Hunting the Muse

Our bread and butter is thinking creatively. It’s path of the course when you own a wee creative enterprise.

Sometimes eureka moments come easily. Sometimes they do not. I cannot count how many times we have sat around our dining table (often in to the wee hours of the morning) trying to nut out a solution or clever idea for one of our fabulous customers. The problem is when you desperately want that damn good idea to pop up it can be somewhat reluctant to show itself. Of course we are never short of random, left field ideas - of the non-income-generating type!

This wee holiday also doubles as a creative sabbatical. A time to refresh the batteries, see new things, find inspiration in new places and generally awaken our spirits. Baby won’t you light our fire…

Provence may have seemed like a strange place to accomplish such a mission. Certainly it’s a magnet for strung-out lawyers and burnt-out executives. It has a relaxing pace of life and can undoubtedly offer you a bit of R&R.

Is it the creative’s muse?

I was quite worried when we first arrived here that we had chosen badly. Of course, I would never admit it. My inner Pollyanna kicked in. We started going to markets, visiting villages, ticking off the tourist checklist. There was a lot to love. But now I realise we were just scratching the surface.

As we gradually fall deeper in love with the region - as we see more, do more, talk to more locals - we have become aware of the underlying current of creativity that feeds the region.

The markets are not just full of local gastronomic delights - quality produce and expert artisans.  They are the shopfront for a community of craftspeople, creative and passionate.  In New Zealand we just would not have the numbers to sustain such specialised producers. I was reading about a shop in St Didier the other day (a town that can be driven through in approximately one minute) where the owner specialises in crafting bird and animal callers. He is a fourth generation whistler. I wondered if his was a bone-fide profession and had a name, but my research has only turned up that he is called ’the bird whistler man’.  There is a place in the world for everyone.

If you don’t make and craft for your profession here you seem to find some other way to express your creativity. Our landlord is an actress. Every time we see her she presents her camera and shows us photos of the weekend past. She doesn’t go shopping, do brunch or meet up with friends. She dons period clothing (usually middle age) and joins her acting company to perform in a roman antique theatre or the garden of a chateau. One of her daughters, Florian, attended circus school throughout her teenage years. Her son, Gautier, belongs to an acting troupe who congregate to re-enact roman times. This is typical of the people here.

Creativity runs through the region.

Cezanne, Van Gogh, Picasso and Matisse all forged new artistic directions while living in Provence. And it seems that the area’s desire to remain current and vibrant still exists.

Our day started at St Remy de Provence for the weekly market - the location where Van Gogh famously chopped off his ear and admitted himself to the local asylum (perhaps not the sunniest of Provencal tales). And then we went to Carrieres de Lumieres. We drove up past Beaux de Provence with the ruins of its 10th century chateau majestically coming out of the cliff face and carried on to the other side, where out of a disused stone quarry the most amazing multimedia space has been created. It’s not something you generally hear about when considering Provence. You enter a cavernous space - these are no ordinary caves - with walls as high as 30 metres. And then the show begins. You are in the dark and dwarfed by the immense scale of the structure. The music starts and the most amazing multimedia show begins. 

This is like nothing you have ever seen or experienced before. And any photos we take or words we craft could never adequately describe the experience.

I grew up with a Brueghel print on the toilet wall. I have a childhood love of the small, detailed Dutch paintings of a world that seemed so far away from provincial New Zealand. But one that fascinated me. So to stand with Brueghel images having been animated and then projected 360 degrees around me, above me, below me and accompanied with incredible music was an almost spiritual moment! Along with Brueghel, the work of Bosch and Archimboldo was also featured (there is a new show created each year, featuring the works of three different artists). 

We were torn between pulling out the cameras and capturing every moment and putting away the technology to stand and absorb it. 

It was one of those experiences that change you, just a little bit. You are never the same afterwards. I think that’s a sure sign that the muse has been in play.

Our minds are full of even more random, left field ideas. Hopefully some of them can even flow over to our professional lives.