Street Painting Australia

Dear Art Loving Friend,
I have been working Down Under these days, but it is not all hard times!  My hosts Ron and Janice Ailwood have been showing me some of the local sights… which tend to be of the natural sort (my favorite kind).  They have wallabies in their backyard; birds, too, and lots and lots of stars!  We have also been traveling around a bit through this sugarcane farming country.  And the image of the three of us was taken shortly before we spotted the resident platypus in the creek/stream behind us.

This past Tuesday, Janice and I created a small street painting on the sidewalk of an outdoor shopping mall to promote the upcoming arts festival this weekend. (The weather here is wonderful!)  Here are the results of our “joyous adventure on our knees and bums” – er… !  People loved it and stopped in the middle of their busy shopping to chat us up and take photos.

Yesterday I judged hundreds of entries in an arts competition that is open to all Australians.  Up until yesterday, I was a virgin judge.   I rarely do well in competitions myself [I see myself as only competitive with myself and loathe these sorts of situations] and I find myself disappointed by how unfair I think most competitions are. My biggest pet peeve is artists who enter professional competitions with student work ... in my book that means anything done while under supervision of a paid or consistent instructor.

I REALLY looked at each of hundreds of artworks and tried to choose pieces that showed honesty, thought, skill, and creativity. I was happy that I am in a community in which I know so few people and would not be swayed by any emotional or self-promoting motives, such as voting for my own students. Tonight (soon, in fact), the awards will be presented and then Saturday morning, the artists will ask me for feedback on specific pieces and why I made such-and-such decisions.  In the end, the choices are simply one girl's opinion on a certain day, but I hope that most will see the kindness and love I put into the effort (and the written feedback I gave) and that I took their work into serious consideration.

I have already done some teaching and consulting in local high schools and the workshops (adult and children) start on aturday, different ones on different days.  I hope to share something of what I have learned over the years and have some more fun with these kind people!

Teaching Art in Florence, Italy

Cari Amici,

I mentioned before that I have been working as an assistant for Martinho Correia at the Angel Academy of Art here in Florence, Italy.
Martinho has been teaching a 2-week workshop on Painting Methods of the Great European Academies.


By day, we worked in the studio in the traditional method of learning how to paint by copying great artworks of the past. This teaches an artist so much more than copying a photograph! Martinho is shown here with one of his students. We had a great class – good energy with all of us.

One morning we all met Martinho at the mercato porcellino for a quick coffee or breakfast and then we walked to the Chiesa di Santa Felìcita, between the Ponte Vecchio and the Pitti Palace. I show you here some images I took in the church. The painting on the right is by Antonio Ciseri (1821-1891) titled “Santa Felìcita e il martirio dei Maccabei”. The bodies are fantastic and I like the zig-zagging composition. We also viewed the beautiful colors and figures of the Deposizione by Jacopo Pontormo (1494-1556), a lovely fresco on the right as you enter the church.

Our next stop was the Pitti Palace and her museums. Especially interesting was the section that the Medici family lived in. Martinho is very familiar with so many specific artworks and gave interesting comments on many of them, relating them to our current projects. Unfortunately for me, I missed too many of his art lessons because I tend to linger too long and can never seem to stay with a group for all of the time.



I often kept the studio open daily longer than promised so that we could try to get more painting done, but afterwards, we would meet one another for dinner and later, dancing. Pictured here are Ksenia, Isabelle, Martinho, and me at the salsa club Jaragua. We danced here many nights, but also visited many of the other clubs and aperitivos around Florence. One night at Jaragua, we got to see a performance by more professional dancers.

This 2-week workshop has been a great experience for me. But as much as I love to dance, the “getting-to-bed-at-5-am” routine is starting to wear on me. That said, I would probably make the same choice again because I met such cool people and we learned a lot and danced even more.