When Carol Gillot first saw Paris, she was a 16-year-old Philadelphia girl following in the footsteps of her older sister, who had already visited the City of Lights. Seventy years after arriving in Paris by boat for a short stay as a tourist, she now calls the city home.
But she didn’t live in Paris all her life, or most of her life. It wasn’t until the age of 72 that Gilot decided to move to Paris full time.
For decades after her first visit as a teenager, she had a long-distance love affair with the French capital and the French way of life. However, she built a career as an illustrator in the United States, working primarily in New York and occasionally visiting France several times a year to attend painting workshops.
She also designed shoes in Italy and wrote a picture book about European flea markets. While working in the fashion industry, he was assigned to Hong Kong, Taiwan, and India.
However, Paris was always in the back of her mind and she continued to visit there as often as possible.
“Everyone said, ‘Why don’t you move to Paris?'” she told CNN Travel.
In 2006, she started a blog to document her love for Paris, showcasing Parisian watercolors, especially the pastries and sweets beloved by locals and tourists alike. The website, called “Paris Breakfasts,” gained an audience and made Gilot want to keep returning to Paris, where he could paint whatever he wanted.
She also started selling her artwork through Etsy. Readers embraced the colorful eccentricity of her work, which caused a strong fascination with French style in her patrons. Encouraged by the success of her blog and her artwork, she left New York and settled permanently in Paris.
Mr. Gilot, now 86, has no regrets. She lives alone in a small apartment on an island in the Seine, but she is far from alone in a city where a love of art and a good life are rewarded with a rich calendar of exhibition openings and tastings.
“My dad used to say, ‘You’re going to end up in the attic surrounded by cats,'” she said. “Well, we got the attic.”
As a child and even as a young adult, Gilot was restless. Her parents could not understand why she would move from one interest to another.
After joining an art group and visiting Paris as a teenager, he studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Arts and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania.
While working as a freelance illustrator, she also worked in the fashion industry on New York’s 7th Avenue. But one of her most important jobs was working as a pharmaceutical illustrator. Her paintings have appeared on the covers of medical industry magazines such as Time and Newsweek, as well as in advertisements for Advil and Prozac.
On the other hand, she embraced and sought volunteer work that expanded her world culturally. For example, she volunteered as a photographer for the James Beard Foundation and was introduced to many chefs. There, she met French chefs such as Alain Ducasse and Paul Bocuse at special events and dinners at a New York nonprofit dedicated to the culinary world.
Those encounters led to commissions for artwork, and the connection with Paris deepened even further.
One was from French champagne maker GH Mumm. She drew pictures of celebrities drinking Mumm and ended up painting the labels that went directly onto the bottles.
Life was never boring for Gillot in New York. She attended Gloria Steinem’s 60th birthday and said she worked as an assistant to designer Anne Klein. In addition, she visited Paris multiple times a year, staying in boutique hotels in the 6th arrondissement.
“I’ve never been married. I forgot,” she said. “It was too much fun.”
But there were also some tense moments. In the 1980s, she was shot and killed by a burglar near her apartment in New York’s East Village. she survived. But life in New York had taken a big hit.
“I noticed that New York was becoming more and more rude and more and more pushy,” she said.
Breakfast and dinner in Paris
Her visits to Paris continued, and her side hustle became a full-time job when she started blogging about her Paris-inspired artwork. She has also exhibited her work at the Alliance Française in Washington, DC and the Chelsea Arts Club in London.
So in 2012, she decided to sublet her New York apartment and come try it out. And more or less, she has been in Paris ever since.
Gilot currently lives in a place called the Chambre-de-Bonne, which was originally built as a servant’s quarters. Her apartment on Île Saint-Louis overlooks the Seine, and from her window she can see the Bastille, surrounded by classic Parisian roofs. The environment in this corner of Paris feels like a village, she says.
Although Gillott is long past retirement age, she continues to work as a blogger in what many would consider a full-time job. Her cozy, colorful and chatty blog is a wonderful combination of her original artwork and the photos she carried around Paris.
