An Artist Adventure in Italy (part 1)

You probably didn’t know that teaching a workshop in Italy had been on my goal list for about 10 years. That I would go to sleep thinking about all the wonderful places and experiences I’d had in Italy in the past, and how I could translate them into an extraordinary opportunity for my workshop attendees. You had no idea that I’d drool over the photos I saw from other artists’ overseas adventures. And every year, I’d do a little more research. “Maybe this is the year”, I’d say to myself. But what was I waiting for?

My planning started getting more detailed.  And then one day, in late winter of this year, I walked into Brushstrokes, a fabulous little art store in Lewisburg, PA.  Silvia, a student of mine who was working there that day, greeted me with “So when are we going to Italy?”

How did she know???

“September” I said, and I had my first sign up even before I had announced the trip to a soul. I guess 2019 was going to be the year.

Arriving in Italy feels like coming home. And it really was, because this trip was to my ancestral town, the village my parents had left when they came to America. How lucky for me that the town just happened to be perched in the mountains above the Amalfi coast.

When something is meant to happen, all kinds of little coincidences and guideposts appear. The driver who picked us up had a father who was an artist and I was gifted with a postcard of his work; a little while later, we discovered that we had relatives in common.

Ravello by Vittorio Mansi

When we got to the convent that was reserved for the workshop, the view from the window was breathtaking, little houses balanced among the peaks and a view of the sea … and nestled in the hill on the left … was my grandfather’s house.

My grandfathers house (top center)

I had a day and 1/2 to finalize preparations before the workshop participants arrived…