Local Color: (part 4) I meant to say

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

At one point in my language learning experience I (along with a fellow student) went to live in another small town in the south of Belgium called Andenne. I remember it as a cold damp place with ice on the inside of my bedroom window.

View looking southward out my window

View looking northward

The winter that year was quite severe, in fact, several people in the area had died in the cold and many elderly and poor were suffering with the frigid temperatures. The couple we were living with thought we ought to pray for all the people without heat so they gathered us all together. Now the word for “heat” is “chauffage.” My friend began with a sincere entreaty saying, “Lord, I pray for all the people without “fromage.” Well, “fromage” is the word for “cheese.” This broke up the prayer meeting into peals of laughter.

Photo used with permission.

Another time I accompanied this same friend to the local shop where she wanted to purchase some slide film. She asked the proprietor if he had any “diable” (which means “devil”, she meant to ask for “dia” as in “diapositive” = slide film) The proprietor looked at us, sized up the situation, and said, “Miss, you don’t want that.” My friend, not yet realizing the mistake insisted that she did. I am sure that exchange is a lasting memory for the shopkeeper.

On another occasion we were sitting around the table in our rented quarters with some friends from the area extolling the delights of the local bakery. One of us commented how we especially loved to eat the “gazettes.” Now you can eat a newspaper if you want to but apricot turnovers (the local word sounds like “gozettes” ) are certainly more tasty. We still haven’t lived that one down.

 

Local Color: (part 3) Cultural Event

Part 1, Part 2

One of the things I relished on my long stay abroad was news from home. My mother is a terrific letter writer and in addition to her correspondence would sometimes include French-related news or comics.

Peanuts

I, in turn, would try to furnish details of life in Brussels (by this time I had moved to the capital). A benefit of living in the largest city is the opportunity to attend cultural events. The Grande Place is a favorite spot for visitors and Belgians alike. In the summers, when it is light past 10:00pm, the outdoor cafés are full of people enjoying the fine weather and a good cup of coffee. This central Place also hosts the amazing flower carpet (see photos and time lapse video with music). The main building, the Town Hall, is also used for special events. This particular summer a number of free concerts were held. Just the ticket for poor students.

Photo used with permission

My friend Cee and I met Belgian friends Sabine and Huguette about 7:00pm, took the metro to Gare Central and walked down the cobblestone streets to the Grand Place. The evening air was pleasant and the Place was full of people wandering around. Colorful, fluttering flags framed the perimeter. People were drinking coffee at the cafés as usual.

There was already a crowd of about 50 people in front of the Town Hall but it didn’t seem like anyone in the Place knew why they were there. Interestingly, no one lined up in front of the door. Everyone pushed and shoved to get a place. When the doors finally opened a few people in the group bunched at the door waved red cards and demanded they be allowed to pass. Others were asking what was going on? The shoving and little red cards brought many “Enfin!”s from the crowd along with a few “Il ne faut pas poussez!” Soon there was a rumble at the front. The word filtered back that there were only 250 places in the hall and everyone would not be able to enter. The crowd pushed harder. Cee finally squeezed through the door but I was plastered against the outside of the other door by the pressing mob. (Sabine and Huguette had managed to make it in ahead of us.) I continued to be pressed away from the door when Cee’s arm shot out, grabbed me, and yanked me inside. By this time Cee and I were laughing. The scene inside struck us as particularly funny. Outside people were behaving in the most aggressive and unrefined manner. Inside everyone looked as proper as a peacock.

The room was rectangular, paneled with deep brown wood and decorated with burgundy and gold trimmed curtains. The walls were adorned with tapestries and statues. The high ceiling was lit with three hundred little lights that formed the shape of a flower. The audience sat on highly polished wooden benches. In front of me was a lone backpacker with a bag of ice on the seat next to him which began to drip onto the floor. Tourists.

A lovely concert of chamber music ensued: Mozart, Brahms, and Schubert played on piano, violin, and cello. What a treat!

