Oct

The Paris Wall of Love

by Meredith Mullins on October 16, 2017

The many ways to say “I Love You”
© Meredith Mullins

How To Say I Love You?
Let Us Count the Ways

Te amo . . . Sarang Hae (사랑해) . . . Nagligivagit . . . Ég elska pig . . . S’agapo . . . Mina rakastan sinua . . . Phom rak khun . . . Aishiteru (愛してる) . . . Je t’aime . . . Ya tebe kohayu . . . Rwy’n dy garu di . . . Ani ohev otach . . . Ik hou van je . . . Nakupenda . . . Wo ai ni (我爱你)

What does this parade of phrases have in common?

They are all ways to say “I love you”— language gems that are important in today’s world of far too much disaster, violence, mistrust, and hate.

What else do these terms of endearment have in common? They are all words that appear on the Wall of Love in Paris.

Can you guess the languages? (See the key at the end of this story for the answers.)

How to say I love you with love locks on the Paris Post des Arts, another way to say I love you from the Wall of Love. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

The glint of metal says “I love you” . . . but there are other ways.
© Meredith Mullins

Saying “I Love You” in the City of Love

Paris is a romantic city. In fact, along with its classic moniker (“City of Light”), it has earned the perhaps coveted title of “City of Love.” (What city wouldn’t want to be the center of love?)

From the thousands of love locks that once glinted on so many of the iconic bridges to romantic trysts on park benches tucked away in garden corners to passionate tango dancing by the Seine, Paris lives and breathes romance.

The Wall of Love (Mur des Je t’aime) is a more hidden tribute—nestled in the Square Jehan Rictus near the Place des Abbesses in Montmartre.

The Wall of Love in Montmartre Paris, showing us many ways to say I love you. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

A secret Montmartre garden with a treasured wall
© Meredith Mullins

The 40-square-meter, blue-tiled wall watches over the greenery of the peaceful park and the locals who choose to sit amidst the quiet.

The wall attracts visitors, lovers, (and selfie addicts) from around the world who either stumble upon it or have heard about this creative treasure and have come in the name of love.

The work is the brainchild of artist Frédéric Baron, a lover of travel, language, and romance. The dream emerged in 1992 as he collected simple statements of “I love you” from his family and neighbors, all from different cultures. Each person wrote his or her “I love you” words on a single page of a notebook.

Bengali way to say I love you from the notebook of the Wall of Love by Frédéric Baron. (Image © Fredéric Baron.)

A Bengali “I love you” from Frédéric Baron’s notebook.
© Frédéric Baron from the Book of “I Love You’s”

As the project grew, Frédéric found more neighbors and friends from different countries, and finally began knocking on embassy doors to explain his vision and collect the rarest of the languages.

“It was a way to go around the world without leaving Paris and its suburbs,” Frédéric noted.

The result was three notebooks filled with more than 1000 ways to say “I love you” in more than 300 languages.

Arabic way to say I love you from the notebook of the Wall of Love by Frédéric Baron. (Image © Fredéric Baron.)

An Arabic “I love you” from Frédéric Baron’s notebook.
© Frédéric Baron from the Book of “I Love You’s”

Frédéric and Claire Kito, an artist and practitioner of oriental calligraphy, collaborated to create the wall in the year 2000, with production assistance from Daniel Boulogne.

The wall is built with 612 enameled lava tiles, reminiscent of the pages of the notebooks. The 311 “I love you” phrases are expressed in 250 languages and dialects— all in white lettering in varying calligraphic styles.

In a 1999 interview, Claire explained that, in Chinese calligraphy, “the hand is guided by the heart.” She wanted to respect the spirit of the person who wrote the words. She wanted to preserve the rhythms and graphic quality of the original writing.

