Portes Ouvertes

Once a year in the 20th arrondisement 42 of the artists who work and often live in the tiny ateliers behind closed doors or garden gates open their studios to visitors. Christophe, a man generous with his time, knowledge and love of historic Paris, organized a group of interested people to take a long walk through the neighborhoods to meet the artists and to discover their work.

This day, a Sunday, was one of those beautiful blue sky days after too many dreary ones so our enthusiasm and hunger for the light made the 5 hour walk fly by.

Delicate, rather abstract wire flowers

From inside the passage . .

We followed a serpentine route past the cemetery Pere-Lachaise, once part of a thriving agricultural domain and vineyard on one of the 7 hills of Paris; we wandered into community gardens and entered secret passages between rows of private gardens in full bloom with clematis, irises and roses.

This gallery was eyes, only eyes. Beautiful, old, young and mostly happy eyes.

Figure

Red reflection

Artist with his work . . .

Tomatoes

Color . . .

Classic beauties

Paper rolling artist telling us tales of perfect paper rolling procedures . . .

The artist were all present, and happy to discuss their work. Everything was for sale during the Portes Ouvertes but during regular days most of these studios are closed to the public. The artists sell their work in galleries, not only around Paris but all over the world – even Detroit!!