THE EMILY HARVEY FOUNDATION RESIDENCY  

The Emily Harvey Foundation
Venice, Italy
May 14 - July 24 2008

I had the very good fortune to have a second artist’s residency at the Emily Harvey Foundation in Venice. I spent eleven weeks painting and produced over 30 small scale works on paper. Some paintings will be part of a solo show at the National Association of Women Artists Gallery in NYC in December 2008 and other paintings will go to the galleries that represent my work.

With the longer time frame, I took more time to visit galleries and museums and explore the city. I went to St. Elena for the first time, and to the Giudecca. I had been to Murano on my first trip to Venice many years ago, but returned to see some of the contemporary glass.

My intention was to make paintings based on Murano glass and the glass furnaces. Some of the paintings followed this theme. A few of the paintings had the ambiance of Venice without direct reference while other paintings were completely abstract. I will continue working with getting the feel of translucent and metalic glass in abstract paintings. I also took more notice of the illusive quality of the water reflected on the undersides of arched bridges in the canals. The reflections made a luminous, dancing patterns of ever-moving light.

I was in two different apartments, the first in a newly renovated apartment at Corte de Ca’ Michiel in San Polo. It was beautifully designed and appointed and in an excellent location near the Rialto markets. For the second part of this residency I returned to the Dorsudoro, to the apartment below the studio where I was in 2006. It was good to be back in a familiar neighborhood.

Silvia Scatolin, office manager for the foundation, arranged an aperatif for all of the current residents in the Emily Harvey Foundation office. It was a pleasure to meet everyone and compare experiences. Among the residents was another visual artist, a filmaker, an art historian, an art critic , a musician and my husband, Tom Speight, who was was writing and doing research in mathematics and physics. He also took most of the photographs on my website.

I was invited by Piero Malerba to show the paintings I had done during the first half of my stay at Ai Genovesi on Calle Boteri, San Polo, around the corner and through a sottoportego from our apartment. Giulia Michilin, who was just finishing an arts management major at Ca’ Foscari University, made the arrangements for the show and designed the announcement. This unexpected invitation to present my work informally gave me the opportunity to meet other artists in Venice. I appreciated being invited to show my work in the neighborhood where I had lived for five weeks.

I am appreciative of this time to paint in Venice and thank the Emily Harvey Foundation for the opportunity.