JERRY WOLKOWITZ Using her back yard as inspiration, Lorraine Niemela of Colts Neck paints a watercolor scene.

The rugged stone of cave walls, the luminous sunlight, brilliant hues and quaint villages of the French countryside that have inspired artists from prehistoric to modern times continue to make pilgrims of local artists.

"We are a community of travelers in search of beauty, history and art," said Lorraine Niemela, a local artist and teacher, who recently led a group of New Jersey artists through Provençe and along the same paths traveled by their predecessors. "Like the French masters who came before us, we are inspired by the land and culture."

Recently returned from a 15-day excursion, Niemela shepherds groups of artists through small towns in the French Pyrenees, along roads meandering from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean and through the valleys of the Lot and Dordogne rivers.

Many of these artist/travelers gathered recently at the Red Bank Public Library at a reception for "Impressions of Southwes-tern France," an exhibit of paintings, photographs and sketchbooks created during travels with Niemela through the Pyrenees, Brittany, Provençe and Le Dordogne.

Best known for her watercolors and ever-present sketchbooks, Niemela teaches art at Brookdale Community College, Middletown, and the Newark Museum. For the past five years, she has led one to two carefully orchestrated trips per year to the southwest region of France so that artists may experience the region’s art and history, and return, perhaps more sensitized, to the beauty of their everyday surroundings.

According to the Colts Neck artist, the purpose of the trips is twofold.

"The first is to go to a place and paint and sketch and draw," she said. "The second is to see the art that has been made and collected in those areas.

"For example, in the Pyrenees we went to Collioure where Matisse said he learned about light and where Picasso ate in the restaurant we ate in. You experience a little part of art history as you’re touring," she explained.

"We went to Banyuls where the sculptor Maillol lived and had his studio," she continued. "His nephew spoke to us about his work in Maillol’s garden.

"In the same area we went to the church of Saint Martin de Fenollar that has very old frescoes," she added. "Braque and Picasso stayed nearby, and people think they took from the designs in the frescoes the beginnings of cubism.

"That is the kind of thing we do and it is a very moving experience. When we take the trips, we’re doing things you’d never get to do. You have to have someone to arrange all the experiences before you get there," she said.

"This trip took us to places the average tourist would never get to," concurred Oceanport sculptor Trudy Goldsmith. "We were in a museum and a gentleman came over who had overheard us speaking English. ‘You’re American. How did you find this place?’ he asked. ‘Americans never come here.’ He was an archaeology professor at Columbia University. The town had two tiny hotels and a church. It was the smallest town."

Niemela’s accomplice for each trip is Marielle Sheldon, a French native, who guides the groups and helps plan itineraries.

"On the first trip I told the travel agent I would need a French-speaking guide," explained Niemela, who speaks, but is not fluent in, French. "When we landed in Marseilles, a woman was standing there with a sign. As soon as I saw her, I knew she’d be great."

A native of Toulouse, Sheldon has lived in the United States and is familiar with American culture. "She loves art and music and is a gourmet cook, so our food is always incredible because she knows how to talk to the chefs about regional cooking," remarked Niemela.

"She has an engaging personality," observed Niemela. "She has boundless enthusiasm whereas I’m quietly enthusiastic. It works very well. We build on each other’s ideas."

Arranging the trips, according to Niemela, requires extensive planning, including a preliminary visit during which she and Sheldon map out an itinerary. They arrange transportation, lodging, meals and appointments at museums, studios, and select the sites the group will visit.

"Together we go through the regions, editing and deciding what is the best experience. We cover thousands of kilometers looking for unique sites, things a person may not see if they didn’t really know the area," she said.

"We try to stay in one place for four days so we can visit a number of different places," Niemela explained. "We choose three sites as centers, and from there each day we go out. We stay at small hotels and try to have a variety of experiences and touch the best of what is there. If there are castles, we visit the most authentic, most beautiful one that gives the feeling of the place. Everywhere we go, we stay for a few hours so that people can tour or paint or photograph."

Niemela also spends hours writing essays that provide background information on area history and culture to inspire and guide the artists in their creation of art, to provoke thoughtful meditation about their art, to encourage journaling; she even provides mini-lessons in French vocabulary.

"I do a lot of writing about how a place connects to who we are and what we’ll be doing," she explained of the essays, which she hands out as the artists travel from site to site.

"It’s lots of work and has led me to a lot of study I probably would never have done," she confided.

"Why do I do this? I think there is something very beautiful about opening a world to other people. It’s sharing a vision somehow. You are given some kind of a gift to see a beauty, and part of that is moving it along for others."

Often strong bonds are formed that continue when the artists return home.

"Right now there’s a large group from Monmouth County who see each other here and spend time together," Niemela noted. "A lot of them have gone on several trips and take classes with me. Very strong friendships have been made."

"We worked near each other; maybe not talking but feeling the good energy of the group," said Karen Schnitzpahn. The Little Silver author whose photographs and watercolor were on exhibit, said the antiquity of St. Bertrand was transcendental.

"It was just so incredible to be back in time," she noted.

"It opened a whole new world to me. I had never painted out of doors," noted Goldsmith, the Oceanport sculptor who traveled to the Pyrenees with Niemela. "That was a new experience, and it got me into watercolors because they are very portable."

"This was a wonderful opportunity for me to do my type of photography," said Jane Warren of Rumson. Warren, who creates photo collages, was in France on a four-month sojourn and joined the group in Toulouse for a two-week interlude. "While other people were painting, I was out walking around and taking my photos. I would go exploring with my camera," added Warren.

"We visited a lot of old churches with frescoes from the 12th century, and other places with works by more recent painters who became famous," she said. "They used to go there because it was less expensive than Paris, and it was beautiful. They would pay for their dinners with paintings. There are restaurants where we saw paintings by Picasso and others.

"We felt we were traveling in a lot of other people’s footsteps on this trip."