now the little bathroom downstairs has been painted brightly green, and today we started on the paintwork in the upstairs lounge! Great fun! We'll publish some pictures pretty soon as well as a bit more info on what's going on these days (as soon as we get them transferred from the camera to the computer, that is).

Let the Painting Begin!

2011-06-24T21:10:00.000+02:00

Early early this morning Jan drove to La Rochelle airport to pick up a group of happy Norwegian painters. After some busy days laying the floor in his studio, cleaning and preparing, and buying new easels, all is finally ready for painting! Even the portrait model is here. So tomorrow morning the fun begins! (Tonight mussels and seafood is on the menu - prepared by Nils Ole. Bon appétit!)

The "Garden"

2011-06-13T12:42:00.002+02:00

Beauty grows in the most arid conditions...

Tomorrow the real creation of the garden begins. In May we had SARL Gaultier come and clean the property - remove blackberry brambles, nettles. We were quite in a shock after seeing the result. 10 000 m2 of brown, dusty soil with lots of garbage lying everywhere (old farm tools, old plastic buckets, shoes, an old washing machine). But things must get worse before they get better! Fortunately a metal collector stopped by and bought most of the old junk from us.

Piles of junk - uncovered after 30 years in the wilderness that is soon to be our garden

And tomorrow SARL Gaultier returns to start the terracing work. From now on, the only way is up. :-)

Just a couple of snapshots of the bare land as it looks today:

Dust'n'dirt

Our well house

The house seen from down in the garden

Ditto

Looots of land to convert into garden

Men Roccambole var ikke død. Life reemerges!

What can I say? Wow! Great to finally be able to walk in our "garden"

What to do with this huge trunk?

Future orchard

More of future orchard

Nuthin' to say

Wooden Floors in the Studio

2011-06-09T17:56:00.000+02:00

Today Jan has started working on the studio floor. Amazing oak flooring brought all the way from Norway. 4 m lengths and 25 cm wide. 2 cm thick.

Floor boards with a history. From the house of one of the richest men in Norway, via a carpenter, via an artist friend, and now in Retord, France!

17th of May! Norwegian Constitution Day!

2011-05-17T14:38:00.002+02:00

The 17th of May is Norway's national holiday when we celebrate the signing of our Constitution in 1814 (actually the oldest democratic constitution in the world!). It's a very charming, warm event with children's parades all over the country.

Hanne is a big fan of our national holiday. Our tradition involves the children's parade on tv while sipping pink champagne and eating strawberries. Then out for a little stroll in the beautiful May afternoon.

Happy Constitution Day, all Norwegian citizens!

Pink champagne, homemade strawberry/chocolate cake, the Norwegian flag, blue sky, and flowers. It's the Norwegian national holiday! Congratulation to all our fellow citizens! Hurray!

"Eidsvoll 1814" by Oscar Wergeland (1885), depicting the brave Norwegian men working on the Constitution.

La Grand'Goule, part 2

2011-05-15T23:49:00.001+02:00

E-mail from Elisa on May 12th:

Hey,

Here is my first study model for the Grand Goule. He is without legs at the moment, and I can't locate my camera so I used the computer to take the picture...

Its really hard getting a good angle that way.

Elisa's creative voice is amazing, and her vision of the Grand'Goule precisely delivered in her marvelous sketch.

Plucked Chicken!

2011-05-10T23:42:00.000+02:00

No more blackberries??? :-)

Today we received some pictures from our man in St. Paul: SARL Gaultier has been doing all the clearing of the property, and WOW! It's so bare!!! :-) Now we can finally walk all over the place! (And that has never been possible during the 6 years we've owned it...)

Jan finds it a bit scary, and Hanne LOVES it!!! :-)

This could make a spectacular bonfire?

The entire property has been "cleaned"

2011-05-10T12:18:00.000+02:00

Wow... Our local digger in St. Paul du Bois has done some serious work on the property last week. All the brambles have been cleaned! The entire property is now walkable! Which means we can reach all parts of the property -- something we have never been able to do before. So excited to get down there and have a look and take some pictures!

La Grand'Goule

2011-05-08T12:07:00.002+02:00

We've commisioned our first artwork for the future living room/grand hall! Jan's daughter, Elisa, will make a huuuge dragon for us -- inspired by the legend of the Grand'Goule that lies under the ancient city of Poitiers, former capital of Poitou-Charentes (and home to Eleanor of Aquitaine, mother of John Lackland and Richard the Lion Heart -- but that's another story to be told another day...).

La "Grand’Goule", sculptor Jean Gargot, 1677 (Musée Sainte-Croix, Poitiers)

According to legend, Ste Radegonde, a nun at the Ste Croix abbey in Poitiers in the 6th century finally managed to conquer this mythical beast that had been devouring several nuns, by help of either a loaf of holy bread or a relic of the true cross.

