Travel Reflections #3

Venice Part 1

 The next two posts will be about Venice, a place we have returned to many times. We loved it from the first, arriving from the airport on the local water transport at dusk into the Piazza San Marco, then transferring to the #1 Vaporetto, to the Ca’ d’Oro stop, as all the lights of the city came on in the palazzos lining the grand canal. Everything was wonderful! There was so much to explore, the intimate scale of the whole place, walking the streets, the canals, getting lost, the somewhat decaying architecture, visiting museums and historic buildings filled with artwork, reflections in the canals, the incredible inlaid marble floors of the Basilica di San Marco, taking the vaporetto out to Torcello and climbing the church tower there, the ‘watery light’ on the lagoon, visits to Burano and Murano, opera at ‘la Fenice’, the Rialto Market, dinners at local restaurants recommended by our friend Mattia. The turn of every corner a fresh delight.

Fondementa dei Mori, Tinteretto's house, Venice, pastel 22x30

Fondementa dei Mori, Tinteretto's house, Venice, pastel 22x30

Campiello San Rocco, Venice pastel 22x30

Campiello San Rocco, Venice pastel 22x30

Venice Ghetto, pastel 22x30

Venice Ghetto, pastel 22x30

On our visit in 2006 I started on a large project with the city of Venice as its theme. It would be a two part project, first a series of paintings, and then a hand printed book with historic text based on Whistler’s time in Venice, illustrated with my lithographs. I would follow Whistler’s path and try to find some of the locations where he made a series of pastel drawings and etchings in the winter and spring of 1869. It was amazing how little had changed since Whistler’s time, and that when I found a spot where he sketched, I could see almost exactly what he looked at when he made his sketch or print so many years earlier. His etchings, however, were reversed in the final prints as he had sketched directly onto prepared plates.

 We stayed with Mattia, at Ponte Chiodo, a wonderful small palazzo on a side canal in the Cannaregio district of Venice, not far from the Ca’ d’Oro. This beautifully restored small hotel has original terrazzo floors with murano glass chandeliers, 5 rooms with views over the canals, and a rare garden out back. From our second floor window we watched daily life unfold, we could see two bridges, where every day Venetians travelled back and forth to work or school. We watched nuns heading to church, boats arrive to deliver goods, and take away the garbage.

 These three paintings were part of a larger series exhibited at the Roberts Gallery in 2007. These locations were not too far away from where we stayed. I went out each morning, fairly early, I would find a location, make on-site sketches, take a couple of reference photographs, and then walk back to the hotel in time for breakfast of fresh rolls and excellent lattes, made on Mattia’s huge shining espresso machine.

Travel Reflections #2

Much of my artwork is based on my travels, and so in a time when we cannot travel beyond our homes, I am re-reading my journals and, in my mind, revisiting the places where Charlotte and I travelled.

 A series of reflections. A journey into the recent past. Remembering the discoveries we made, and places we returned to, sad and wonderful at the same time.

Vejer de la Frontera

Vejer de la Frontera

Vejer de la Frontera, February 17, 2015

 We drove 30 km southwest from Arcos de la Frontera through rolling hills and cork oak forests to Vejer. We had been here before, for just an afternoon years earlier, and had said to ourselves this was a place we had to come back to for a longer stay.

 There was only one way up and one way down from the hilltop town. Our hotel, Casa de le Califa, was on one side of the town square. In the center was a beautiful majolica tiled fountain surrounded by tiled benches under huge palm trees. The hotel was built on 6 or 7 levels down the hillside and had a roof top terrace with a patterned balustrade, potted plants and terra cotta tiled floors. From here we had a wonderful view across to the rest of the town beyond, and to the valley below.

 The town is a maze of narrow and steep cobbled streets. Behind a church, next to the crenellated town walls, we found the Juderia. Evidence of the past could be seen in the faded Jewish stars painted on some of the buildings.

 At the end of each day the sunlight angled across the valley and lit up the town, the facades of the buildings stacked on top of each other up on the hillside created an amazing cubist pattern of light and shadow planes. To finish the day we returned to the hotel, where In the midst of a garden courtyard, in a restored, arched roof stone building dating from 1560, we are served a wonderful Tunisian style Tagine dinner.

