Fete de Jardin

We have an Annual Garden Festival that encompasses a large part of the town centre for a weekend in May; here is a group of images taken over the last few years.  

 

 

 

 

The communes gardeners always put on wonderful dispaly in the area by the Echevinage,  this is a building dating from the 15th century that is now used by the commune for conferences and seminars. It has a great pedigree as it was owned by the Plessis family the most famous of whome was Armand-Jean who was better know as Cardinal Richelieu.  

It has been used as not just a family home but also as a courthouse for over one hundred years......... 

A full series of images of this building will follow soon.

 

 

Here we have one of the local properties that opens its gates for the fete so we can view their wonderful garden, they are a testiment to the hard work that has obviously been put in by the owners.  

 

We have lots of stalls selling all manner of Garden related produce, many types of Herbs, Grasses, Roses etc. along with more unusual items such as this creation.

 

 

 

 
 
 

 
 

 

 

 

More of the stunning specimens that we see on display.

 

 

 

Sunsets & Skylines

Here are a few shots on our town and the area around it.............

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Devils of Loudun

 

The Devils of Loudun is a novel by Aldus Huxley. It is an historical story of the supposed possession by the Devil of the local clergy. It tells of mass hysteria, sexual indecency and witchcraft that occurred in 17th century France surrounding the so called unexplained events that took place in our small town of Loudun. The Story unfolds around the Catholic priest Urbain Grandier and an entire convent of Ursuline nuns, who allegedly became possessed by demons after Grandier made a pact with The Devil. The events led to several public exorcisms as well as many executions by burning alive at the stake.

The story was adapted into a play in 1960, which was then made into the controversial 1971 Ken Russell film The Devils, which starred Vanessa Redgrave and Oliver Reed a crazy film that seems as though everyone involved were on LSD. There is also an opera based on the book, Die Teufel von Loudun, by Krzysztof  Penderecki, both available on DVD. The book, though lesser known than Huxley's other novels like Brave New World is widely considered one of his best works.

Three years ago the town celebrated this heritage with a wonderful display by a traveling troupe of artists who did the most amazing things with fire and started at the Place St Croix and then proceeded to the church and the scene of the burnings and ending at the the Marie for their wonderful finale.

This sort of thing would not happen in the UK due to the Health and Safty laws..............

 

 

 

 

 

1st of August

The first of August saw the opening of a new exhibition at the Collegial St Croix - it displays the work of Artist Photographer Brigette Olivier.

 

 

 

This is a direct translation from the French description of this exhibition- I will do mine after.

After three weeks of residence in Loudon graduated from April to June 2013, the photographer Brigitte Olivier present from 1 August to 29 September 2013, the collegiate church of Sainte-Croix, the fruit of his work and her approach to stroll through the streets loudunaises. Thus during the three weeks at the discretion of discoveries, it has captured the details of the loudunaise life, those very same, that by passing, we do not look ..."The route to photographic memory is a succession of encounters with history, geography and time that takes place not in the walker in search of traces.This route image compensates for thousands of accumulated and buried beneath the streets of the city-palimpsest, invisible way. These successive circulations that for centuries have shaped face in Loudun, fit into life and the contemporary landscape.Exposure To Memory fits in my artistic process revealed an accumulation of fragments, isolated and combined to create a new strolling grounds, a one-time appointments which figures play a close they do not have in reality.Make this visible the photograph reality is feed intimacy in approaching subjects, assert the nature of places and let arise details like little secrets to turn a corner.Figurations immortalized in their body or in their mineral plant envelope enter pause in the delicate shift from one representation to interpretation.Subject transmission takes on the heritage of freedom to acquire various forms, serial entities for stone mosaic on the floor, portraits in gold or silent landscapes of identity as kindergartens, within reach.Transfigured memory revisited submits to the recognition of a territory where you live.

I will now try to give a short synopsis of what I believe the exhibition is about.

Mme Olivier spent three weeks earlier in the year capturing images of every day things that we pass by during our normal day to day life but do not really see them, their beauty or the way they just meld into our modern life. She has included images of carved stone facades that depict the history of the imagery used for both religious and pagan purposes, flora and fauna both wild and  cultivated for competition.



 

This is such a wonderful venue for this sort of exhibition, the people of Loudun are very fortunate.