Processions were later held every year in Poitiers where people threw cookies at the effigy of the beast (the one depicted above), while chanting/praying: “Bonne sainte vermine, priez pour nous!” (“Good holy vermin, pray for us!”). The cookies were known as “casse-museaux”, literally “Snout-breakers”.
Source: Office de Tourisme de Poitiers

Anyway, Elisa Linda Saether will make a grand papier mache dragon/goule to be hung high on the end wall in our future gigantic living room. And we are looking very much forward to it!!!

The future living room back in 2005, just after we had purchased the property.

And a few months later while we were re-roofing. It will be totally transformed this summer!

Gardening

2011-05-03T20:28:00.000+02:00

The garden is waiting for the big transformation that will commence next week. But of course we had to find some beautiful flowers to light up the garden while in France this Easter...

La vie en rose? (What a pretty flower)

A tiny horse shoe from the old days

Wow! A huge laurel tree growing in our garden! What a surprise!

Flower shopping at Mr Bricolage in Thouars :-)

Bringing the beauties home...

Finding the right floors...

2011-04-26T23:05:00.017+02:00

Finding the tiles for our bathrooms has proven to be quite a challenge. But now, we're finally there. After almost six years of searching.

Actually, we found these gorgeous green tiles at VM Materiaux in Cholet last summer, but we've been searching for the right floor tiles to go with them ever since

And, finally, we found the right floor tiles to go with the green walls -- at Point P in Thouars this Easter!

The large tiles to the right in the picture will be used in the bathroom upstairs, together with some beautiful creamy white square tiles for the walls, 10x10 cm. (We used these tiles for the floor in the small bathroom downstairs as well.) From Brico-Dépôt in Cholet.

These are the tiles we are planning to use in our huge living room downstairs. Also from Brico-Dèpôt, Cholet.

In Foyers, Vihiers, we've found the perfect wall-to-wall-carpet for the upstairs lounge and big bedroom

Four Happy Bulls

2011-04-17T22:42:00.001+02:00

Well, actually five, but one didn't get to be in this picture... Taking a walk in the wonderful April weather to visit our nearest neighbour, we came across these four (five) cuties. Jan mooohed at them, and they came galopping towards us. Very curious as to what was going on. And such beauties they are!

2011 BKH Scholarship Awarded to Jan Valentin Saether

2011-04-02T12:41:00.003+02:00

Jan Valentin Sæther has been awarded a 2011 Scholarship for Artists over Age 60 from the Norwegian Relief Fund for Visual Artists (BKH).

For more information about scholarships awarded to Norwegian artists in 2011, see this article on the Norwegian Visual Artists' Association website (NBK): http://www.billedkunst.no/nbk/soknad/765-tildelingerstipend2011 (article in Norwegian)

Gravel, Pebbles & Sand

2011-03-24T19:24:00.002+01:00

garden gravel by Leo Reynolds, on Flickr

Today Stian and Jan have measured the garden. After that Emmaus (our favourite second hand store) and lunch at an outdoor café! Also looking at gravel, pebbles & sand at different stores (hm! Is that the right word - probably not). Tonight drawings & planning. Tomorrow: Getting prices together with our local interpretor. Tomorrow evening: Dinner & a night out in Angers (our favourite French city), then the hotel. & Saturday morning (early, early): Train to Charles de Gaulle/Roissy airport & back home to Oslo.

Then: Next week or so: Work on the garden begins!!!

Work on the Garden Commences...

2011-03-18T13:45:00.000+01:00

Finally! Next week Jan and landscape gardener Stian, are going down to start planning the garden!
Two quick searches on Google to see what a landscape gardener can do, provided us with these descriptions:
"With their 'green thumbs' landscape gardeners can turn a yard full of mud and weeds into a beautiful lawn with trees, shrubs, flowers and even ponds," and:
"A landscape gardener designs, develops, maintains and remodels gardens and landscapes."
So this is exciting! Let the pelle (French for "excavator") begin!

Just a couple of snapshots to show you the challenge (these are from 2005 and 2006):

To think that this will soon be a blooming orchard and garden. With roses, peonies, fruit trees, walkways... :-) Love it!

Summer Courses 2011

2011-03-07T13:15:00.001+01:00

We are finally ready to launch two pilot summer courses at Bruchion Art Institute, Retord.

The first one will be held in Norwegian in June. The second in English in August. There is room for 4-5 students in each class. More information will be available shortly.

The painting is from the nearby Bois d'Anjou. And the entire area is full of such beautiful vistas - perfect for landscape painting!

The painting studio

What did we do in 2010?

2011-03-06T01:10:00.033+01:00

Terrace

Kitchen

Bedroom, 1st floor

Bedroom, ground floor

Bathroom, ground floor

Summer 2010

2010-08-02T18:18:00.004+02:00

Jan & Hanne's cousin, Astrid at "The Bar at the End of the Universe"

Well, so what was this summer like? We've had lovely weather & lots & lots of guests. The picture to the right shows beautiful cousin Astrid and Jan at our local English bar at the Camping Raudière (renamed by us "the Bar at the End of the Universe" due to its location) relaxing with a beer in the warm French summer sun. Lovely!

