An art-full day

I am puzzled because my previous post, titled  A Parisian morning, shows as blank on the blog, although it shows as published on my own screen. Too tired to figure it out tonite. It's almost midnight. I'll stay up for one more round of the Tower flashing, and relate a bit about today's adventures. Eventually I will, I hope, get around to describing my sojourn in Avignon.

 Today's mission, which I did not accomplish (and that's ok, I often don't]
Was to try to find the housing project where I worked on creating a mosaic mural nine years ago. I remembered the general area, but it is an area with many developments, and I think there are many more now than there were  almost a decade ago.What I did stumble upon,  to my delight, was the 104 artspace, which opened when I was there in 2009. It was wonderful then, and has expanded since. I just happened upon it. It may be better than having located the project, because  if I found it and the mural wasn't there, it would be a terrible disapointment. We had left without knowing if they'd found the space to mount it.

What I did find was a lot more art than I remembered being in the housing projects before, as well as a lot of street art. The neighborhood looked better than I remembered. It wouldn't surprise me if the 104 had had an effect on the surrounding area.

The exhibit on display was terrific. Even better was the activity happening around it. The space is open to anyone who wants to use it as a practice space, and there were many doing just that. So surrounding the major installation there were people doing breakdancing, tango, swing.  And a juggler, and a hula Hooper. And also a group of children visiting, all in their neon vests, some of them imitating the moves of the dancers.

The installation was a huge conglomeration of discarded items, from cars to refrigerators to typewriters to tires, aall assembled into a massive display, and all painted white. Around the perimeter of the space were about 6 rooms that you needed to pay to enter, each with a smaller installation by the same artist, Vhils.  His pieces include videos,  sculptures made of layers of discarded posters, another comprising polystyrene pieces to form an urban landscape., The exhibit is called Fragments Urbains.

There was a cafe where I stopped to have a drink in sight of some of the dancers. It was a concoction I hadn't come across before - fresh ginger with lime juice and sugar. Pretty good but a bit strong; I asked for extra ice as I also always do with my much loved citrons presse - basically lemon juice served with a carafe of water and sugar. It must be at least 4 or 5 lemons worth of juice, and i always ask for extra water and ice cubes. It makes them go much further . I honestly can't figure out how they like them so strong.

To my surprise and delight there was also a thrift store within the art complex. So I spent a good while there, but was good and didn't buy anything.

To see some pix of what I encountered today, take a look at my Facebook post. It's almost 1 am and I am going to try to wind down and rest up for tomorrow.
Did I say it gets dark around 10pm? I was wrong, it's more like 11. I think I'll stay up for one more round of Eiffel lights, and have a little more wine mixed with soda water, which is an absolute no-no in France, according to Valerie, my mosaic teacher. So don't tell her.