The Paris Wall of Love in Montmartre, showing ways to say I love you in many languages. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

Can you find the languages you know amidst the reflections off the shiny lava tiles?
© Meredith Mullins

All the languages of the United Nations are present, as well as languages such as Inuit, Navajo, Bambara (from Mali), Bislama (from Vanuatu), Dzongkha (from Bhutan), and Esperanto . . . to name a few of the lesser known languages.

Interspersed across the blue tiles are fragments of red, which, if brought together, form a heart. The artists intend the wall to be a healing force of love for the too often broken heart of humanity.

Part of the Wall of Love in Montmartre Paris, showing many ways to say I love you in different languages. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

T’estimo . . . Catalan for “I love you”
© Meredith Mullins

Why Build A Wall?

There were as many ways to express this creative concept as there are ways to say “I love you.”

For Frédéric and Claire, the wall was not meant to be the usual symbol of division and separation. It was a way to reunite the world, through the languages of love—a symbol of reconciliation and peace.

Part of the Paris Wall of Love in Montmartre Paris, showing many ways to say I love you in many different languages. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

Can you spot the Zulu word for “I love you”?
© Meredith Mullins

The “Oh I See” Hope: Love Will Triumph

As visitors look at the Wall of Love—with so many cultures, countries, races, lives, and languages united in saying “I love you”— a feeling of hope is inevitable.

The Wall of Love is meant to spread this hope . . . and love — “to erase borders and open hearts,” as Frédéric says.

A worthy dream.

Part of the Paris Wall of Love in Montmartre Paris, showing many ways to say I love you in different languages. (© Meredith Mullins.)

Can you find “Ek het jou lief”? And can you guess the language?
© Meredith Mullins

For a free download of Frédéric Baron’s book of “I Love You’s,” click here.

To see more of Frédéric’s work, go to this site.

For more information about the Paris Love Locks, see this OIC Story.

Answer Key: Spanish, Korean, Inuit, Icelandic, Greek, Finnish, Thai, Japanese, French, Ukranian, Welsh, Hebrew, Dutch, Swahili, Mandarin, (and for the last image—Afrikaans).

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Meredith Mullins 2 Comments

France (Paris)/Language & Culture/The World's Art & Design

Jan

An Idiom Abroad

by Joyce McGreevy on January 3, 2017

The statue of the Duke of Wellington in Glasgow shows that Scotland's fashions go beyond the wordplay of clothing idioms. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Trafficking in high fashion, Glasgow style.
The Duke of Wellington monument at the Gallery of Modern Art.
© Joyce McGreevy

A Wordplay Stitch in Time

Sew, a funny thing happened on the way to a textile exhibition. One morning in Glasgow, I stopped at a café to write. The assignment: draft a column about the wordplay of clothing idioms.

I’m no smarty pants, but I hoped to leave readers in stitches so I put on my thinking cap, booted up my laptop, and buckled down to work. As cellphone users aired their dirty linen in public, I felt hampered and wished they would put a sock in it.

Then the barista buttonholed me with a shirty question.

“Wherever do you writers get your material?” he asked starchly.

His remark needled me, but surely I could pin down a sharp reply. A stitch in time saves nine, but darn it, the next ten minutes unraveled as I hemmed and hawed.

Awkward silence cloaked the café. You could have heard a pin drop.

A 17th century glove from Glasgow's Burrell Collection inspires off-the-cuff wordplay and other clothing idioms. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

The gloves were off. I grasped for an off-the-cuff remark.
A 17th century glove, Burrell Collection, Glasgow.
© Joyce McGreevy

The Truth Can Be Crewel

The truth is, we writers fly by the seat of our pants, sometimes crafting stories from whole cloth, sometimes hanging on by a thread. We spin a good yarn, yet often feel as if we’re pulling the wool over our own eyes.

I considered embroidering the truth, as if I always had a trick up my sleeve. But my tongue was tied, so I zipped my lip. I was skirting the issue, and in Scotland one can get kilt for such things.

Seeing that I hadn’t a notion, my questioner dropped the topic like a missed stitch. Hat in hand, I weaved uncertainly into the fog that blanketed the city of Glasgow.

