Nonattachment

Attachment: Chateau Orquevaux

I love this place! I love these people! Orquevaux is a small village in northeastern France and the home of the Chateau D'Orquvaux Artist Residency, founded in 2017. Originally a hunting lodge, the chateau is situated on 40 plus acres of stunning gently rolling landscape and includes a waterfall, swings, swimming hole, and animals — goats, chickens, geese, and muskrats, something I had never seen. I spent two weeks working on my art without another care in the world. Heaven.

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Nonattachment

The Buddhist notion of nonattachment relates to an engagement with experience with flexibility and without fixation on achieving specified outcomes. This suits my understanding of my reaction to a recent occurrence. At the end of my residency, I rolled up 5 paintings and shipped them back to myself. Some were done, some were in progress. This one I especially loved. Most of the art in my house are works I've bought from other artists. One of my goals in France was to paint something to hang at home and this was the one.

The tightly wrapped tube, with a tremendous amount of customs-related paperwork taped on it, arrived. Off to the studio! I wanted to unroll the canvases and see it all again. I threw the tube in the car. When I went to remove it I saw it was empty. No art. One extremely well-sealed end was removed. 

My head sunk for about three seconds and then that was it. I am free. My lovely memory of making the painting is visceral. I can go there any time.