These small paintings were the result of our trip to Italy in the summer of 2007. To me the most important thing about traveling is to experience different treatments of space. The way your body reacts to small, enclosed spaces is different from the reaction to huge open vistas. I mostly gravitate to nature travel, but this time it was interesting to see human-created twists and turns. We visited only one tiny museum in all our time in Italy. Mostly we just roamed the streets and stared around. I sketched and Michael wrote in his notebook, so both were happy. I made pencil sketches, and soaked in the atmosphere, so I would remember it back at home, while recreating the spaces on paper, in color. If you ever want to REMEMBER the place or moment in time - draw it. A photograph will never reflect the feeling that you have at the time, but the drawing will.
Three cities we visited were very different from one another.
Bologna I remember as glowing orange and red, warm yellow, peeling paint, miles of arcades, twisted narrow streets that look like they would be inhabited by hunchbacks and magicians, but instead they are full of designer clothing stores and small restaurants. You could sit on any corner and see thousands of possible compositions. In some way it had a very womb-like feeling. (Of course, I am talking about the old city, and if I lived there my feeling probably would change. As it is, take this view of a tourist with a grain of salt.) Out of all cities this was the place that was the easiest for me to "return to" as I was painting, the red-orange glow was a very strong beacon for me.
Verona stayed in my mind as rose-pink. Even though in reality there is not that much pink in it, it is a more pastel colored town. Maybe that feeling came from the rose marble that paves the streets of the old city. (!) Being a person who loves stone, I walked barefoot when no one was looking, to feel the rose color in my feet. So when I painted the city at home, months later, following the skeleton pencil sketches, the colors suddenly went very pink and stayed there.
Trieste is the most unusual place. It does not have that medieval feeling that the other two cities do, it is not particularly "old", it is not that Italy that you picture secretly in your mind. It is a city in-between worlds. To me it seems that it exists side by side with another city, "another Trieste", slightly out of synch with this reality, like a dream double. Located on the steep hills, Trieste is very vertical, twisted streets and staircases going up and up and up. It has a strange relationship to the Adriatic. You see the stone steps descend into the sea as if some part of the city is still there, underneath the waters.
Please click on a thumbnail to see the large image.