A Queen's Park street in Glasgow leads to a textile exhibition that inspires the wordplay of clothing idioms. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Before me loomed a patchwork of city streets. I knitted my brow, feeling crotchety.
© Joyce McGreevy

Haberdasher-ing Down the Road

The road unspooled before me, shimmering in patches, as veils of cloud cover gradually lifted. With a few quid burning a hole in my pocket, I threaded my way through Pollok Country Park. There I saw people surging toward the museum that housed the Burrell Collection.

The Hornby Portico in Glasgow leads to a textile exhibition, a visual reminder of clothing idioms' wordplay. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

A coat of arms crowns the site of strategic textile maneuvers.
The Hornby Portico, 16th century, Glasgow.
© Joyce McGreevy

As a traveler on a shoestring budget, I seek out pockets of inspiration that won’t cost the shirt off my back. Like museums, where I feel as comfortable as an old shoe.

So in I darted.

There it was—a textile exhibition perfectly tailored to the situation: Gilt and Silk: Early 17^th Century Costume.

Oh, I see: This was truly a stitch in time.

A 17th century petticoat at a textile exhibition in Glasgow, Scotland reminds us that a stitch in time is more than wordplay. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

How do you order remnants of chronological events? In sequins, of course.
Detail from a 17th century petticoat, Burrell Collection.
© Joyce McGreevy

Material Witness

I realize textile exhibitions bore the pants off some people. But I grew up in a close-knit family where a head for style went hand in glove with an eye for art. We’ve always cottoned to costume displays and would go at the drop of a hat.

Turns out it was final curtain for the Burrell Collection. The museum was about to bolt its doors until 2020, allowing renovators to roll up their sleeves and gussy up the place.

In other words, this textile exhibition was no dress rehearsal.

Silver and gold embroidery at a textile exhibition in Glasgow reflect the gilt-y pleasures of wordplay and clothing idioms. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Taking a shine to silver and gold threads made me feel gilt-y.
© Joyce McGreevy

Cloth Encounters

Intent on bobbin’ my head at as many items as possible, I zigzagged from display to display.

Some of the clothing knocked my socks off.

Like a woman’s waistcoat made of linen and polychrome silk. The snug little bodice brought new meaning to tightening one’s belt. Ah, but those silver-gilt threads in a pattern of flowers and foliage had me wearing my heart on my sleeve.

A 17th century noblewoman's waistcoat at a textile exhibition in Glasgow, Scotland threads the needle between clothing idioms' wordplay and their source. (Image @ Joyce McGreevy)

Wealthy noblewomen had a vested interest in waistcoats.
A 17th century waistcoat, Burrell Collection.
© Joyce McGreevy

Satin’s Handiwork

Some items left me hot under the collar. Like the outfit worn by the little boy in this painting.

A medieval ruff, as depicted in a painting in Glasgow, Scotland, inspires the wordplay of clothing idioms. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Seems like ruff circumstances for a little kid.
Detail from a painting by unknown artist, Burrell Collection.
© Joyce McGreevy

I guess M’Lord Senior was a stuffed shirt. And M’Lady had a bee in her bonnet about handling play-clothes with kid gloves.

Meanwhile, another area was bursting at the seams.

Museum-goers had fanned out around the highlight of the show—a crimson silk satin petticoat. You can bet your boots that showcasing this extremely rare article was a feather in the cap of the museum’s director.

Thus did the hours unfold. I stared at historical fashion like it was going out of style.

A 17th century textile exhibition in Glasgow provides rich material for clothing idioms and wordplay. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Nothing’s petty about a 17th century petticoat. The layered look was big back then.
© Joyce McGreevy

Nothing Old Hat Under the Sun

Finally, it was time to throw in the towel. With a new experience under my belt, I felt once again ready to toss my hat into the ring. (As a freelancer, I wear many hats in order to line my pockets while pulling myself up by my own bootstraps, as I refuse to ride another’s coattails.)

