“Au Pays des Cathars”
Pencil, pastels, watercolor
2006
The province of Languedoc is in far, Southern France. The Pays de Cathars, squeezed up into the lower Pyrenees and the border with Spain, is a rough, wild area. There’s not much there, beyond small villages and a surprising number of mountaintop castles, ruined during the Albigensian Crusade. There aren’t a lot of tourists beyond die-hard hikers/climbers (they never try to make conversation) and the predictable Da Vinci Code devotees (mostly Americans, who never STOP talking). For obvious reasons, this was also the last stronghold of wild wolves in France.