 

Local Color: (part 2) Fluency

In part 1, I’d arrived at the language camp with next to no French. Each evening the 15 or so students crowded around a table in the main stone cottage.

Outside we could hear the neighbors calling to one another “Il fait beau!”, the very occasional car, or the sound of the cows walking down the street to pasture.

Though I love to eat, meal times were somewhat stressful. They were at least three hours long and students were encouraged to converse on controversial subjects. If you didn’t offer an opinion, you were called on. Talk about pressure! The hardest part was following the conversation and then working out something to say. But this was complicated by the fact that when I finally had a sentence in my brain that made sense—they were on to a new topic.

The food was, however, very good. The master insisted we put our bread on the table cloth. “My table is clean!” he would say. Soup, interlude, salad, interlude, appetizer, interlude, main meal, interlude, cheese, interlude, dessert, small interlude, coffee, more conversation. The remainder of the evening consisted of jokes, lively conversation, and cultural instruction until about 10:00pm or until everyone had drifted off to bed.

When I came to the village I could not make sentences or hold any kind of conversation in French. By the time I left one week later I could do both. Amazing. I even started dreaming in French. I must say though, that one of the most memorable language learning experiences came not long after boot camp.

One day, as I was riding the metro it made a stop at a nearby town. A Belgian man boarded. He was wearing the ubiquitous long woolen coat (dark green) and a black beret. At his side was a typical Belgian dog—small, with plaid coat. The man stood, grasping the center pole, and looked down at the dog. “Assieds-toi,” he said, and the dog obediently sat down. I thought, “That dog speaks French better than I do!”

 

Local Color: (part 1) “On Monte”

I have been thinking about my years in Europe, the many places I visited. I loved the beautiful landscapes, the architecture, the history, the culinary delights, and the friendly exchanges with people.

When I first moved to Europe my language skills needed a jump start so I went to live as a student in a tiny village in the Belgian Ardennes. A couple (a French woman and a Belgian man) owned a small but thriving language school and part of the programme required living “sur place” while you learned to speak French. They call it “immersion.” I never felt so discombobulated in my life.

I stepped out of the train at the small station onto the open platform and was met by Vivianne. “From now onn wee speak onleee Frrench!” she said. I loaded my bag in her tan Citroën. As we headed up the hill she looked at me and, motioning with her hand in an upward fashion, repeated three times, “On monte,” looking at me each time to see if I understood. “I’m in trouble,” I thought. The only French I knew was “Oui”, “Non”, “Merci”, and “Ou est la toilette?” How was I going to communicate?

 

Contrasts in Color (part 3)

Have you ever taken photos with a lot of punch only to see them print out as dull as cement? Well, that’s about what happened to these. I am turning in my prints to the prof knowing full well that he will say, “Hmm. These don’t quite look like what you emailed me.” For those of you in the design world you know all about the challenges of color and printing. But for now you can see the digital version and, I hope, enjoy the contrasts I saw when I took these photos.

Saturated Contrast

Contrast of a pure color with extreme lights and darks of the same color.
Reds (Plastic):

Blues (Metal):

Simultaneous Contrast

Two complements side by side, or near complements so that one color visually influences the neighboring color. (Think van Gogh’s Café Terrace at Night)

Simultaneous contrasts are about how one color influences the color next to it or surrounding it, making it appear brighter or duller or even a slightly different hue.

If you look at the two yellow dots in the upper third of the photo you can see how the one over the darker violet area looks more intense than the one over the lighter violet (there is a lime green—forgive me prof—dot in between them.)

I am not sure the next shot is close enough for you to see how the stripes influence each other but in real life they do. Find the same color in two locations and see how it looks slightly different as a result of its neighbor’s influence.

Color Balance Contrast

This refers to the combinations of color percentages that balance a composition.

1/4 yellow to 3/4 violet, 1/3 orange to 2/3 blue, 1/2 green to 1/2 red. How ’bout that?
So here is as 50%/50% for you.

And here is supposed to be a 1/3 and 2/3 comp.