So I returned to work and tied up a few loose ends.

A 17th century cap at a textile exhibition in Glasgow, Scotland is "a tip of the hat" to clothing idioms and wordplay. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Hat trick: This embroidered cloth became a close-fitting cap.
© Joyce McGreevy

True, I still hadn’t answered the question of where writers get their material. Not every mystery can be sewn up in a neat little package.

But by following a stitch in time at the textile exhibition and collaring a few clothing idioms, I’d reconnected with the fabric of life. And my guess is, there’s a pattern in there somewhere.

A detail of a 17th century cap at a textile exhibition in Glasgow, Scotland "puts a cap on" clothing idioms and wordplay. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Animals on caps symbolized the senses. H’ats all, folks!
© Joyce McGreevy

Comment on this post below.

Joyce McGreevy 4 Comments

Scotland/The World's Art & Design/Wordplay

Jul

First, Dare to Be Wild

by Joyce McGreevy on July 25, 2016

The Art of Gardening to Save the World

A close-up prairie flower in Chicago's Lurie Garden reflects the trend toward wild gardening. Image © Joyce McGreevy

Up close, a wildflower is a world.
© Joyce McGreevy

Here’s what happens when landscape designers dare to be wild. Lavender hyssop, maroon prairie smoke, blue quamash, and frothy calamint run rampant in all directions. The work of creative problem solvers, wild gardening centers you in the heart of nature.

Native spiderwort flourish in Chicago's Lurie Garden, thanks to wild gardening. Image © Joyce McGreevy

A Wild Surprise

Now, look skyward. See the skyscrapers. You’re standing in the center of America’s third largest urban area. Welcome to Chicago, city of wild surprises.

Laurie Garden, Chicago, IL is the work of creative problem solvers who dare to be wild. Image © Joyce McGreevy

Wild in the City

The urban oasis of Lurie Garden is part of a cultural trend toward New Wave Planting. Inspired by wild gardening, this relaxed style makes plant design less controlled and geometric than conventional gardens.

As Lurie Garden expert Noel Kingsbury wrote in Planting: A New Perspective, “When people say they want some nature, what they usually mean is a particular vision of nature, one that looks nice, fitting in to a distinctly human-centered idea of what nature is or should look like…. The task for the gardener or designer is to create an enhanced nature… one that supports biodiversity and looks just a little bit wild.”

Wild Irish Dreams

Chicago is also where an Irish lawyer dreamed of wild gardens. Says Vivienne DeCourcy, “After 20 years in a Chicago high-rise, I craved the wild West Cork landscapes of my childhood summers.”

Lough Hyne, Co. Cork, Ireland inspires Vivienne DeCourcy, writer-director of DARE TO BE WILD. Image © Joyce McGreevy

Meanwhile, she wrote 16 screenplays, each reflecting her longing to affirm the wild beauty of our fragile planet.

In 2004, DeCourcy returned to Baltimore—no, not in Maryland, but southwest Ireland, where the place-name originates. It’s an Anglicization of Baile Tí Mhóir, Irish for “town of the big house.”

DeCourcy’s home, nestled into a mountain that sweeps down to the sea, inspired visions of a wild garden that invited the outdoors in.

Vivienne DeCourcy's home in Ireland reflects her love of wild gardening. Image © Vivienne deCourcy

Sunset above Roaring Waters Bay, Ireland, home of creative problem solver and filmmaker Vivienne DeCourcy (DARE TO BE WILD). mage © Vivienne deCourcy

Tiny Seed, Big Screen

When DeCourcy finally found the one landscape designer who understood her vision, her dream of wild Irish gardens became a cinematic vision. The extraordinary life of designer Mary Reynolds inspired DeCourcy’s movie Dare to be Wild.

