Monday, April 30, 2007

This small house

Mary, the owner of the gallery where I show my work, suggested we sell our house and move near her so she can watch my painting progress. In the last couple of years house prices in downtown Vancouver have doubled in value so I could sell my home at a nice profit and move to West Vancouver near Mary. A good proposition. Mary and her partner Richard are great friends and wonderful people. They also love my cooking ...hmmm, I think her proposition may have an ulterior motive....

We have been living in this small house in the heart of the city for 30 years. This is the only house our daugher has known. We have planted a garden, painted walls, installed cotto tiles, extended decks, create new spaces ( my studio in one of those). There is a small 9x7' shed called "Casa Fiorita" under the old apple tree. That's Francesca's house, built by her dad when she was 5 years old. It has leaded glass windows and flower boxes. Francesca does not play in it anymore but is a great place for occasional summer afternoons naps.This house has changed, expanded, grown with us. Thirty years of memories are difficult to let go of especially when years past are many more than years to come.We are not movers, we are settlers.

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Olive trees and Cypresses

I finished this painting a few days ago. I return to this image fairly often and I painted it many times at different hours of the day. A pathway through olive trees, a sunny day in Summer. Those are Tuscan Olives taller than Sicilian ones, trimmed in the middle so the sun reaches all parts of the tree. I like their strange shape, almost human, reaching toward the sky , towering along the Cipresses. Being born I Tuscany and raised in Sicily I have a special love for Olive trees, common to both regions. Tuscan oil is refined and fruity, Sicilian oil is strong, green and earthy.
Tuscany is soft and graceful, Sicily is harsh and wild. I lived in both regions and love the both in different way and for different reasons.

Oil on canvas 20x24". This painting can be seen at Buckland Southerst Gallery , Vancouver toward the middle of May.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Capturing the moment

In a recently received comment there is the phrase " your paintings are so alive". It made me think. Are my paintings alive? and if so why? It could be because when in Italy I feel alive, maybe because I am on vacation, rested and ready to appreciate my surroundings, or because places I see are seen for the first, and very often last, time. Thus my paintings are an effort of holding on to those places, to keep them alive in my memory, to hold on and grab that fleeting experience. They are usually streets, fields and farms where I would like to stay, linger, come back time and time again. Places where I would like to live, balconies where I would like to water my geraniums, orchards where I would like to stay and wait for the ripening of the olives, oranges and lemons. I would like to be a resident of those small towns, walk the cobbled streets, chat with the grocer and the pharmacist, shop in the local market every morning and walk home with vegetables, meat and bread for that day meal. I know the life, when was young and, living in a small town Sicily. Supermarkets did not exist. Bread was bought every day, as was meat or fish, vegetable and fruit. Going shopping every day was also a social experience. Talking with the vendors, meeting people in the streets and stopping to chat, each person with a bag full of groceries. Maybe a small snack on the vay home, a cappuccino and a pastry, in the bar full of people and noise, with the strong smell of coffee wafting in the air. I felt safe, loved and cared for by a whole community. Small towns in Italy still preserve this way of life, the slow steady pace and the sense of living among people, harmoniously sharing your life with others. Italy now is a life that seems forgotten until I go back and those memories return. It could be that my paintings are "alive" because in them I put some of this nostalgia, this longing, and the desire that you, the viewer, understand and share some of these feelings.

"The long road" Oil on panel size 12x16" Sold at the opening of my show at Buckland Southerst gallery, Vancouver.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Primavera (Springtime)

I have a problem with Spring: the air so lovely, garden fragrant with daffodils and apple blossoms, morning dew on the grass. Every little leaf, weed, gem, rising to meet the light, to grow and eventually trasform the garden with color and life. My problem is that I would like to sit on the bench and stay there for hours looking at my garden. But I have work to do, paintings to paint, dinners to cook, dogs to walk, friends to visit ( not very often I am sorry to say). I can't sit in the garden too as much as I would like. So that's my problem with Spring: a joy that has to be savoured just a little bit. Moments that have to be snatched here and there: maybe this is good, maybe those moments are more intense because they are short. Like all good things in life, they are fleeting, but the memory remains, and the joy of it.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Sun in the vineyard

Wandering in the countryside near Siena you see rows of vineyards laden with purple grapes, leaves fading to yellow and copper.This painting is the result of a trip I took last September with my good friend Camilla, a great lady and, like most Italians, a scary driver. We came back alive and had a great time. A long walk among the vineyards was followed by a lunch in a trattoria in Montepulciano where we had fettuccine with Porcini mushrooms and a glass of red wine.

Oil on canvas size 16x20".