I Prefer Paris: Christmas 2019: Vincent’s Art Gift

December 26, 2019

Christmas 2019: Vincent’s Art Gift

First, I want to thank everyone for their warm Christmas messages the past few days. If I didn’t reply, I hope you had a lovely holiday. A number of you mentioned that you were looking forward to my annual post about the art gift Vincent gives me every year for Christmas.

For those of you who are new to Eye Prefer Paris, my partner Vincent, who is an artist and filmmaker, makes me a special art gift every year for Christmas. It takes a different form each year. It could be a collage, a drawing, a box, a sculpture, a book, and sometimes something in between.

For 2019 the title is a continuation of a theme, You are Gold 10. There have been nine other versions of You are Gold over the years.

Vincent never lets me know anything about the piece until he gives it to me on Christmas day. For 43 Christmas’s, the rule has been un-bending: we don’t exchange presents until Christmas morning. Not Christmas eve, not at 12:01am December 25, only on Christmas morning.

We had a festive and fun Christmas eve, celebrating with friends from New York. Vincent made a fresh salad of radicchio, grapes, and pears followed by a scrumptious lasagna made with Swiss chard, toasted hazelnuts, and Gruyere. Dessert was a raspberry tart brought by my friend.

After exchanging our gifts on Christmas morning, Vincent presented me with the art gift.

A Lucite box with a gold satin cord with tassel on the end, has a darkened photo of me from when we were in Valencia, Spain last summer, where I was standing on the street taking a photo of a door with my camera. (See photo above).

When I opened the box, it had five pieces. Each piece was folded in four, and when I opened each one, it was a silk screen of different configurations of the photo.

Vincent designed it especially to fit a floor to ceiling panel on our living room wall. Later in the day, he glued the panels on the wall, purposely making it look wallpaper.

It’s a bold and graphic piece, with beautiful textures and tones. There’s also a little humor, as some of the figures are in silhouette.

I am always bowled over by the imagination, creativity and most of all, love, that goes into each of these special pieces every year.

I gave Vincent a black dress shirt, a dark, olive green hoodie, exotic spices for cooking, and a Royal Delft serving plate, which I bought in Delft, Netherlands last month.

I hope you had great Christmas and spent it with family and loved ones.