Let The Light Pour In

Beside marble sculpture, one of my favorite art forms is stained glass. Delicate, colorful glass that wrangles the ephemerality of the sun, capturing and filtering its light and throwing color onto the floor or onto faces lucky enough to be standing before it.


Europe, to me, is the best place for stained glass, its cathedrals employing the art to heighten the experience of awe and respect for God. Combined with vaulted ceilings and the echo of a grand open space of stone and wood, there are few places that inspire more humility and quietude than a cathedral with grand stained glass windows.



Even the tombs of Père Lachaise make use of this art.





Growing up, I was fascinated with my mother's Louis Comfort Tiffany replica of "The Tree Of Life." Tiffany took a traditional craft and made it modern with his Art Deco designs. As an adult, I went to an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art celebrating L.C.T.'s work, and since then have truly appreciated this craft as a true art.


But France... you've really got this thing figured out.








Walking into a place like this... really makes you take a breath. And makes you quiet.




My favorite part of seeing a stained glass window is the brief moment when the sun is aligned just right, and pierces a portion of the colored glass, light searing unevenly through the window, and gleaming into the darkness inside.












(breathe)

Even outside of a church, stained glass just gives art a touch of extra beauty.





Just more inspiration for this artist. Merci, France.

avec l'amour,
*jenna*

The Climb

One of the strange feelings I love is getting a postcard long after the loved one is already home. I've already hugged them, caught up on our lives over dinner or a drink, and the world feels right again to have them back with me. And one day I come home and there in the mailbox is a carte postale, reaching over to me from the past like a ghost of something that once was.

So I'll have a few more post(card)s for you, reaching out to you like a memory.

One of the many things France does right are les escaliers. Everywhere I went, there were spiral staircases leading here and there. (I've longed for a spiral staircase of my own since childhood. I'm very easy to please.) Especially cafés and restaurants, with limited space on the ground floor, have their toilettes down below, accessible by gorgeous spiral staircase.

Stairs in a nook with boutiques, near the Louvre.


Stairs leading to le premiere étage of La Tour Eiffel.


et juste à côté


Stairs from Elsa's doorstep.


From the Saint-Michel Metro station.


Stairs of Montmartre



Getting onto the Bato Bus on the Seine


In the Musée de Montmartre, home of artists galore


In Le Grand Palais



In Parc Butte-Chaumont


at the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson


Some toilette some where


En Ardèche



At Sainte-Chapelle



At la maison de Monet


At Hotel Rex


À Nice




Some toilette some where


And in the Louvre.


avec l'amour,
*jenna*