Athens. October, 2011

It’s so hard to imagine that the original sculptures that we’re so used to seeing as bare marble were once all painted in vivid colors. How odd that would look to us today.

Rhodes, Greece. October, 2011

In my wanderings (OK, I got lost), I came across this park, the walls of which were spray-painted within an inch of their life, as you can see. In a pristine, regulated, geared-to-tourism island such as this, I can only imagine that officials try to curb teens’ enthusiasm for tagging by allowing it only in this park. I like the idea. And I like that I got lost enough to find it, far away from the tidy tourist center.

Palermo, Sicily. May, 1988

What are these? Three guesses. If you guessed that they were plaster molds used to make marzipan fruit in a town known for that ubiquitous almondy confection, you’re correct. Just before we left Palermo, Nick and I visited a man whose occupation was making just such plaster items. (He also made some decorative flourishes like tiny plaster shelves with Corinthian-column-like supports, of which I brought home two.) But these are his specialties. Look at the variety: corn, eggplants, lemons, tomatoes, even a pig’s face. Once the almond paste is forced into the molds and retrieved, the shapes are painted with food colorings and sold at what seems like every other storefront in town.

Paris. December, 2005

No, you’re not seeing things. Yes, that’s a real windmill smack dab in the middle of Montmartre. An archaic holdover from when mills were functional rather than decorative. Built in 1622 and operating to grind flour until the 19th century, the Moulin de la Galette has been painted by such neighborhood locals as Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, van Gogh, Utrillo and Picasso. Over its history, the building has been an open-air café, a music hall, television studios and a restaurant. It is now in private hands.

Venice. October, 2012

Titian’s Assumption is my favorite painting in the world. It hangs in the place for which it was originally painted, above the main altar in the Franciscan church, Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, in Venice. Back in the 1980s, when I visited the church on each trip to Venice, I’d duck in for a moment or two each time I passed by, always in awe of the painting’s quiet majesty and power. This past October, when I took Jay to experience it, well, you can see that it was covered with scaffolding. Still, just a peek here and there are visible, reminding me of past viewings, of how powerful this canvas remains. For a less obscured view of Titian’s masterpiece, click here.

Rhodes. Greece. October, 2011

I always wind up at the library. No matter where I go. In Las Vegas, others swarmed The Strip and its casinos. I went to the library (to send email via their computers) and met some amiable homeless people who use the men’s room as their personal bathing center. In Miami Beach, same thing. Montreal’s National Library, in addition to its other treasures, has wonderful rotating exhibits. (Two that remain happily in memory: an insect exposition that seemed to have lost some of its itinerant inhabitants; and a history of illustrations of “Little Red Riding Hood” that indicated the path to be followed from display to display by wolf footprints painted on the floor.) Rome’s libraries are raucous social centers where no one pays much attention to the “no talking” rule. Istanbul’s are solemn affairs. Here in Rhodes, however, I was stumped. I knew it was the library, and I could figure out the opening hours (sort of), but that was it.

Café de Oriente, Habana Vieja, Cuba. February, 2012

Some colors that seem so natural in warm-weather places just don’t fly in, say, New England. No matter how hard we try to make them fit in. Look at this magnificent tangerine stairwell with lemon trim here in a fancy Havana restaurant. Bright, vivid, citrus-flavored colors work so easily here. Just as they do in Tucson, in parts of Italy. As I type this, I’m in a small room of my house in Massachusetts that’s painted in Ralph Lauren’s “Driver’s Cap.” Kind of this burnt tangerine with some terra cotta, some grey to bring it down a few notches. The outside of my house, stucco, is painted in “Goldenrod” because I wanted to remember the Roman ochre walls in autumn sunlight. Especially when I was climbing my hill after a long walk home from work in winter. But I have to admit, I’m compensating. I’m forcing things. Foreign-speaking colors like this really need year-round warmth, light clothing and the ease that comes from both.

