My Travels

I can wile away an entire day walking the streets of a new city, going wherever my mood leads me. It's the best way to find the fun, the locals, the unexpected. Case in point, on a recent trip to Paris I discovered, quite by accident, the 59 Rivoli Art Studios on my way to the Louvre. I chose the scenic route to get to know the neighborhood so imagine my delight when, from a few blocks away, I spotted the feverishly flamboyant entrance of the Haussmannian building along rue Rivoli in the 9th arrondissement. Right away, the door screams: this is where all the cool kids are hanging out.

Once inside, I learned that 59 Rivoli houses the working studios of over 30 artists. Not all of artists are French, as a few slots are kept open for visiting residencies. Every day, except Mondays, they open to the public after 1 p.m. and visitors can meander through the six floors at their leisure. To make things even better, admission is free. The co-op also holds events and performances of all types throughout the year. According to its website, it gets more than 40,000 visitors a year but the day I went was calm and quiet and there was no rush to see one room from the next.

A looming, spiral staircase runs up the center of the building and there are lovely, large windows overlooking the street. Every square inch of the place is creatively covered in paint and ephemera: maps, scraps of cloth, bottle caps, lamps, wooden sculptures, the list goes on. Think Alice in Wonderland with an industrial edge. It's a messy glimpse inside the hearts and brains of imaginative people, abound with sculpture, collage, photography, acrylics, and textiles.

Had I taken the metro and stuck to a concrete plan, I would have missed this offbeat pocket of color and sensory overload. I don't dismiss the classical galleries but there's just something to be said for watching artists create in the here and now. To go where their music is playing loud, their lunches are sitting out, their hands are crafting and calloused, is to see what Art is. Finding these studios was the exclamation point at the end of an ordinary day and to quote a mural I spotted on my visit: The earth without art is just “eh.” Who wants that?