Sallie Erichson's photographs

THE PATIENT PASSERBY

Patiente passante

THOUGHT that it was gone.  Gone, my Gascogne. The Gascogne of the days before highways buzzed feverishly between the big cities, and garish computer screens gleamed behind closed shutters. Even so Gascogne still offers its panoramic sky leaning back against the balustrade of the magnificent Pyrenees. Magnanimous Gascony.  “What do you want to do?” Children no longer play in the street after dark. Children don’t play in the street at all.  There are no more two-cent sweets at the grocery store.  There are no more groceries.  You have to move with the times, my Gascogne has lost its way.  You cannot hold back a child who has decided to run away and discover the world. C’est la vie. 

C’est la vie, yes, but the earth is still the earth.  It has a memory which only waits for the chance to tell its story, in small pieces to the patient passerby who hears the cadence of deep country. Patient passerby are rare birds – just as well ! Otherwise, the old storytellers who don’t like to shout, would go back to grumbling by the fireside.  Like the cat who has just slipped under the gate.  Besides, souvenirs of the past exist even when they are not spoken out loud.  All I need to do is watch the last rays of the sun decay against an old wall where ivy and rose mingle, “se parlan” as we used to say in gascon about two young people who become dating.

Sallie Erichson is one of the patient passersby who hears the earth speak.  She knows this secret path with its fine, everyday details and feels for the abandoned ruin which wants to be restored.  Sallie’s photos reassure me.  It’s all there: the misshapen door, the pile of wood stored under the shed, the old tree twisted in the middle. So, the prodigal son will return. And in the words of the poet singer: “he could find no better resting place”. 

Like Sallie, one must come from afar, from an unbelievable faraway place, to pick out the treasures that we no longer see, but which slumber on our doorstep.  To notice the chord between clay of the origine, shaped with immemorial know how, parsimonious harvest, and then the light which is beyond measure. In her tender gaze, there is music, an adagio of the New World retracing its steps.

I couldn’t tell you more about my Gascogne than Sallie.

                                                   Alineas

Sallie Erichson est américaine, version côte ouest. Etat de Virginie. Etudes de piano au conservatoire de Shenandoah-Winchester (promotion 1971). A travaillé chez les éditeurs de musique, RCA Red Seal à New-York et Sony Classical à Hambourg. Auteure des photographies des artistes édités par Sony Vivarte Series de musique ancienne. Installée à Lagarde-Fimarcon en 1995 avec son mari Wolf Erichson († 2019), très réputé producteur de disques. Organise des stages de piano. Gîte rural. Photos sur facebook et flickr. Courriel : chapellerose@gmail.com