I’ve arrived at the Grand Palais in Paris — one of the most beautiful buildings in the world — to attend Art Basel Paris. This is the first time I’ve ever attended such a large art fair. I am a watercolorist based in Boston, and I’ve never gone to any of the Basels. I happened to be in France because I just completed a two-week (very intensive) art residency in a tiny village at La Porte Peinte in Noyers-sur- Serein. After getting used to being in a village of just over 600 inhabitants, only one boulangerie, medieval structures and single-lane cobblestone streets, Paris hit me like a bomb. It is alive with people, filled with sunshine and cov- ered in gold everywhere you look.

When I first walked into the Grand Palais, I immediately noticed how much the art inside the building spoke to the city outside its doors. There was gold everywhere in the booths. I was stopped in my tracks by the magnificent painting by Amoako Boafo, “White Opera Gloves.” After seeing so much gold on the bridges and statues, this painting’s generous use of gold to highlight the fabu- lous woman with gloves was a showstopper — in fact, I spent the second morning trying to find the painting again to get the details and it was already gone. Sold? Probably.

Then, to walk straight up to the stunning wall-size gold weaving by Olga de Amaral, “Viento Oro,” 2014, and land immediately afterwards in a booth nearby to see the humorous golden balloons by Jeppe Hein, “Together we will touch the sky.” Every passerby was reflected in the gold of these balloons, and Paris, the city, was reflected everywhere I looked. There is a sense of the triumph of opulence and elegance in the city and at the fair.