Brushes
with Italy
Painting
Exhibit
__________
Il Chiostro
241 W. 97th St., 13N
NY, NY 10025
800-990-3506
fax: 858-712-3329
An
Art Retreat in Sardinia
Drawing & Painting - all dry and wet media
with Marcia Reed
June 21-28, 2008
Price:
$2,100
Program Description:
Capture the singular beauty of Sardinia - a jewel of an island off the western coast of Italy - in your chosen medium and in your own style. Village life in Sardinia is designed for travelers who know that the true essence of a region is best found in its provinces or out of the way places. This will be a group workshop where we will paint together and share our techniques and views of this enchanting location. Marcia Reed will be coordinating our painting outings and helping everyone interpret this landscape with an artist's eye. We will paint en plein air on the property, in the towns and villages, near the sea, all the time experiencing the unique quality of the Sardinian landscape.
Both novice and veteran painters are welcome to join in on this exploration of this wonderful island. Instruction will be limited, sharing will be maximized. At week's end, the participants can expect to have a series of paintings that will capture our Sardinian experience forever. Enjoy creative expression with Sardinia as your inspiration and Marcia as your guide.
Activities: In addition to your painting workshop, this program will focus on the cultural, gastronomic, historical and archeological heritage of this region. You will experience the beautiful, less tame part of Italy unlike other areas often visited by throngs of tourists. Here grazing sheep and chestnut colored cows share fields with groves of cork and olive trees and the locals keep time honored traditions for us to discover.
Sardinians are extremely hospitable and the week will foster personal contact between resident and visitor, at the café in town or in their homes to purchase artisan cheeses and wines. The foods, as in other regions of Italy, have their own unique characteristics, from the traditional Sardinian flatbread, delicious pecorino - highly prized even by mainland Italians - to the distinctive local wines you won't taste elsewhere; all this and more await you. Our exploration of the island will include some of the highlights listed below:
- Daily watercolor painting instruction with Marcia
- Authentic Sardinian breakfast and dinners prepared at the house, using only local and traditional products (independent lunch)
- Visits to an ancient nuraghe; mysterious Bronze age structures dotting the island
- Excursion to the historic town of Bosa with guided tour, lunch and swimming at the beach
- Day trip with painting to Fordonguinus, site of a hot spring and an ancient Roman thermal bath
- A visit to the Roman ruins at Tharros, an ancient Roman port and site of a strategic harbor that helped defend the island from invaders
- Optional morning hike with Sardinian breakfast of homemade sausage, pecorino and bread up in the mountains
- We will stop in the famous town of Cabras where the highly prized bottarga is made, dried red mullet eggs shaved onto pasta generally or eaten on bread as an appetizer.
About
the Instructor: A
painter and teacher from western Massachusetts, Marcia Reed holds
an MFA in painting and has been on the Fine Arts faculty at the Williston
Northampton School since 1978. She has been the director of the Grubbs
Gallery on the campus, since 1996. Her residence and studio is located
in the Railroad Station, where she conducts adult classes in oils and
watercolors. Marcia is also the owner of the "1 Railroad Street Gallery"
in Easthampton, MA.An active painter, Marcia has exhibited widely throughout
the Northeast, the Southwest, the Caribbean, Madedonia and Korea. She
is currently represented by four galleries in the Virgin Islands, Portland,
ME and western Massachusetts.Marcia has been a recipient of many grants
that have taken her to paint on location in Greece, Italy, Portugal and
the Caribbean. She has also organized and taught art groups in Holland,
Santorini, Greece, Sicily, Antigua, Bonaire and the US Virgin Islands.Her
watercolor is on the cover of Sonia Nieto's multi-cultural book, The Light
in their Eyes printed by Teachers College Press, Columbia University (1999).Marcia
finds nature to be an "endless source of images." In it she
discovers equivalents for human feelings. She wants to pull the observer
into the view in order to experience the vitality, subtle movements and
exchange of nature. "My work depicts the complete isolation with
nature and the sense of mystery and unknown power the landscape possesses."
This will be Marcia's 6th season with Il Chiostro.
Click here to link to Marcia's website...
Setting & Accommodations:
We will be staying Santu Lussurgiu in the mountains on the central west coast of Italy. The nearest town is Bosa Marina.
