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Celebrating all things PUMPKIN!
Salut !  Hi there!    (#8 November 2019)

October here in the south of France seems to be a month of making the most of the still temperate weather conditions and mostly sunny days, whilst watching the Autumn colours slowly creep upon the leaves - and trying not to think about Winter just around the corner! 
Being a very rural part of France, it's also a time of year when many festivals take place to celebrate some of the important produce grown in the region, such as the end of the 'vendange' which is the harvest of grape crops for wine-making - this happens all over the region of course, but some villages are more involved in this pursuit than others. Other villages hold festivals honouring such varied themes as: cheese, chestnuts, and mushrooms, while one of our neighbouring villages, RIANS, puts on a wonderful festival to celebrate everything about the humble pumpkin!
'La Fête de la courge' is a whole-weekend affair and makes for a wonderful family outing. The village streets are lined with stalls selling hand-crafted and home-cooked pumpkin-related products such as breads and cakes, lanterns made from dried gourds, as well as a huge variety of pumpkins for sale ranging from very small and colourful vegetables for decoration, through to large edible varieties for cooking. Plus there's always a giant pumpkin competition displaying some of the enormous vegetables grown by local farmers, as well as some weird and wonderfully shaped ones.
Minstrels and dancers on stilts roam the streets playing music and entertaining the children, plus there's a pen (or three) of baby farm animals, as well as a show of raptors and owls - something for everyone! 
We always like to go home with a dozen or so small, colourful and bumpy pumpkins, these dry out over the Winter and eventually lose their colour, but make interesting and natural decorations.

Å la prochaine (until next time), Fiona + Jean-Louis

Feel free to contact us by email: info@artelierprovence.com or via the website with any enquiry.
A selection of some very cute animals carved onto dried gourds.
We love these colourful, warty and interestingly shaped mini pumpkins!
FROM THE ATELIER . . . 
Here is STUDY #4 in the series called ‘Feel flows’, that Jean-Louis is currently working on. This theme is partly inspired by the Beach Boys song of the same name and also based on the nearby river Rèal here in Jouques - Jean-Louis aims to explore the translucent quality of the oil-encaustic medium. Of course water is always a great metaphor for the passage of time and reflection on life.
Below are two details of study #4, highlighting the effectiveness of the technique of painting several translucent layers.
Fiona's original images - This section  of the road between two nearby villages must be the spot that I have photographed the most these past three and a half years! Not only is it part of a 2.2km stretch of magnificent Plane trees, but either side lie broad fields that are cultivated all year long. The crops, along with the tree leaves, mark the seasons and are interesting as well as beautiful! This week the leaves are just starting to turn golden.
This is one of three old bridges in Jouques that traverse the river Rèal. This particular section of the river is rather beautiful as it cascades over a natural rocky outcrop and the river bank is carpeted with wildflowers that change throughout the seasons. It's also wonderful to hear the sound of rushing water in our village most of the year. To see more images, visit our Gallery' page

All Saints Day - la Toussaint

We're all familiar with Hallow'een (a contraction of 'All Hallows' Eve') which is celebrated on 31 October, the day before the feast of 'All Hallows'.
All Saints' Day, also known as All Hallows' Dayor the Feast of All Saints, is a Christian festival and public holiday in France and is observed on 1 November. It is known as La Toussaint (November 2 is celebrated in Mexico as Day of the Dead).
In our village, as happens all over France, many people take the opportunity to make an annual visit to the graves of their relatives to pay their respects, to clean and tidy up the graves and cemeteries and to leave flowers - especially Chrysanthemums which are blooming brilliantly at this time of year.
If you're travelling in France in early November it is a fantastic time to walk around some cemeteries, not only to appreciate how beautifully resplendent they look with flowers everywhere, but also to read the older head stones and take in a bit of local history.

IN OUR NEIGHBOURHOOD . . . 
I recently attended a very interesting lecture in the village about ITER, the international fusion project which is being built not far from Jouques.
ITER is a $20bn project, which aims to create nuclear fusion of hydrogen - the process that powers the sun and other stars making it viable for energy generation, by collecting the heat released to drive turbines for electricity.
The EU and six other nations, the United States, Russia, India, Japan, South Korea and China, are collaborating members. The construction of ITER is now nearing completion at Cadarache, (the largest technological research and development center for energy in Europe) twenty minutes north of Jouques. It hopes to conduct its first experimental runs in 2025 and, eventually, to produce 500 megawatts of power - 10 times as much as is needed to operate it. 
It is a colossal project, requiring extreme precision (within a fraction of a mm) in the building of the reactor, yet working on the scale of a large ocean liner.
Fusion is “nuclear power done right”, potentially much cleaner, safer and more efficient. “It seems too good to be true - high power density, low and manageable waste production, and no possibility of uncontrolled energy release” says Tim Luce, chief scientist at ITER, “But it is true!”
 
By Jean-Louis. Info exerpts borrowed from the Guardian.
IMAGE BELOW: an artist’s rendering of the reaction vessel at ITER.

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