A grand old house, in a small village amongst the vines of the Minervois, between the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Mountains, not far from the Spanish border. Olive trees, market towns, fresh local produce, beautiful countryside, river swims. Hôtel Sainte Valière is an arts residency, a place of creative production and cultural exchange, and proposes concerts and events. We are currently accepting artist applications for our 2020 residency programs.
Rooms available in 2020
- May 2020
- June 2020
- September 2020
- October 2020
Jennifer Tremblay – author, poet, dramaturge – Quebec – September 2019
The big house on rue Cayla is sometimes so quiet.
You can hear flies fly.
Figs, peaches and tomatoes tangle on the table, fixed in the serene air.
Then someone starts to play the piano.
Or the guitar.
Someone has a good idea.
Writes a verse, a phrase, a paragraph.
Someone grabs a paintbrush, changes the world in one perfect stroke.
The air vibrates with joy.
We are here for this.
To exist as an artist before being anything else.
To forget, even, that we are sometimes obliged to think of other things, to be other things.
The dinner bell rings.
We run to the kitchen.
We laugh too loudly.
It is the possibility of exchange that makes us mad.
We are mad with love for everything.
We gorge on fruit, art and friendship.
We do not want to be elsewhere.
We do not want it to end.
I say to our dear Eloise: “You will have to push me out with my suitcase. If not, I will not be able to leave.”
It’s not a joke.
When night has fallen, I go up to my room with a view on to rue du Docteur Cayla.
And I write this slightly awkward poem.