Instructor's Note:
Here is a great theme for us: looking to art, and specifically painting, for guidance as to how to look at what is around us, things which we often pass by as not worthy of our own art.
This watercolor painting of the village where my mother was born hung on the wall of our dinette for years. I would unconsciously daydream whenever I sat at the table in the chair facing it. I always imagined myself walking up that path on a warm afternoon with a cool gentle breeze blowing through my hair.
Stipes moving at different angles blend shades in the colors of wine grapes and grape leaves without actually depicting them. Once beyond those terraces, the color abruptly begins to evaporate in the distance until it’s nothing but a suggestion of cloudy sky. If it weren’t for the tall thin steeple, would you ever guess that this route leads to the village?
The artist’s father had been the pastor of the tiny village church when my grandmother and this artist were still children. He later left to study art and began his career as an illustrator for newspapers and magazines. Every so often he’d visit this tiny village and friends from childhood. He and my grandmother remained friends until his death in 1960.
His painting now hangs in my bedroom where I love to gaze up at it very often. The last time I was there was July of 2018. It was still as picturesque as ever and the grapes still produce very fine wines.
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