Italian Sunnies
14X14, Oil on Gallery Wrap Canvas

The excitement is building in Flower Mound Studio; registration for Painting Brilliant Colors, my first online class, opens July 7 at 5 a.m. CT, and the first to register gets a free class! Correction: some of us are very excited. A few of us in the studio are lying about in heaps on pillows, snoring. Fortunately for my helpers, they are extremely cute when they sleep in piles and snore. I may join them on one of those pillows; the jet lag from returning from Italy yesterday is just beginning to kick in. And now that I’m home, I have this overwhelming urge to add a cheese course to every meal and say “ciao ciao” because I like how that sounds, don’t you?

One of my favorite experiences while teaching in Sant’Angelo in Vado last week (besides the multiple gourmet meals, thanks to having an incredible sommelier as host!) was walking through fields of sunflowers in Fratte Rosa. Just next door to the acres of sunflowers were fields of purple allium, a tall plant from the onion family. I’ve shared my favorite photo of allium with you here. It may appear we landed on another planet, but it just appears that way! Allium is in the onion family and is a crop in Italy. I was so amazed and astounded at seeing miles of allium growing that I begged the driver to stop the bus. I was the lone admirer wandering in the purple fields, remembering the allium my dad once planted on the farm. The bulbs lay dormant by the chimney of our childhood home for over ten years, but bloomed again, much to our surprise, the spring after his death. Tiny miracles happen all the time; they happen in farm fields in Italy, they happen on tiny farms in East Texas. I think the secret to the wonder is to open our eyes and see.

Purple allium, three feet tall, for miles and miles in Fratte Rosa, Italy

The studio models take a bow and a dip!

Follow Me on Facebook