The Italian Hills...

In October 2000 my husband and I traveled to Italy. Our first trip only lasted 10 days, but moved us on so many levels, we knew we had to go back. Each year the time spent there grew. By the year 2004/05 we were fortunate enough to be able to stay for 4 months.

We rented an apartment in the Tuscan countryside of Montepulciano, near the Umbrian border just south of Siena. My husband was there to work on becoming fluent in his Italian language studies. I was there to draw, paint, photograph and study, the surrounding landscape. There were so many impressions I wanted to transfer to my canvas, at times it was overwhelming.

I was moved by the rhythm of the land with its color changes that flow from the mountains to the hills, to the fields. There are wild areas that sometimes interrupt this flow of cultivation, but they only added to that rhythm giving the light a new focal point. There is a connection from the land, the food grown on it, the animals that live on it and the people who work it from generation to generation that perpetuate that rhythm.

This current series is the result from my time spent there. I hope that you, the viewer,can feel that rhythm, and connection to the land.