Theo Edmonds - Artist at ACP

Theo Edmonds, a professional artist, did a dramatic art presentation as a part of our Thursday evening series at The American Church. This presentation was in our sanctuary. It was titled “Prodigal Manifesto.” The whole sanctuary was transformed into an environment suitable for the action.




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. The artist, with the help of a dancer, portrayed the moods and experience of anguish, desperation, violence, and, finally, a fall into a near death state of being. The dancer came to him and held him, like Mary held Jesus when he was taken down from the cross – as depicted by many artists. He rose from this collapse on the floor to explode with enthusiasm, hope, reconciliation, and resurrection.





The video clip shows this energetic renewal of life conclusion to the artist’s presentation. The art piece is a final expression of hopefulness, reconciliation, and new life.

St. Laurent Church - Paris

St Laurent, a church with a very long history, is in north east Paris near the East train station. It's location is interesting as it faces the same paved north/south road that the Romans constructed way back in mid 1st century BC. There is record of a basilica and monastery on the site by 511 AD, but it was sacked by the Normands in 885.

This round arch is all that can be seen of the church erected in 1180. This church was used as a parish church until about 1429 when it was deemed too small and most of it demolished for a new, bigger church built in the flamboyant gothic style. (For Gothic think pointed arches, larger windows, and flying buttresses.)(For flamboyant think of more carvings and "decorations.)

Buttresses and then flying buttresses became necessary as the churches became larger in size....especially when they wanted larger windows in these churches. Buttresses are large support walls that are on the outside of the regular church walls to help support the heavy roof and keep the walls from buckling and consequently crashing down. This used a lot of extra stone and was expensive to build. So, someone thought of flying buttresses. To give you an idea of this...think of a person standing outside of a building with their arm/hand out at a angle holding up the wall...then think of stone doing this.

As you can imagine on a church built back in 1429 the flying buttresses were beginning to deteriorate. Their life had been extended with a concrete bath years ago, but that was only a stopgap. So, the church raised the money for a new roof, releading and cleaning the old stained glass windows and rebuilding the flying buttresses. Alex, a young man active at ACP, who is working on the project asked for permission to take a church group up there on Sunday afternoon, and we jumped (or climbed!!) at the chance, even though we had to wear a hard hat!

We climbed up about 6 landings of scaffolding to a rather large working area.

He showed us how the new buttress is shaped around a wooden frame.

After the stone is fitted together and mortared a cap of even harder stone is put on the top to help protect the butress against the weather.

Builders have a chance to add a personal touch to the buildings that cannot be seen from below. In this case when the building was originally build, there were carvings put around a lot of the building just under the roof line. Some of the carvings are just nice....leaves, vines, grapes. Others are funny....like snails on the leaves, mermaids, men looking out from between the bed sheets. There are a few questionable carvings....a man with his pants down, an animal with a human head, a man killing an animal with his knife....but, most were just amusing.

The carvings at the end of the flying buttress were so deterioted that only a few shapes could be discerned. The masons decided to put something modern in these slots. The young stone mason who took us on the tour is one of the carvers for this project. After tossing around a lot of ideas, including Darth Vader (which was vetoed!!) they will instead carve a modern roofer, window repairman, stoneworker and architect at the computer.

Alex first develops his "cartoon", then draws it on the stone, and then carves it on site.

I asked someone why they would spend the money for these carvings, that won't be seen, when the project is so expensive. He replied "if this is what has traditionally been done, then the French like to continue the traditions, no matter the cost!!" So be it!!!

P.S. For a good read on the building of churches during this time, check out Ken Follett's "Pillars of the Earth."

Eiffel Tower at 120 years - Light Show

Between October 22 and December 31,2009 The Eiffel Tower is showing off with a beautiful light show. It is really impressive as you stand nearby, but a video is also enjoyable to watch. The light show is being supported by the Eiffel Tower and by Citreon, the car maker which is celebration its 90th anniversary.

The light show gets more dramatic as it goes on, so, though it last for several minutes, it gets ever more exicing. At least I (Don) think so.

Enjoy. Just click on the arrow start button.

Tiffany Treasures

We had known that the American Church owned two large Tiffany glass windows that are considered French National Treasures. They are of two angels, Hope and Contemplation, and were commissioned by the church way back in 1898. They were originally in the first church and were moved over to the new church in 1930.

People often drop by to study them both from inside the sanctuary and from the outside. But one morning as Don was preparing the sanctuary for a wedding he was surprised to see visitors in the sanctuary quite so early. The guests were visiting with some of the church staff and were looking at the Tiffany windows.

It turns out that one of the guests was a Tiffany expert from the Metropolitan Museum in New York City and she didn’t know these windows existed. The expert was here in Paris to help set up a special showing of Tiffany glass at the Luxembourg Museum. Later we found out that they are the only Tiffany glass windows in a church in all of Europe….as far as they know!!!

Later we were able to go to a special pre showing of the Tiffany glass at the museum. We learned more than a few things about Tiffany windows. One, they are often layered with different glasses to create a special effect, such as under water or debth/3-D. Second, Lewis Tiffany developed a way of folding or creasing molten glass to give a neat effect, such as folds in a dress. Our angels have beautiful folds in their skirts. Third, he was early on able to create variations of color…even different colors within one piece of glass…which is beautiful in skies, flowers and water, especially. Fourth, he was so full of new ideas that his company could hardly keep up with all his new designs and concepts and ways to use glass.

