Postcards from Paris: {Beware, My Lovely: the surprises of spontaneous strolling}

The list of museums in Paris are some of the best in the world. That's a fact, difficult to argue with.

I have jotted-down a list of the temporary exhibits that I am anxious to see. Really, there isn't a lack at all, but with museums one sort of has to plan. I mean some of the lines are pretty long, and it takes the spontaneity out of the whole experience if you have to plan to bring your umbrella or remember to ziplock a little snack in case your blood sugar starts going down while you wait. There's also a chance you can get stuck behind someone who you'd rather not be behind for whatever reason, big or small.

My favorite thing is happening upon something because you don't have to plan to like it. Instead it catches your eye. It could be that you are thinking about any old mundane thing, and then all of a sudden you find yourself stopped and amusing over something spectacular. Then you can like it or not without any preconceived notions.

That's how it went while I was walking around Le Marais last week. I think at that moment I was craving a falafel on rue des rosiers, and also I think I had passed a shop with a nice selection of leather, wing-tipped shoes. Those two profound things or something else on the same level of intelligence were vividly on my mind when I came across Yelena Yemchuk's beautiful palette exhibit, Beware, My Lovely. At first, I simply glanced through the window, but I couldn't continue on until I had stepped in for a more detailed look.

Completely charming and clever, I immediately found myself ecstatic over Yelena Yemchuk's series of watercolor paintings. Most famously known for her work with The Smashing Pumpkins, Yemchuk was born in Kiev, Ukraine and evidently inspired by Eastern Slavic and even Mexican history. The collection of paintings features characters of quirk, some wearing sombreros, a few Russian-type men in typical fur coats, a selection of unseductive nudes posing amongst bullfighters and Napoleonic War soldiers.

The best thing about spontaneity in Paris is that you can almost expect it to happen everyday, but it doesn't necessarily. Instead, it catches you at times you least expect it, and it gives you something to write home about.

Bisous,

Reba