Tucson. March, 2011

Tucson is a town abundant with artists. And with activists. So it comes as no surprise when these groups intersect as they often do. In the huge street-side windows of an architectural firm on 6th Street, two large loose canvases hung from metal beams, each dotted with painted acrylic, front and back. Still Life in Rwanda, it’s called, by Eleni Sakellar, and the posted artist’s statement tells us this: “# of drops applied w/ eyedropper to canvas: 800,000. # of days it took to complete: 60. Average # drops per day: 14,000. # of people killed in 1994 Rwandan genocide: 800,000. # of days it took to kill them: 100. Average # killed per day: 8,000. Cost of materials for the painting: $400. Cost of each life lost during the genocide: priceless.” (Today, December 28, is the feast of the Holy Innocents.)

Rome. October, 2011

Caravaggio, the late 16th-century painter who was no stranger to scandal, caused admirers to gasp with this painting, Madonna di Loreto, seen here in the space it was painted for in Rome’s Sant’Agostino in Campo Marzio. The madonna (aka BVM) is shown in an apparition to two peasants as a common barefoot housewife, her petitioners not only barefoot but displaying their dirty soles! Her appearance not in some vaulted niche but in a shabby doorway, bricks showing through the decrepit plaster. Shame! There is no denying the power of this wonderful painting, just inside a relatively modest church on a somewhat hidden street not far from the tourist throngs in the Piazza Navona. Twenty-five years ago, I’d often had it (and a Raphael fresco of the prophet Isaiah just steps down the aisle) all to myself. No such luck these days. But still, the crowds are not as large as those at Caravaggio’s Saint Matthew trifecta in the nearby San Luigi dei Francesi.

Mykonos, Greece. October, 2011

I had always wondered why the houses in pictures from the Greek Isles all seemed to feature whitewashed walls and deep-blue windows and doors. Then I arrived in Mykonos. The sea. The light. The sand. I had my answer. Just look at that blue water. Exactly the color painted on almost every shutter and piece of trim on the island. (And the colors of the Greek flag, too, come to think of it.) So beautiful. So calming. We arrived on the day after October’s biggest national strike, but even the small band of protesters on the quay had musical instruments with them, nonchalantly playing and carrying their placards as if this were something they did every afternoon. Maybe it is.

Watertown, MA. May, 2017

Project Literacy, the organization through which I volunteer to tutor English at the town library, had its annual picnic on the only rainy evening of the week. Still, huddled under a gazebo in a local park, folks from Iran, Jordan, Turkey, Moldavia, Ukraine, Brazil, Armenia, the US of A and many other nations shared food, laughs and conversation as if the sun were shining. The table groaned under the rich roster of potluck dishes from all those cuisines. And someone (I suspect not an American) brought these lovely peaches, which, placed on that blue tablecloth, glowed and reminded me of a still life that Cezanne might have painted.

Tucson, AZ. May, 2005

There are so many reasons I love Tucson, none more than the heady mix of sacred and profane that blends so easily into the everyday life of this university town just an hour north of the Mexican border. For example, this video store that I pass every morning along my Congress Street running route. I have never seen anyone go in or out in all my years of watching. It sits across a lazy intersection from a heavily barred drive-thru liquor store, scene of occasional “situations.” In spite of a casual facelift, it still looks like the gas station it once was. Diego Rivera would smile, I think, at the miracle of the Virgin of Guadalupe mural along its western wall (complete with a small milagro-filled commemorative shrine.) Then there’s that big VIDEOS boldly emblazoned mid-apparition as if to proclaim modern technology’s own miracle available on demand, right here, right now. In this dry land of rattlers and other serpents, even the snakey green garden hose seems biblically right at home. Oh, sure, the Arizona sun has taken its toll on the mural, fading it with each passing year since it was painted, until its now-pastel hues might seem more at home in Miami Beach than in the Southwest Sunbelt. No matter. The miracle remains.

Essex, MA. January, 2017

Just in case anyone needs a reminder that Woodman's of Essex claims to be the inventor of the fried clam, there is this bivalve tableau near the fried seafood shack's parking lot. What the "stars and stripes"-painted lobster is meant to represent, who knows?