Ragusa Rooftops

Ragusa Rooftops

Ragusa Rooftops, February 15, 2015

It was here that I decided that the theme of my next solo exhibition at the Roberts Gallery would be “Views From Rooftops”. The exhibit is on my website, “Roberts Gallery 2017”

We drove through a beautiful valley with stone fences through fields of olive groves, with fruit and vegetable stands along the roadside. Ragusa is built on two hills, with an old town and a new town. The old town was mostly destroyed in the earthquake of 1693, which destroyed 45 towns and killed 60,000 people in Sicily. The new part of the town was built in its entirety in the 1700s. Our hotel was on a hilltop, with a stone walled terraced garden, orange trees, a pool and a lawn looking across the valley to the town below.

 Because of the setting of the hotel the view of the Duomo is from above the level of the main dome. Steps wind down the hill, around behind the duomo, along to a narrow side street, into the piazza below. Looking back, there is a wide set of steps leading up to the front doors of the Duomo now towering above us, surrounded by a huge wrought iron fence. All of the buildings on the square have Baroque facades, palm trees line the streets, and with the Duomo in the background it all feels like a stage set. Ragusa did, in fact, serve as the film set for Andrea Camilleri’s Montalbano detective series.

At one end of the piazza a small church is busy out front with nuns entering, and we decide to go in. We listen to the nuns sing in the beautifully decorated baroque interior painted and gilded, the floor set in an intricate pattern of majolica tiles and obsidian stone. Leaving, we walk beyond the piazza, though the gardens for an amazing view over the countryside below as the sun sets.

Seville Rooftops #2

Seville Rooftops #2

Seville Rooftops, February 10, 2015

 This was our fourth visit to Seville, but our first stay at the Hotel Amadeus in the middle of the Santa Cruz district. We had a room on the top floor with easy access to a large roof top terrace, with a bar and tables, but empty at this time of the year.  There was a 360 degree view over the city. We could see the many domes and pinnacles of the cathedral and countless other church steeples all around us, tiled in decorative majolica tiles and painted in pastel colours. Nearby other roof top terraces had colourful laundry hanging out to dry.

 We visited the Alcazar, Triana, and the bullring, we saw Norma at the opera house, we ate tapas, we visited the cathedral, and climbed La Giralda.  We also revisited the home of the Countess Lebrija, the ground floor paved with the mosaic floors she rescued from the countryside in Italica. Showcases feature collections of pottery, and wonderful tiled staircases lead to the upper floors, with rooms that include her library and a spectacular dining room.

The idea of a Rooftops series became fully formed here as I did many sketches in the late afternoon sun over the 4 days we stayed in Seville.

 

Travel Reflections #1

Much of my artwork is based on my travels, and so in a time when we cannot travel beyond our homes, I am re-reading my journals and, in my mind, revisiting the places where Charlotte and I travelled.

 

A series of reflections. A journey into the recent past. Remembering the discoveries we made, and places we returned to, sad and wonderful at the same time.

Tropea; ‘View to Stromboli’Tropea, Feb 19, 2016We arrived at our hotel a day earlier than expected and spent two nights in Tropea. Driving south to Sicily, after picking up friends in Pompeii, along the coastal road. It was a lovely old hotel in the…

Tropea; ‘View to Stromboli’

Tropea, Feb 19, 2016

We arrived at our hotel a day earlier than expected and spent two nights in Tropea. Driving south to Sicily, after picking up friends in Pompeii, along the coastal road. It was a lovely old hotel in the center of the town, with a rooftop breakfast room. The town itself is perched on the edge of cliff. The evening of the day we arrived children were out in costumes in the town square celebrating the end of Carnevale. At the end of the main street there was a balcony with a wrought iron fence on the edge of the cliff looking out across the Tyrrenian Sea. Below us, perched on a rock promontory, was the Sanctuary Santa Maria dell’Isola, built in the 6th – 9th C, beautifully restored, and illuminated at night. In the distance we could see the island of Stromboli with smoke rising from the volcano - at 920m it is one of the most active volcano’s in the world. I made several sketches over two days and chose a nighttime setting, with multi-story ancient buildings seeming to grow out of the edge of the cliff.

View From Naples, pastel. 30x22.jpg

View From Naples – March 26, 2008

 We arrived in Naples and Chiaja Hotel de Charme, a very nice small hotel in a pedestrian shopping area, our room with a balcony overlooking the street scene. We were within easy walking distance of the castle on the waterfront, and the Teatro San Carlo opera house where we had reservations for the next night. Next door is the shopping mall Galleria Umberto 1, and not too far is the Hilltop Castel Sant’Elmo, above us.

