Almost Feels Like Spring has Sprung.

It seems that I'm always blogging about stuff 5-6 days after it happens lately. You'll have to forgive me for being so absent these days, but I seem to be at one of those grand junctions in life where everything speeds up exponentially like a big highway entrance ramp. Luckily I drive an Alfa Romea 147 with a big engine, so I'm managing to keep up---most of the time.

Anyway, last weekend FrenchBoy and I stumbled upon a delightful surprise at le Centre Culturel Jacques Brel. The exhibition was a series of recent sculptures and works on paper by French artist Pierre Gaucher.

Needless to say I was completely taken by surprise on this one. I’ve visited the Brel center many times during my time here in Thionville and quite frankly this is the best exposition I’ve seen to date. My husband and I immediately fell in love with these larger works.

The show also included a few other freestanding sculptures, but we were smitten with the wall pieces. We’re not exactly in the market for adding a new piece to our collection this year, but these works have already been added to our newly created 2008 art budget.

After we left the Brel center, we bumped into FrenchBoy's work colleague Lotfi and his lovely daughter Thaïs . (Not pictured is twin sister Salomé, who was busy at a birthday party.)

Lotfi and his family live in our neighborhood, but this was the first time I had actually met them, so naturally I whip out my camera and demand a photo. Isn't Thaïs just adorable?

After our chance meeting, FrenchBoy and I made the mistake of wandering down to Centreville (Fancy French for "downtown") for a show put on by a local art group under the theme “Fantasy”.

It was underwhelming to say the least—full of saccharine watercolors and lace doilies made by retired schoolteachers I would guess. But way in the back of the room, jammed into a corner, I found these darling little drawings by Laurence Schluth. (Yeah-sorry. I know the photo is crazy blurry.)

Maybe it was some of the euphoria left over from seeing the earlier show, but I just fell for these little darlings that were done on scrap paper and ripped pieces of notebook paper.

Unfortunately the artist wasn’t around, so I couldn’t ask her questions about her work in my broken French, but I just found these little works to be absolute gems---like being allowed to peek into the diary of an angst ridden 13 year old girl. You can’t fabricate this type of charm. It just is what it is. Sadly the artist didn’t make her return before we got bored and left. Too bad, so sad.