Wednesday 5 October

The blog started yesterday !

10.36. Will check-in again in about an hour. First writing task today: Introduce the audience to (grandmother) artist Anabel, a 60 year old French holocaust survivor.

The scene, a chic cafe in Montmartre Paris,(tables on pavement), 1990. Anabel approaches the cafe with an unsteady walk... high heels or flat shoes or something else? She sits down and summons the young waiter... coquettishly, authoritatively, rudely ? What does he look like?
Anabel unloads her bag...what kind of bag... and places her skecth book on the round iron table. What does the skecth book look like? Does she unload pencils or a pen?
Her coffee arrives... what kind of coffee, or is it a brandy, or a coffee and a brandy ?
She's not interested in the other customers. They're arty but not bohemian, colorful, chic. A few are writing journals, some are reading newspapers, others are chatting or people watching.
There's a poster on the cafe door advertising a new cabaret singer Sasha. She looks uncannily like a younger version of Anabel.

First check-in this morning: 11.36.

I'm trying to communicate with Anabel though these sketches I made years ago. I'm pretending they are hers, and trying to find out what she's saying 'though' them.

Next check-in 2pm. Task, create the following scene:

Anabel is joined at the cafe by two women friends, one old one new. Whilst Anabel visits the restroom, the old friend tells the other a shocking secret about the Jewish artist's dark past.

15.00. Had lunch and the usual summer siesta. Still hot here during the day in souther Spain.

So, Anabel's in the loo and her friends begin to talk about her.

New friend (NF): "She's a bit off today isn't she ?"
Old friend (OF): "Yes."
NF : What's wrong with her?
OF: Well...well... I thought you knew?
NF: Knew what?
OF: What ? You don't know ? Didn't I tell you recently ?
NF: No you didn't! What's wrong with her ?
OF: Well, I'd say she's bi-polar. She has terrible days, and some days, as you know. she's very excitable.
Pause. New friend is shocked.
NF: I thought that was just a thing young people got ?
OF: No.
NF: So... what's it all about?
OF: ....the war.
NF: Oh God, but that ended thirty five years ago! She was just a kid then.

Ah, I think this has to be a mother and daughter, not too friends.

So, mother (M), and daughter(D) continue this discussion:

D: Mum, why are you so ... so protective of Anabel, she's a nutter!
M: Sadie, Anabel is not a nutter!

Then the mother tells the daughter the story of Anabel walking out of Auschwitz aged ten, the only member of her family to survive. Inside her small blue coat is stitched the illustrated diary of her mother.