Irish landscape designer Mary Reynolds advocates for wild gardening . Image © Dara Craul/ Mary Reynolds

Self-described “reformed landscape designer” Mary Reynolds
urges gardeners to work with nature, not control it.
© Dara Craul/ Mary Reynolds

By the time production wrapped a decade later, it had involved several Academy Award winners: producer Sarah Johnson (Birdman), costume designer Consolata Boyle, and musicians Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova (Once). Acclaimed Irish musician Colm Mac Con Iomaire composed the score.

Tom Hughes and Emma Greenwell star in Dare to Be Wild, a film written and directed by creative problem solver Vivienne deCourcy. Image © Vivienne deCourcy

Emma Greenwell and Tom Hughes portray Mary Reynolds and Christy Collard
in the upcoming independent film Dare to Be Wild.
Both images © Vivienne deCourcy

A love story based on true events, Dare to be Wild has more twists than a corkscrew hazel tree. Ranging from the green hills of Ireland to the arid mountains of Ethiopia, it centers around London’s famed Chelsea Flower Show.

The Olympics of Gardening

This isn’t just any garden show, but the Olympics of gardening. In 2002, Reynolds, unknown and unemployed, became the youngest person in history to win Chelsea’s coveted Gold Medal for garden design. Among the finalists Reynolds bested for the prize was HRH Prince Charles.

Reynold’s “Celtic Sanctuary” featured hundreds of wild plant species, a traditional drystone wall, monumental stone chairs, and a fire bowl–all of it transported to England and built in three weeks.

A Celtic Sanctuary scene from DARE TO BE WILD reflects the film's focus on wild gardening. Image © Vivienne DeCourcy

Recreated for the film Dare to Be Wild, Reynold’s “Celtic Sanctuary”
shook up design circles with its iconoclastic style.
© Vivienne DeCourcy

Now Reynolds and DeCourcy are on a mission to protect the planet. Reynolds has authored The Garden Awakening: Designs to Nurture Our Land and Ourselves. The wild gardening book became an overnight bestseller in the UK and, with advance screenings of Dare to Be Wild, was rapturously received in Japan.

Fans of Reynolds’ book include Jane Goodall—yes, that Jane Goodall:

Wild Buzz

Meanwhile, DeCourcy is generating buzz. As a passionate advocate for the bees that nurture wildflowers and food plants, she wants people to rethink the conventional culture of gardening.

Irish filmmaker and writer Vivienne deCourcy is a creative problem solver with a love of wild gardening. Image © Vivienne deCourcy/ Dr. Michael Sheehan

“We need to throw a lifeline to the wilderness,” says DeCourcy,
echoing a line from her screenplay.
© Vivienne DeCourcy/ Dr. Michael Sheehan

“Only by experiencing the wonder of wild nature locally can we appreciate what’s at stake and be moved to protect wild nature globally.”

One way to do this, she says, is to replace conventional lawns with clover.

“The typical lawn is a matte green desert that guzzles chemicals. It cannot support a single bee—a creature responsible for one in every three bites of food we take.”

But a clover lawn is a habitat, where nature’s balance can thrive. “It supports a myriad of pollinators, only needs mowing once a year, and, being chemical-free, presents no toxic downside.”

The grounds of Lismore Castle, Ireland showcase the beauty of wild gardening. Image © Joyce McGreevy

A Wild Idea

Suddenly, a smile lights DeCourcy’s face. “Imagine your clover lawn, then a hundred of them, and then thousands, and you can see how easily we could create a sanctuary for our friends the bees.”

“Oh, I see”: The seed of a wild idea can grow into gardens around the world.

DeCourcy and Reynold’s wild ideas took root in Ireland, spread to Ethiopia, and flourished in England and Japan. Now they inspire gardeners everywhere. That’s what happens when creative problem solvers dare to be wild.

See the trailer for Dare to Be Wild here. Follow it here.

Meet Reynolds here and discover her gardens here.

Explore Chicago’s Lurie Garden here.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Joyce McGreevy 1 Comment

Ireland/Nature Discovery/The World's Art & Design/USA

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