That journalist would indeed be working if he thought went out to investigate all of them, not just with their viewing but in trying to understand and explain the surprise, significance and/or disappointment behind, say:

Monet at the Grand Palais,
France 1500 also at the Grand Palais,
Treasures of the Medicis at the Maillot Museum,
Incan Gold at the Pinacotheque,
Heinrich Kuhn at the Orangerie,
Baba Bling: Interior Signs of Wealth in Singapore at Quai Branly,
to mention those sitting on my desk and taking place in Paris,

or numerous the gallery openings.

Today, though, I’m going to an opening that includes several works by artist and art therapist Alba Aranda, who’s taking part in her first gallery show at Galérie Art Présent, 79 rue Quincampoix, a 2-minute walk from the Pompidou Center in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris.

Alba is a friend of mine. Hers is a Paris success story-in-progress.

I first met Alba in 1992 when, a recent immigrant from Paysandu, Uruguay, she was earning her a living by cleaning and ironing. Her uncompromising devotion to her art over the past 18 years while holding down full-time work in offices and caring for the elderly has been inspirational.

But there’s more. Alba’s humor and her interest in others and openness to the work have been clear to me since early on in our friendship. But it’s through her artwork of the past few years and through her drive to create that I’ve most sensed the intensity and strength of her character.

In 2004 she embarked on a 3-year evening and weekend program to obtain a degree in art therapy from the School of Michèle Billiard, who uses a method of therapeutic painting developed in the 20th century by Dr. Margarethe Hauschka. Alba’s thesis was on the work of Mark Rothko.

Alba’s works in the collective show at Art Présent are NOT examples of art therapy per se though they naturally derive from an interior drive.

“My inspiration,” she says (in French), “comes from my interior, painting is for me an interior need. My painting is intuitive, spontaneous. The colors are my guides on paths unknown but marked by memories, by infinite spaces, timeless…”

I am in no way comparing the several pieces by Alba in this collective show to the work displayed in the museums and galleries listed above, though I do find the resonance of Monet in her Fragment 2010. But in case you don’t get to meet Monet while at the Grand Palais, well, on October 6, from 6pm-9pm, you can meet Alba along with other exhibiting artists. I’ll also be there until 8pm.

Galérie Art Présent, 79 rue Quincampoix, 3rd arr. The collective show containing Alba’s work continues through October 15.

Alba Aranda operates an art-therapy studio in Montrouge, the suburb along the southern edge of Paris, where she works with individual clients in French and in Spanish or simply in color.

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