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Italy

 

Italy

We just took our kids to Italy for an incredible two weeks of adventuring. We swam in Lake Como, slept under Murano glass chandeliers, got lost in the Tuscan foothills, dined on rooftops and terraces with the most incredible views, discovered a unicorn door in Venice, sampled wines in Florence, played cards all night long in a palazzo and drank from the Fountain of Everlasting Love at 1:30am on our 34th wedding anniversary. 


So many incredible memories made - but the absolute best was the sheer overwhelm as to how my kids grew up into such fascinating, delightful, kind humans. Like, we made them and then somehow managed to keep them alive all these years, and now they are such unbelievably wonderful people building lives with equally unbelievable wonderful partners. I will never get enough of them.


My biggest takeaway other than fan-girling over my family was physically being a part of the Italian art and culture. Witnessing in context millennium of human creation and immediately knowing, feeling deeply in my bones, that I am a part of this. As someone who was questioning the significance of the act of painting in a time like now, when our world is suffering and self destructing, to come home with a connection to the timelessness and necessity of the artists’ voice was priceless.


As I navigate re-entry, complete with a little tube of handmade italian oil paint (cobalt, thought to be The Perfect Blue), I am looking forth to seeing how this vacation will impact my work.


You can bet I’ll be sharing it with you!


Thanks so much for your interest in my artwork.

Ciao, Kim

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