Countryside Livin'

Robert Timme was the Dean of the School of Architecture at USC during my entire college career there. Together with his previous school, Houston University, the semester abroad program for a group of fourth and fifth year students was arranged: in the fall, USC would occupy the house in Saintes, and Houston would get it in the spring. Not too far from Saintes, Dean Timme had a 15th-century farmhouse (at least I think it was 15th century, and a farmhouse) that he was renovating. He would come out from time to time and occupy and renovate the house. For two weeks, Dean Timme and fellow architect, Michael Lehrer came out and led our Garden Tour of France.

At the end of the tour, we were invited to dine at his house. While Dean Timme and our director, Gerald, prepared dinner, Michael took all 14 of us for a quick walk and sketch of the teeny tiny town. When I say "quick walk and sketch", it was exactly that. Our pauses were limited to no longer than one minute before moving on, and if we were looking at our sketchbooks, we weren't seeing. So no looking at your sketchbooks while sketching!

It was an interesting (and sometimes scary) 15 minutes.