The agriturismo where we will be staying are comfortable & cool, housed within the thick walls of a converted old family home. Summers are very warm here, but in the mountains where we will be staying the higher elevation helps keep it cooler than in some of the low lying areas. Siesta is definitely part of the culture of Sardinia and at midday the pace slows and people retreat for a few hours.
About Santu Lussurgiu: this is a small town located in the hills in central Sardinia with few tourists. The town has two lovely restaurants, artisan saddle and leather shops, a pharmacy, post office, artifact museum and cafes. There is a piazza with a cooling fountain in the shade to sit and paint or merely watch the local interactions. On the outskirts of town lie rolling hills with grazing sheep and cattle, olive trees and Mediterranean flora.
Sardinia is known for the ancient nuraghe, prehistoric tower dwellings that were built in the shape of truncated cones, out of rough unmortared blocks of stone. They appear to have played a role in defense and date from the Bronze Age. There are about 7,000 of them scattered around the island.
Click here for description & photos...
The Food: Food in Sardinia represents the healthiest of the Mediterranean cuisines. Introducing guests to the food of Sardinia will be a focus of the experience there. Traditional Sardinian cooking uses all local products and wine, with a particular emphasis on vegetables and fruits. Some samples of Sardinian cooking; spaghetti with clams and bottarga, fish grilled over rosemary branches, roasted potatoes from the garden, and many types of grilled vegetables; eggplant, peppers, onions, zucchini, and fennel. The interior of Sardinia is known for the quality of their meats. The pecorino cheese is also famous, made from the milk of the prized Razza sheep. The local produce and meats are produced naturally without chemicals or growth hormones. Most families make their own wine. The fruits are varied and abundant in the summertime, including cherries, melons, grapes, apples, pears, watermelon, cantaloupe, summer squashes, and little yellow plums called susine.
Language: Italian is spoken, as well as a language called Sardo that shares similarities with Latin. Having been occupied by many cultures throughout the ages, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Spaniards, Greeks, Piemontese, Genovese, Pisani and Romans, Sardinians do not speak a wholly uniform language. In recent years, the regional language, Sardo, has been recognized as an established and legitimate language, and has become a source of pride.
Climate: The weather in Sardinia in the summer is beautiful. It almost never rains during the summer months. The days are long, hot and sunny, with the shade offering coolness. For clothing, we recommend casual summer wear, with at least one pair of long pants, and a sweater or jacket for the evenings, and a bathing suit for visiting the lovely beaches.
About
Your Il Chiostro Hosts: Carolyn
Wells
is the executive chef of St. Bernard's School in New York City. In the
summer, she runs cultural workshops with Il Chiostro in Tuscany
and Burgundy, France where she lived and worked for five years.
Tom Snyder has worked with Il Chiostro for eight years.
He is an herbalist and photographer, works as a marketing rep for health
food stores, and loves to travel.
Getting There: Your point of entry into should be the Calglieri Airport at the southern tip of Sardinia. From Paris, it is a two hour flight, and from Milan or Rome, approximately 50 minutes. You will be picked up and returned to the airport by van. Renting a car from all the major rental companies is also possible and far more economical if arranged from the U.S.
Price and Registration: $2,100 p/p (Single Supplement - $400)
Includes:
- 7 nights in the agriturismo Antica Dimora in Santu Lussurgiu
- Daily watercolor classes with critiques
- Authentic Sardinian breakfast and dinners prepared at the house, including wine (independent lunch)
- Visits to an ancient nuraghe; mysterious Bronze age structures dotting the island
- Excursion to Bosa with guided tour
- Day trip to Fordonguinus
- A visit to the Roman ruins at Tharros, an ancient Roman port
- Morning hike with Sardinian breakfast of homemade sausage, pecorino and bread up in the mountains
- Transfers
to/from Calglieri
Does Not Include:
- Airfare
- Lunch
- Art supplies
- Local bus transportation
- Independent meals and sight-seeing
To Register:
- Download Registration Form by clicking button at left
- Print, fill out and sign Registration Form
- Mail or fax it to Il Chiostro with a non-refundable deposit of $300 (address and fax number are on the Registration Form)
- You will receive a registration confirmation and subsequently, relevant information about your workshop, travel to Italy, arrivals, suggested supplies, etc.
- Or call us at 800-990-3506 to register by phone.
The rugged brush of
Sardinia
Cork trees of Sardinia
Street-scape
The ancient nuraghe