Venice, Italy. October, 2012

She is risen. Today is the Feast of the Assumption. And here is a view to my favorite painting in the world, Titian's Assumption, as seen hanging in the spot for which it was painted in the Franciscan church, Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice. (When I brought Dr. Blake to the Frari in 2012 to show him the painting, sadly it was obscured by some nasty scaffolding. Click here for an unobstructed view.) Here are some things I've always heard about this feast day that honors the physical assumption of the Blessed Virgin into heaven (Google for accuracy): That it was a bodily-related feast, established by Pope Pius XII after World War II to commemorate the vast amount of war-related human carnage. That many Italian-Americans and Irish-Americans believe there is a miraculous cure in the seas on this day, causing thousands to flock to the waters and dunk themselves in the allegedly healing brine. When I was a Catholic a long time ago, even I used to do this. But then again, I love ritual of any kind, especially those that are beach-related.

Napoli. October, 2015

This painting, 'The Seven Works of Mercy' by Caravaggio, is the reason I walked all across the city one Sunday afternoon. I love Caravaggio and I'd never seen this canvas. Painted in 1607 for the church of Pio Monte della Misericordia, it's still in its original location. Because of the distance I had to stand from the painting in order to take this picture, you are forgiven if you're unable to spot all seven of the corporal works of mercy: Feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, visit the sick, ransom the captive, bury the dead. Originally the project (for which the painter was paid extravagantly) was to have been seven paintings, each with one work of mercy, positioned throughout the church. Instead, Caravaggio incorporated all seven into the one altarpiece. One-stop shopping.

Scotch Plains, NJ. Spring, 1972

In my first teaching job out of graduate school, at Union Catholic High School, I was also given the task of directing the Drama Club. Light comedy in the fall, musical in the spring. Instead of standard high-school fare like 'Bye, Bye, Birdie' and such, I chose Rodgers and Hart's 'The Boys from Syracuse.' Book based on Shakespeare, lovely songs like "This Can't Be Love" and "Falling in Love with Love." Yes, there's a whorehouse scene (we turned it into a disco) and the musical director (a nun with a drinking problem worse than mine) kept missing rehearsals and eventually dropped out of the picture leaving us with only piano accompaniment. But we made all our own costumes (dyed bedsheets with potato-printed embellishments) and constructed and painted the sets in a cartoonish way to keep it simple. And the kids got to hear such lovely music and lyrics from the Great American Songbook. I remember everyone laughing a lot and having a good time. So long ago.

Athens. October, 2011

It’s so hard to imagine that the original sculptures that we’re so used to seeing as bare marble were once all painted in vivid colors. How odd that would look to us today.

Rhodes, Greece. October, 2011

In my wanderings (OK, I got lost), I came across this park, the walls of which were spray-painted within an inch of their life, as you can see. In a pristine, regulated, geared-to-tourism island such as this, I can only imagine that officials try to curb teens’ enthusiasm for tagging by allowing it only in this park. I like the idea. And I like that I got lost enough to find it, far away from the tidy tourist center.

Mykonos, Greece. October, 2011

White-washed walls. Painted wood (usually blue, this time brown.) Flagstone walkways. A piece of sea sparkling in the sun. Clear blue skies. Mykonos.

Palermo, Sicily. May, 1988

What are these? Three guesses. If you guessed that they were plaster molds used to make marzipan fruit in a town known for that ubiquitous almondy confection, you’re correct. Just before we left Palermo, Nick and I visited a man whose occupation was making just such plaster items. (He also made some decorative flourishes like tiny plaster shelves with Corinthian-column-like supports, of which I brought home two.) But these are his specialties. Look at the variety: corn, eggplants, lemons, tomatoes, even a pig’s face. Once the almond paste is forced into the molds and retrieved, the shapes are painted with food colorings and sold at what seems like every other storefront in town.