Her native Oregon wasn’t the only place Falkenstein found inspiration. She lived in Europe for a decade, moving to Paris in 1950. And while she
never fully subscribed to any particular movement or trend, she later said
that those years helped refine her style. “The French allowed a kind of
individual action. They have the quality of centuries…of culture and of art,” Falkenstein said. “You feel it within yourself when you’re there. I felt it so strongly
that right away my so-called ‘looking within’ really worked. That’s when I
developed my own vocabulary.” Celebrated in Europe and in Southern California when she returned to the States, that structural vocabulary became her hallmark.