Louis Tiffany, born in 1848, had the financial backing that most artists only dream of. His father was the founder of Tiffany and company that became the famous jewelry and silver firm. But Louis decided not to follow his father’s footsteps and began his career as a painter….which he continued throughout his lifetime. In the 1870’s he turned to interior design and was successful with that. After playing around with broken jelly glasses and wine bottles, Tiffany started a new company for stained glass that left the impurities in the glass….creating the first new type of stained glass in several hundred years. Later on he used the broken, cast off pieces of colored glass to create his beautiful lamps. The rest is history.

The value of his work is unbelievable. One of the professionals at the showing told Don that one of the lamps displayed had sold for $3,000,000 (that’s right, 3 million) several years ago and would probably be valued at about $7,500,000 now. As I looked around the room, I couldn’t begin to guesstimate the value of the collection, but was thankful that it had been put together for the people’s enjoyment.

Remember that you can click the picture to make it larger, click “back” to return……

Eiffel Tower....the birthday

I wrote recently that you never know what to expect from the Eiffel Tower ….and it has surprised us again. The Tower is experiencing its 120’s birthday with a brilliant light show!! It started on 22 October and will last till 31 December and is co-sponsored by Citroen, the French car company.

They are relying on 400 LED spotlights and it lights up the side of the tower that faces the River Seine. The light show changes colors from brilliant to subdued, with movement up and down and side to side….in fact, in all kinds of directions. The shadows/colors on the ground are spectacular as well.

The show lasts 12 minutes, one minute for each ten years of the Tower’s age. The Tower company assures us that it is getting high performance with low energy, something that they have worked on since 2005. At that time they reduced their energy consumption by 30% which amounts to big euro savings for the city of Paris.

It is exciting to see and I’m including a sampling of pictures for you to enjoy. (Remember that you can click on the picture to enlarge it, and hit the back button to go back to normal size). Don has a video that he intends to put on the blog as well.

Brittany.....the Castles

Brittany has a strong Celtic history, as the Celts being the first identifiable inhabitants of the area. They probably intermingled with the earlier peoples who built the great stone monuments (somewhat similar to Stonehenge in England). Later on the Romans moved in by 56 AD, and still later more Celts arrived from Britain.

There were many battles back and forth in the middle ages between the English and French with a few Norse ones also thrown in. Fortresses, castles, fortified areas were located in many places in Brittany as it was often the battle ground between the two countries. Fort La Latte was a 14th century fortified fort near Cap Frehal (on the shore).

In St Malo one can see many of the remains of the fortified areas, including the ramparts which may be walked around. There are a couple of forts on small islands near St Malo. If the invaders got by them, then there is a larger fortress on the mainland. At least one of the smaller forts can be walked to in low tide.

At Fougeres, its medieval fortress was build during the 1300’s by the Duchy of Brittany against the French aggression. Situated atop a granite ledge it is awesome even today. This fortress includes thirteen of the few “belfries” in Brittany. In the old definition of belfry, it is a defensive place of shelter…watch tower…. located in a high place. They did not include a bell.

There were defensive walls that included the higher part of town, but the citizens from the lower town had to retreat into the fortress during times of trouble. Around part of this was a moat that could be flooded by tidal waters in times of need. Part of the moat remains for us to see even today.

In Vitre, the first wooden castle was built about 1000AD. It was soon bequeathed to the Benedictine Monks, but after burning down it was rebuilt as a defensive site at the end of the 11th century. This castle also includes belfries which are visible today. Parliaments took refuge inside its walls during the plague.

. In the late 16th century the castle sheltered Protestants and was for a while a Huguenot stronghold. Later a prison, it is now a musee surrounded by the old half timbered houses of old Vitre.
We saw enumerable ruins of old ramparts and forts as we traveled around. It seems as though everybody was afraid of somebody in those olden days. And before the days of “weapons of mass destruction” what better way to protect yourself than to put up a wall. Ironic isn’t it?

Brittany.....the Sea

Last week Don had a break in his wedding schedule (he’s had 90 so far). When we could see that this break was going to happen, we planned with a church friend, who has a car, to take a road trip to northern Brittany.

Brittany is the most western part of France and is about five hours west of Paris. The Brittany area is surrounded on three sides by the ocean and has a saw tooth coast line of almost 750 miles. The shore is extremely jagged with many islands, islets, cliffs, caves and reefs. It has always been a dangerous place to sail into and not just because of the early corsairs (official French pirates) but because the sea is full of rocks that are difficult to see, especially in high tide. Now, there are lots of lighthouses and beacons to help guide you into port safely.

The tallest part of northern Brittany that we visited was Cap Frehal which stands 182 feet above the water and where a much needed lighthouse sits atop a red sandstone promontory. There is also much pink granite in the area. The red and pink rocks are a nice contrast to the beautiful emerald green water. In this area there are seagulls, cormorants and other sea birds galore. There is not much vegetation due to the sea breeze being at times gale like and very salty. Further inland, it is almost tropical with much vegetation and it never freezes due to the warm ocean currents.

We also visited St Malo and drove along the Rance river estuary. There is much evidence of the tide in this area. The tide which goes in and out every 24 hours can rise as much as 44 feet. While the high tide can be the most beautiful with water covering the mud and splashing against the rocks, the low tide is great for seafood and shell collecting.