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.

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.

The Sicilian garden

This is a magic place for me, raised in Sicily since I was two years old. A place I come back to every year to bask in the sun and enjoy the rugged beauty of this wonderful island. This small garden orchard belongs to my sister in law, Adelaide. Calla Lilies are my favorite flower. Here they thrive majestically raising their white cups among the luscious almost leathery leaves.
This painting is a 16x20" oil on canvas.