ATTENTION! C'EST POUR LE MAIRE

October 2007

I got an unexpected call from my brother Walter in Peru  “Are you coming to town?  I asked.

I imagine I sounded worried.

 “No.” He laughed.

He’s the deputy director for a humanitarian group in Latin America and sometimes makes stop overs  in Paris on his way to world conferences on hunger, water, and other Third World crisis. The last time he visited was just before my last exhibition at The American Cathedral and I was slightly frenzied if not miserable and impatient.

 I became concerned that someone in my family had died. Which one? I thought.

He continued. “My ex-co-worker who lives in Biarritz…” he started

I had remembered him talking about her on his last visit.

“She called me. She thinks she saw you on TV.”

“Yeah, I heard that I was on the news…”

I replied,” but I didn’t see it myself.”

“With the mayor of Paris ?” He continued.

“No. No. No. It was the deputy mayor. Daniel Vaillant.

He’s the mayor of Montmartre. It was kind of a destiny thing.

When I was making my last painting of Sacre Coeur, the waiters from the café in back of me were very nasty,  I guess I had taken a valuable parking place to set up my easel.

“This place is for cars not artists. If you want to paint go up on the hill.”

 “Attention.” I told them. “C’est pour le maire.”

And sure enough. That’s where it is.” Chez le maire.