 We walked up the hill to the Grand Hotel Parker’s built in 1870, a literary and cultural retreat for British High Society. We took ‘afternoon tea’, at the rooftop bar enjoying some of the best views of the Bay of Naples with Capri visible in the distance. Beyond the pattern of city streets and the many church steeples all laid out below, and further along the coast, is Vesuvius.

 After ordering tea, Charlotte asked the waiter if we could buy one of the nice little ashtrays with their name on it, he said ‘no signora, but we break so many, they go missing all time’ (nudge nudge) ‘Ah’ we said as she slipped one into her purse. I took photos from the rooftop balcony in the drizzle as reference to make a sketch later.

 We walked back down the hill. Getting a little lost we ended up walking through a rather rough and completely “authentic” neighbourhood of narrow streets with graffiti, and views into living rooms with Madonnas on the walls. A place where lives were lived out on the streets among the ‘garbage and the flowers’, broken motor bikes, houses with dangling shutters and peeling paint and stucco, a little intimidating, but we walked safely out to the waterfront

‘View to Etna’ Taormina February 2016Our hotel is built into the side of a mountain with views toward Mount Etna and the ocean far below. We walk what seems like a thousand steps down into the town through an ancient stone city gate, and along the b…

‘View to Etna’ Taormina February 2016

Our hotel is built into the side of a mountain with views toward Mount Etna and the ocean far below. We walk what seems like a thousand steps down into the town through an ancient stone city gate, and along the beautiful main shopping street lined with wonderfully charming shops. We arrive in Piazza IX Aprile, an amazing town square, with a beautiful balcony overlooking the sea far below, and in the distance, a view in one direction of the Greek amphitheatre carved into the hillside. Looking the other way we see Mount Etna rising above the town, and the Duomo and San Guiseppe, a baroque church with a clock tower, all in beautiful, restored, condition and painted in lovely colours.

We try to go into the amphitheatre but it is about to close, so we return to the hotel back up those ‘thousand steps’. We visit the amphitheatre the next morning, with spectacular views from the upper tiers of the well preserved and restored theater below us. The town is spread out along the hillside and beyond, with views of the mountains running down to the coast, and above, Mount Etna with smoke rising from its crater dominating the whole scene.

"Strength In Numbers, The CanLit Community" Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library,

“Strength in Numbers, The CanLit Community” Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto, January 27 - May 1, 2020

Alan’s hand printed, limited edition book “The Golden Lilies” by PK Page, is part of this exhibition celebrating Canadian Publishing. His book, sketches, and wood engraving illustrations are part of this important exhibition. Catalogue available.

PK Page.jpg

Roberts Gallery Exhibition

Greenland - Labrador, a small solo exhibition of pastels based on my on-site sketches made in 2017 on the Adventure Canada ‘Wild Greenland Labrador’ Expedition

OPENING NOVEMBER 16, 2019 in the Roberts Gallery temporary location at 300 Campbell Avenue suite #203

sketching on site in Ramah, Torngat Mountains National Park

sketching on site in Ramah, Torngat Mountains National Park

Ramah Torngat Mountains

Ramah Torngat Mountains

Art Toronto October 25-27, 2019

Two pastels from Alan’s new series, “Greenland - Labrador” will be on display in the Roberts Gallery booth at the 20th anniversary Art Toronto, October 25-27, Metro North Convention Centre.

Coming soon, “Greenland - Labrador” solo exhibition

Opening, November 16, Roberts Gallery, temporary location 300 Campbell Ave, Toronto

Nachvak Fjord Labrador

Nachvak Fjord Labrador

Ramah Torngat Mountains, Labrador (1 of 1).jpg

Ramah, Torngat Mountains Labrador

BOUND BOOK ARTS FAIR - Sunday 9 December 2018

I will be at the Bound Book Arts Fair this coming Sunday, December 9th, with my hand printed wood engravings and broadsides.

BOUND 2018.jpg

 

I will also be showing, for the first time, a complete set of sheets from my upcoming new book On Spirit Lake, Georgian Bay Stories. Please take this opportunity to stop by and see the work of twelve Canadian authors who have an intimate connection to Georgian Bay. A prospectus will be sent out in the new year but you may make an expression of interest.