Jan & Richard has done a lot of work on the kitchen ceiling & hanging doors. They've finished the first bedroom upstairs. And in addition we've finished our bedroom downstairs. Photos to come as soon as the camera gets back home to Oslo in mid-August. :-)

Jan & Richard working on the kitchen door

Jan & Richard at the best boulangerie in Angers

Electricity!

2010-01-31T21:02:00.005+01:00

The box to the left was our temporary supply, but now we're on the box to the right! Hurray!

Finally, the Consuel has approved our new electric installation. The house is now officially a house & liveable! Yes!

Other pictures of the house

2009-11-08T11:17:00.003+01:00

In addition to this blog, we've also published pictures of the progress here:

Slideshow (2008 and 2009)
Our first photos of the place (2005 and 2006)

The living room floor is being poured today!

2009-11-08T11:09:00.004+01:00

Wow, this week Hans Petter and Jan have poured 1/3 of the terrace in front of the house (the part in front of the kitchen) + the remaining part of the living room floor! Fantastic! Jan has stared decorating the ground floor bedroom and the library. And next week Stephen will finish the work on the electricity (fans for the bathrooms + electricity in the living room). It's amazing. I love it. Can't wait till Jan gets home tomorrow night to see the pictures. :-)

Pouring the terrace

HP working while Jan's photographing ;-)

HP carrying heavy loads!

New floor in the ground floor bedroom!

2009-10-26T12:54:00.003+01:00

Today the new wooden floor is being put in in the ground floor bedroom! So exciting! The house is really starting to shape up now. No pictures of the new floor yet, but as Jan is going down to pour some concrete later this week (terrace & future living room), he'll do some photographing then. Yes! :-)

New doors!

2009-10-05T21:30:00.002+02:00

Yippeeee!!! The new entrance doors have finally been put in. We haven't seen them yet, but are told that it looks great! Can't wait to publish some pics, but have to wait till we get them on e-mail! Fantastic!!! :-)

Indoors shower!!!

2009-08-28T21:16:00.004+02:00

So, yesterday, the first indoors shower was finally ready for use! The two hard working men could finally take a refreshing shower indoors, using as much water as they liked too. (But I must say showering outside with the vast panoramic view that we have is also quite an experience -- Hanne.)

No photos of the completed shower stall yet, but here are some of the tiles we'll use in that little bathroom/W.C.
+ a photo of shower stall in progress

And the walkway behind the house is completed, too! And 2/3 of the concrete floor in the ground floor bedroom has been poured today. Hans Petter and Jan -- what heroes! :-)

Electricity! And hot water!

2009-08-24T20:55:00.008+02:00

Saturday our electrician finally switched it on! Jan has been doing the dishes with hot water from the tap! And filled with new hope, he and Hans Petter have been working all week-end long to put tiles in the shower. Perhaps it will be possible to shower there before they head home to Oslo in a week's time or so?

They have also been working on the walk-way behind the house, casting huge stone/concrete slabs. It's almost done -- Tristan started it earlier this summer -- and it's gonna be gorgeous!

And they have been working on preparing for the terrace in front of the house + tearing down the mouldy plaster boards that some dim-witted person we know (no names mentioned) put up in the bedroom. The whole bedroom had to be redone. Make sure you get people who actually know what they are doing! :-)

Just a small photo of our staircase/mezzanine being constructed:

Summer guests 2009 - continued:

Well, we have such wonderful friends - and the guests keep coming:

Lance, a very good friend from Salt Lake City, decided to use some of his frequent flyer's miles to come and help us out in mid-August! What a great guy!
Hans Petter arrived from Oslo a week or so later. Wonderful!

Summer 2009

2009-08-11T22:19:00.000+02:00

Well, summer passes way too fast. Hanne's back at work in Oslo while Jan spends another three weeks at our beautiful place in France.

Summer guests 2009

This Wednesday his friend Lance is coming over all the way from Salt Lake City to help out, and next Monday Hans Petter arrives from Oslo. So we'll still make some progress before the summer is over.
Who has been here so far this summer? Well, first came Tristan in the beginning of June. After a couple of weeks of hard work, Ingrid and Jessica arrived from L.A. They helped out painting beams. Then Jan and his Californian crew visited the Ile-de-Ré & Paris where they hooked up with Sophia (who unfortunately did not have anough time to come visit this time) before going back to the States. A few days later, in mid-July, Hanne arrived with Eivind and Astrid, driving down from Oslo.

And that completes the list of summer guests in 2009!

So what have we achieved this summer?

The mezzanine is up (not completed yet, but usable),
The staircase to the first floor is up,
Walls, doors and windows on the first floor, as well as insulation and plaster board in the ceilings,
The electricity is almost ready to be connected! Switches, plugs, etc. are in, downlights and lamps installed. Just a few more days now...,
Wooden floor, painted ceiling and walls in the library!,
The kitchen ceiling is coming along,
New floor tiles in the tiny W.C./bathroom next to the utility room,
chaux de pavier (lime) on the walls in kitchen, utility room and Jan's studio,
The patio in front of the house is ready for earth and a lawn.