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Updated 10/5/07
 2007 has been a very busy year for me. Finally Chuck and I had some time at home during the first few months. I spent as much time as possible in my studio painting.
Since it had been some time since I had studied painting with anyone, I decided to
Take a class titled Still Life With A Twist at Callanwolde Fine Arts Center in Atlanta. The teacher was Carla House. It was tremendous fun since my daughter, Amy Bransford lives very close to the center, and she wanted to take a silversmith class, too. Good family fun! Through my connection with Carla I was asked to join the Ladies Of Ossabaw. This is a group of women who travel to Ossabaw Island each year to paint A La Prima Plein Air. Ossabaw is an amazing island off the coast of Georgia with 26,000 acres of virgin forest and beach.
The only inhabitants of the island are Eleanor Torrey West who donated the island to the State of Georgia, and her minder Jim Bitler. Wild hogs, donkeys brought from Portugal by Mrs. West, snakes and a few horses roam freely. Now I am very familiar with uninhabited territory since Charlane Plantation is a vast acreage nestled along the Ocmulgee River near Macon, Georgia, but I had never been to such a place as Ossabaw. When we first went to the deserted beach to paint it was hard to concentrate on the job at hand for being amazed by the landscape. This was my first occasion of traveling for a total art experience. I found out quickly about what to carry to the field and how to approach the subject. I can't wait for the trip next spring so I can have another go at it. On returning to Bullard I realized that I needed to concentrate on my studio space as working in the house had become too much of a distraction. I packed up my easel and paint and moved up to the Stable Loft, which is about 100 yards behind our house. What a great move! I had a deck facing our pond for reposing, and my horses were always downstairs to greet me. The light was good; the space was huge; Rose Lane was happy.
 So, after finishing this up I realized that in the near future Chuck and I would be leaving on another leg of The Bigger Bang Tour with the Rolling Stones. As I pondered my future I had an epiphany: Why don't I sign up for some artist retreats while I was in Europe? Wow! Pulled out the old computer and goggled art retreats in Europe. I decided that I would find one for June that fit our travel schedule. Il Chiostro, a company out of NYC, had one in Vagliogli, Italy for the week of June 17 to 23. I signed up! Wow, again! Now I had an art experience to look forward to along with Rolling Stones shows and related events. We left home on May 22, and after three weeks of traveling I was ready to have a moment of separation. I traveled from Paris, France to Florence, Italy. A bus picked us up at the train station and took us to the Contessa Hamilton's estate outside of Vagliogli. She is 94 and still swinging! Lives with her dog Prince surrounded by multiple houses which Il Chiostro rents for their customers. It was very authentic. The food was, too. We drank Chianti brought in each day from the local vineyard. All that and painting the Italian landscape, too. Needless to say the week flew by. I had made lots of new friends and had a great experience. My tutor or retreat leader was Val Carson from California. It was her job to take us to wonderful places to paint. I left this peaceful place on a bus from Sienna to Florence. to catch a flight and meet Chuck in Madrid. Once at the airport I checked in and took a seat for my turn to board. About 45 minutes before we were to leave they started canceling flight left and right. Hmmm. I'm stranded in Florence. What to do? Val had mentioned a place that she had stayed before called The Hotel Ritz. Mary Crump who had been in my group was also staying there so I called and they said I could have a room there. It happened to be next door to Mary. Phoned her up, and she was elated to hear from me. So, for the next two days we toured around Florence. The Ritz is directly on the Arno River about 3 blocks from the Uffizi Museum. It was all about ART! We took it all in. Went to Mass at St. Croce where Michelangelo is buried; ate gelato; saw a Cezanne exhibit, and ate at the feet of David. I also bought a painting by Jehan Bogdanovich. It was a total whim but Chuck and I were to celebrate our 34th anniversary on June 26 , and the title of the painting was Passion. Now it lives with me here in Bullard.
 We departed Florence on Monday. This time I was traveling to Lisbon, Portugal. Chuck had played in Madrid and moved on to the next city. I didn't make it in time for the show, but I just had some room service and rested, anxious to see Chuck again after a 10-day break. We had loads of new things to talk about. We traveled on to other cities ending up in Rome on July 1, where all of our family would be meeting us. Rome is such a historic and magical place. It was
Such a great thing to be able to share it with my children. After that we hit the Eastern Block countries of Serbia, Montenegro, Romania, Czech Republic, Hungary and ending in
St. Petersburg, Russia. During this time, Isobel Work, the wardrobe mistress for the Stones suggested that I check out West Dean College in England for a painting course.
I did and found it to be just the place that I needed to go for my next painting experience.
It was a little challenging to get my paper work into them, but I did and was accepted.
