Nancy Goes to Italy!
Good friends decided to retire, sell their house and other posessions in the United States, and move to Italy. She started a weblog chronicling the transition. In it she describes the move, the settling in, all the arrangements, laws, regulations, bureaucracy, and challenges they had to overcome along the way to full-time residency. It makes for fascinating reading—especially if you are considering a similar move. It has been more than 10 years now and she continues to add vignettes about everyday life of both Italians and expats in Italy, especially in Umbria where they live. She also posts on their travels around Europe.
I highly recommend her Nancy Goes to Italy blog to anyone interested in Italy and the life—challenges and rewards—of an expat. Please check it out.
Watercolor Journeys by Suz
I met Suzette many years ago in Colorado where we worked together on software development contracts for the Department of Defense. We both went onto other work that took us to different parts of the world in different roles. We lost direct contact for a number of years but I kept tabs on her through mutual friends and colleagues. While planning for an extended visit to Florida a couple of years ago and having heard that she and her husband were living there, I decided to try to get back in touch. My wife and I were delighted to join her family’s Thanksgiving celebration that year. I hasten to note, she and her husband are both excellent cooks. That Thanksgiving dinner was exceptional. But, back to the point, I learned that Suzette had focused her considerable intellect and creative talent on art, specifically, water color painting. Her home office and studio was full of paintings and works in progress. I was really impressed. She had not only learned to paint, in just a few short years she had become good enough to have been awarded commissions by a number of private clients. One of her specialties is animal portraits, both wild animals and pets. She captures the expressions of her subjects in ways that make me feel the animals she depicts are genuinely thinking and feeling. It’s amazing. Please visit her Facebook page and check out the broad range of her work.
I met Linda, a.k.a. Red, about 25 years ago when we worked together on a software consulting contract for a regional telephone company in Denver, Colorado. When that contract ended, our professional lives digressed but crossed again a couple of years later when we worked on a contract for the Department of Energy. When that contract ended our professional lives sent us in different geographical directions. She and her husband moved back to Florida from where they had each moved years before. My wife and I moved to the Washington, D.C. metro area.
Fast forward to several years ago, Linda began dedicating more and more time and effort to painting. She has long been a fan of modern design and modern art. Her house was decorated and furnished with modern design fixtures, furnishings, and artwork. So, it was no suprise that, although she can draw and paint in traditional formats, her interest is in vivid, colorful Abstract Impressionism painting—think Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Norman Lewis, Willem de Kooning, and other prominent artists who played a role in that movement of the late 1940s, 50s, and 60s. Since then the medium and materials have improved and the colors are more vivid than ever. Red, as Linda refers to her artist self, has developed an up-to-date, technically sophisticated interpretation of reality through Abstract Impressionism technique and style using modern tools, techniques, and materials.
Visit her website Strokes by Red to see a sample of the result for yourself.
A Finis Terrae 