Initially, she gained fans by drawing pastries and sweets, which gave her the name of her blog. She was particularly drawn to Laduree, a popular French pastry shop known for its macarons.
Currently, she writes marathon posts about things that happen in Paris that tickle her fancy and are suitable for illustration (photos and watercolors). Recent examples include classic French author Colette, beach umbrellas from Normandy, and paintings by Monet.
As one reader said in a blog comment, Ms. Gilot has “an amazing ability to connect all the dots in Paris.”
She exports the spirit of blogging and supports herself by creating artwork for sale on Etsy, including a letter subscription service that sends small examples of her work to subscriber mailboxes around the world.
Some of the more impressive items she created include an illustrated map of Paris showing locations associated with Napoleon. There’s also a customized illustrated map that shows you the best places to buy macarons and ice cream.
Americans and others who admire France find a home in her work. A blog reader named Diane from Denver commented on Gillot’s visit to the seaside town of Le Havre, writing, “Perfect post, Carol.” “Absol Parfait”
Gillot also continues to work as a freelance illustrator. One of the highlights was providing artwork for a poster promoting a champagne and pastry trade fair. The poster was displayed on the Paris subway for two weeks, with tens of thousands of commuters walking past it.
“As an artist, my life is so rich,” she said. “If you don’t have a lot of money but love food and art, you can stay busy here.”
Gilot’s watercolors depict a sensual life dedicated to Parisian culture and everything beautiful about French cuisine.
Her work looks like something straight out of a foreign film or a glossy magazine spread. But nothing is idealized. It was inspired by the French way of life, which Gilot had observed for most of his life.
“We have a lot of food rituals here. Every month there’s something, and it’s very important,” she said of living in France. “When the cherries come in, there’s a lot of celebration. People are really excited and we have recipes.”
She says companies, agricultural organizations and tourist boards are always holding tastings and contests for the best galette or the best croissant, and Paris is also a magnet for professional competitions. For example, someone has to attend a celebration of the French chocolate industry, and Gilot is doing just that. As a blogger, Mr. Gillott has time on his hands, and he invites the press to attend.
Gilot is often invited to events featuring Champagne, but although he doesn’t drink much alcohol, he loves French cuisine, including a wide variety of local cheeses.
“Petrossian was particularly generous with tasting flights of caviar,” she recalls of her early days name-checking and blogging about the world’s most famous caviar purveyors.
She knows that many people think life in Paris is idyllic. She says it is, but it’s not. Although she says she has a good French accent, she doesn’t think she speaks French very well, which sometimes causes misunderstandings.
But she’s adopted a French perspective on food, and it’s led to an amazing life. Last month, for example, she attended a tomato festival. A few years ago she attended a festival dedicated to hot chocolate, and another time it was a kite festival (but still food, great food was in demand).
“You have to think differently. Everything is seasonal.”
Art, architecture, civics exam
She feels that living in Paris is much cheaper. She collects Social Security on top of the income she makes from the paintings she sells on Etsy. She has no mortgage or car payments. She gets around by walking, subway, and bus. The senior discount also reduces the cost of the pool and other areas where she swims.
She is also no stranger to stocking up on fresh produce at outdoor markets, where many items must be thrown away each day after business closes.
“It’s very cheap,” she said.
And the city is very safe. “I don’t have to worry about crime.”
She qualifies for a visa, known in French as a carte de sejour. It also states that because she is over 65, she does not need to prove language proficiency to obtain a visa, but she does need to take a civics exam.
“French people love history,” she said by way of explanation.
Now she does too. And architecture. To rent an apartment, she said she was tested on French history, including the name of the architect who designed her building. (When I asked her if she thought such a question was strange, she waved it off by saying, “I’m French.”)
“Life here is really great,” she said. “You’re walking and you look up and you see reliefs on the buildings. It’s amazing. I love the architecture here.”
Gillotto misses her sister, who lives in Philadelphia, and visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But she has given up her New York apartment and has no plans to return to the United States. There are too many tastings in Paris to attend, too many watercolors to paint, and too much inspiration to look out over the Seine from my apartment.
“Even when the weather is gray and raining, this is a beautiful city,” she said.
