Plein Air Project

Setting: A quaint park in the small hilltop village of Monte Castello di Vibio, Italy. Two artists sit on stone benches around a circular stone table overlooking a vast valley of rich greenery and varied earthy tones: burnt sienna, warm green, yellow ochre, cool green, raw umber, gray green…all held into place by a cloudy grey sky. It is a very warm day, but the tree lined park offers cool shade and a constant soft breeze in the late morning air of a tiny park on the edge of the village.

L and S are busy working on small watercolor blocks, layering paint in response to their surroundings coupled with many years of painterly habits that they try to embrace or reject as the pigment spreads out.

L is dressed in all blue, a dark blue sleeveless shirt and light blue striped pants that are the same value as her pink sneakers.

S is wearing a terra-cotta red and white striped shirt, light red-brown pants, brown shoes of various tones with pops of neon blue and yellow.

They both wear baseball caps.

L has on large, stylish red-pink transparent sunglasses that shade much of her face, and are shaped somewhere between and oval and a square. This whole thing was her idea.

They have just met, but L is disarming and has the personality of someone you instantly trust. Questions are asked and answered. A painting session shifts from a morning of making to a more valuable one of learning and sharing.

In the distance stands a bright blue sign that starkly contrasts its surroundings. There is a large white arrow on the sign.

Where does it point?

At first glance, it seems to be defunct, damaged, and pointing towards the ground. A utilitarian object rendered useless and absurd. But after closer contemplation, maybe it is pointing to this place, Monte Castello di Vibio, a site of great reward, a meeting place, a creative retreat where many people much alike and simultaneously very different come together to find something new, like the friendship L and S cultivated through the awkward dance of brush to paper and word to ear.