Years ago I read about an artist by the name of  Nathalie Lecroc, a Parisian artist.  You make an appointment with Ms. Lecroc, meet her at her apartment and empty the contents of your handbag onto her dining room table. Three hours later, she hands you a watercolor painting of your bag contents. The only rule is that you cannot not edit the contents before you visit Ms. Lecroc….and she can always tell when someone has – usually pharmaceuticals — which I also edited in my photo….seemed like a good idea….

What’s in my bag….

According to Ms. Lecroc, American women always carry mints and more make-up than French women & French women usually carry a good luck charm of some sort.  The oddest things she has seen? Firecrackers, a hula skirt, part of a sandwich & lettuce……hmmm, I wonder what she would think of the little bag of magic tricks I carry around with me (between my purse and the little round box with a red lid in the photo above) – and yes, that is a fake thumb.  I was a little taken aback by how much I carry around – like Mary Poppins’ without the lamp! …..I actually weighed my purse after I photographed everything and it weighed in at 6 lb!

There is also an awesome time-sucking Flickr site where you can spend countless hours looking at the contents other people’s bags…….I don’t even want to think about how much time I have spent looking at What’s In Your Bag [but NOT camera bags] on Flickr!

Contact Nathalie Lecroc at pypaul@club-internet.fr

Google her name for wonderful articles and photos of her work!

By Eleanore Macnish