A Secret Place

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

Art has the ability to communicate across language barriers allowing artists to have certain advantages over other tourists when traveling. It is often easy to meet people on the street, who are naturally curious about our works in progress. Ann and I always try to learn enough of the local languages to be able to engage in conversation with them about our work and, more importantly, about the locations of the most beautiful places to paint nearby.

If we are feeling especially confident with our language skills, we might strike up a conversation with some of the older folks who can usually be found relaxing in just about any village square in Europe. Invariably we are given the low-down on the town’s history and where the most beautiful views are. In some cases arrangements have been made to get us onto private property to paint the special view from someone’s back garden. On one trip in particular, we were invited into an elderly woman’s house and led to the back terrace to see her …