Food & Culture
MARTINE SIMMONS Biography
Martine was born in France and moved to the United State in her mid-twenties. She lived most of her youth in Clermont-Ferrand, the home of the Michelin family who, among other endeavors, published the GREEN TOURIST GUIDES. Be it an omen or not, she loves traveling throughout France and the United States, as well as to other European countries, and Senegal and Morocco. It is with Seymour, however, that she grew to love Paris, and it is with Martine that Seymour discovered the Eastern part of France, the «Franche Comté», in particular the French Jura, bordering Swizerland, which was her father’s birthplace.
From the time they were married, they most enjoyed gathering old friends and new ones, all fond of the arts and cultural diversity. In the early 1980s, while she was teaching at the French Library in Boston, and the Cambridge Center for Adult Education (where she had met Seymour), they starting thinking about taking groups of artists and francophiles to France. With encouragement and advice from Bob and Barbara Stecher, the Painting in France Workshop came to life and has thrived ever since.
Martine completed a bachelor’s degree in French and Education at the University of Massachusetts, and started teaching French in high school in New England, then in South Carolina. She also taught at Winthrop University, and currently teaches privately in her home. Her dream, with Seymour’s support, is to restore the family house in the Jura and someday open an arts center there, welcoming creative people in writing, music, visual arts…
In the meantime, Seymour and Martine continue to bring groups to the Château Rouge in Normandy, and now again to the Jura’s picturesque landscape.