JEAN-NICOLAS GERARD

摘要

At 6am Jean-Nicolas tiptoes down the stairs and prepares breakfast for himself and our son Antoine, who has found a summer job at the local silo. Clemence, our daughter has left for her usual summer far away from home, among her beloved horses. The heat has been unusually intense these last few weeks and the hard wheat, which covers the fields on the Plateau de Valensole, is ripe although June is not yet over. The lavender fields around are just magnificent but the drought is bad and Jean-Nicolas's crazy wild garden is suffering. His working day starts by watering the tomatoes that turned red a few days ago. The village is quiet and the fresh air from the night can still be felt under the rose bush and the vine. The two hours spent alone in the garden and the studio right after dawn are special to Jean-Nicolas. That is why he prefers his summer stagiaire (trainee) to arrive later in the morning. This yean the stagiaire comes from Quebec, a student in Arts at Concordia University (Montreal) and, as all the other stagiaires who have been in the studio before, she comes to see what it is like in 'real life' before considering opening her own studio.