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So here I am, 9 months pregnant looking forward to 2019 not only as a new year and a new beginning but a whole new life! As I write out my New Year’s resolutions in no particular order I wish you all the success in yours on this new year…. silica flower drying, then pressing to ultimately start making flower art designs specifically for my body of work in France Figure out a better flower pressing method for larger florals Continue to build an open conversation for creatives on my Instagram platform Open an online store to sell my print editions Workouts! Take the ferry to Corsica Take bébé to visit the Loire Valley in the spring and stay in a fabulous Chateau Use the car as a tool to explore more of France and dig deeper into my photographic work, observations on life in Provence and foraging for subjects in still lives Give myself time to adjust to being a mom and enjoy every second of her before pressuring myself to start producing work Continue my design collaborations with new inspiration based on my ability to now get out and explore more of the countryside Keep the car clean (meaning free of stuff inside as well) Consider creating abstract works that blend the story of Provence with memories, textures, and light without being literal scenes with the intention to print large scale.

A weekend of French pastry workshop by pastry chef Molly Wilkinson at Kate Hill‘s 18th century Gascony farm house, Kitchen at Camont, in the South West of France complete with chickens where we learned how to make all kinds of treats from French Macarons to Lemon Tarts! Workshops are on going in both savory and sweet classes so please check out both Molly Some of Kate Hill’s favorite books on French food: Pierre Koffman Memories of Gascony // Auberge of the Flowering Hearth // A Culinary Journey in Gascony: Recipes and Stories from my French Canal Boat // Cassoulet, A French Obsession // Honey from a Weed //

There is a place tucked away in the South of France on a plateau hidden between the Pyrenees mountains that has captivated my imagination… it is called Chateau de Gudanes. The past two years I have run through her echoed halls, wondered her wild grounds and fallen asleep to dreams by candlelight. It was with great pleasure to create this video with Kevin Burg for the Waters family to bring to life the arrival of a new book about the Chateau so that we may all remember what it is like to believe in fairytales… See a behind the scenes of how we created and edited this here!

You can imagine, she being Australian and not completely fluent in French, how many endless stories she has facing the French bureaucracy, learning the rules of restoration on an historic chateau, the time the chateau caught on fire, surviving winter alone without modern heating, when she set off fireworks for Bastille Day and the police showed up, and on and on… and then in the most effortless mad hatter whim she puts together these magical dinner parties with over flowing champagne coups, classical music echoing throughout the chateau walls, the glow from the candles illuminating out of the open french windows into the night sky to the distant sound of laughter and cheers. The main chateau kitchen and its two adjoining rooms have both electricity set up with charging stations and wifi and a fourth room across the hall with electricity is a communal bathroom with 5 toilet rooms and three showrooms, not unlike an adult summer camp. There was a library room, a music room for ballroom dancing, a champagne room they used to bring ice down from the mountain to put in the marble bowl for parties, and endless bedrooms, sitting rooms, terraces, and more. The attic is home to the bats which in my first year there liked to pay me nightly visits through my open bedroom window (I like to let in the cool, fresh mountain air) and circle around my room for a few minutes while I stayed motionless in bed with the antique monogrammed French linen sheets pulled up to my nose watching before swooping back out into the night sky.