I'm back in college. The course that I chose was Traditional Landscape And Figure Painting In The English Manor tutored by John Freeman. It was a summer school course running for one week. Room and board was furnished as part of your tuition. For the second time in three months I'm off on a painting adventure. This must be heaven! My travel schedule for this trip would be from Lausanne, Switzerland to Gatwick Airport outside of London, England. I was picked up by a car service and taken to West Dean, which is South of Chichester. It was about an hours drive. The trip took the whole day as I left about 8AM that morning and arrived at the school at around 5PM. I checked into my room and went over to meet John Freeman only to find out that I was late for the
First session. Oops! No problem, but I was a little behind. Didn't realize that I should have arrived a day early in order to be ready to paint the following day. Anyway, the first studies were copying about 5 Constable landscapes. From these we learned varnishing and glazing. John had then scheduled a model to pose nude for us to paint. Then, finally, we were able to paint outside using the majestic grounds of West Dean College as our
Subject. I don't think I have ever been any place that had more beautiful grounds and gardens.
 They were so vast that I didn't even have a chance to visit all of the spaces during the week that I was there. The Arboretum was closed because of the Hoof and Mouth infestation that had been detected in an area just North of West Dean. They had also moved the sheep back to the hillside in front of the house to protect them from contamination. My course was a huge learning curve. The light and colors in England are like no other. It would rain one minute; be cloudy; sunny, and then the wind would blow.
All the time being quite chilly so it was a long way in perspective from Georgia. The days were quite long for me. We would begin the session at 9 am running until 5:30 PM
With night lectures, gallery exhibits by the tutors, or films available, there was never a dull moment. At the end of the course I had absorbed a load of new information. Thank you, John Freeman. Now it was time for me to join Chuck again. He was playing in Dublin, Ireland at Sloane Castle on the day I left. He has friends there who had invited him to join them for hunting and fishing at their place. It didn't seem reasonable for me to fly to Dublin with all of those wet canvases so a friend offered to drive me to London where I would just stay until Chuck arrived a couple of days later. Time alone is never
A bad thing for Rose Lane. I checked into the SaVoy Hotel, which is located on the Thames River. We were staying there for the first time because we could take the
Boat up the river to the O2 for the concerts. When I checked into the hotel the young gentleman commented on my paintings and how he liked them. He also told me that the hotel had an easel as Monet had lived there from 1891 until 1896 and painted some of his beautiful Thames River paintings from the Suite, which was one floor above ours. Magically, I was able to channel Monet for a few days while we were in London. What a great ending to a summer of ART. I visited the Tate Britain to study first hand the paintings that John had lectured about, and also, Somerset House, which had a stunning exhibit of silver, mini-mosaics and snuff boxes. In the Hermitage Room, from the museum that I had just visited in St. Petersburg was a loan of paintings from the collection of Josephine Bonaparte from her home Malmaison. I have always been a fan of Napoleon and Josephine even doing a series of paintings of Napoleon when we started the tour in Toronto in 2005. It was very dear to see her clothing, dishes and personal items. I went twice. I love that painting of her sitting on the divan in the years after she was divorced by Napoleon. She was quite a collector and most of the works ended up in Russia being bought by Alexander First after the fall of the French Empire. First hand I can say that Russia ended up with a stunning collection of Paintings and art objects from all across Europe. Now it was time to resume the tour. Chuck met me in London on August 20th. There would be three last shows for the tour here This is home turf for The Stones. It was a blitz of activity.
 We had lots of friends visiting from America for the shows, and of course, we had to
Pack our cases to be shipped back to America because we had TOO MUCH STUFF!
We eliminated our excess having Will Alexander, Chuck's Assistant and Tech, take care of it for us. Chuck had arranged a further 10 shows for a solo tour of Austria and Germany. After the final show we said our good byes to all of our dear Rolling Stones
Family and headed off to Austria. Chuck's first show was at the Palace in Esterhazy where Hayden has a special music hall. He did a fantastic show probably doing a little Hayden channeling himself. During our time there we stayed at Taubenkobel in Schutzen am Gebirge which is about 10 minutes drive from Esterhazy. This was an art form in itself ala European Gourmet Restaurant cum Inn. Our friends Herbert “Doc” Weiltler and his lovely wife Renate fostered our visit. Now it was time for me to return to America. I was so anxious to be home again. Three and a half months is a long time no matter how much fun you are having. Plus, we had begun a major renovation of the backside of our house, and I was needed for design purposes. The flight was a long one, but it sure was good to be back on Delta Airlines. Since it was September 2nd and a holiday weekend there weren't many people flying. My friend Lynn Lavery had graciously offered to pick me up for the drive back to Bullard. Timing is everything as Keith Richards says. My flight was early but Lynn arrived 5 minutes after I collected my cases, and we were off. It was a quick drive as there was much to talk about…and then we pulled up to Charlane Plantation. In spite of all its construction it was a beautiful sight to me. Green…. not at all like any other place on Earth. And, I wondered if I would ever be able to use those English landscape colors…or the elusive Olive Green.
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