A COMBINED ART AND GEOLOGY WORKSHOP IN SOUTHWESTERN FRANCE

The purpose of this paper is to describe a workshop combining art, geology, geography and culture that took place in the southwest of France during the first week of July 2005. The workshop was based in the small village of Auvillar, situated on the Garonne River halfway between Bordeaux and Toulouse. I am a geologist and a native of the area; I completed my undergraduate studies in Bordeaux.  My coinstructor is a professor of painting and drawing at the Art Student League and at the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, both in Denver.  The 9 students attending the workshop ranged widely in background from high school seniors on their way to art school or college, to teachers designing their own art-science integrated programs for secondary schools, to a retired surgeon.  The workshop consisted of morning geoscience instruction, afternoon art instruction, and 3 all day excursions combining both science and art. Topics for instruction and painting included: geomorphology and the formation of landscapes (Garonne River valley and its terrasses, limestone foothills of the Massif Central, piedmont of the Pyrenees Mountains); construction materials used for houses, historic churches, and cloisters in the southwest of France; and effects of climate, soil composition, and vegetation on the light and color depicted by artists in different regions of France.  A special excursion to the prehistoric cave paintings at Niaux in the foothills of the Pyrenees provided an opportunity to discuss Pyrenean geology and karst formation, in addition to prehistoric art and the chemistry of prehistoric pigments. Feedback from the workshop participants suggests that they benefitted greatly from the dual instruction and from a greater awareness of what they were seeing and painting. Despite the fact that most participants entered the workshop completely unfamiliar with geology, they posed geology-related questions all day long! The workshop was enriching for the instructors as well as for the participants.  Particularly enjoyable for me were critiques of the paintings and drawings at the end of each day.