{off to Nice...}

I know it's been a long time since I posted and I have so much to catch up on, such as my book launch. But tomorrow is my B-day and I'm headed to Southern France!
When I was 17, I moved to France to start my undergraduate studies...I absolutely loved the Midi, and in particular, Montpellier, but I didn't like the approach to Art History, and so I abandoned my French education and moved back to Canada to start a BA at UBC. But it was when I was living in the South of France that I took a trip to Florence, where my love for Italian Renaissance Art History started....and set me on a very particular career path!

{me at 17 on the balcony of my flat in Montpellier}

Here I am 20 years later, headed back to the Midi, an author of a book on Italian Renaissance court collecting, a lot of degrees and experience under my belt, although I don't feel much different than that 17 year old, to be honest. On reflection, it's sometimes the risks we take, the things that don't completely work out as we thought they were going to, that are the making of us.
So with that, I shall remember to take risks & remind myself that mistakes are never 'fails' but simply part of the journey of life-long learning.

I'm off to stay in the Le Beau Rivage, a 19th-century hotel, which was one of the first seaside hotels in Nice in the continuation of Promenade des Anglais. It became a favourite of artists and intellectuals such as Matisse, Fitzgerald, Nietzsche and Chekhov. so I'll be in good company.

{Matisse's Nice}

A bientôt, & bises,
L