Circles

Dianna Shyne (Me)

Susan Diehl

 

Susan Diehl Painting

So why am I not painting?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My 2012 painting trip to Italy and subsequent show at the Cole Gallery (Now through Mid July 2013)  began on a dark dirt road in Glacier Nation Park in 1990 where Susan Diehl and I first met. It was to be my very first plein air painting experience. Susan and I quickly became close friends…our children were the same ages, we lived in the same town, and were taking painting classes from the same teachers…Ron Lukas, Del Gish, William Reese....

We painted together for years until Susan and her family moved to Arizona.
Susan and I still get together to collaborate and travel, we are in some of the same galleries…we travelled to Western China together in 2008 to paint. So when the opportunity to bring a group of students to Tuscany arose, Susan was my first choice as a teaching partner. We decided to present a unique workshop where all the students were encouraged to use the iconic landscapes and ancient cityscapes to develop their own poetic voice.

This trip to Italy was the completion of a circle that started when I was 16 years old on my first trip to Italy…Until then, I had never really been exposed to original paintings. My first art experience of any kind was the Sistine chapel… Michelangelos iconic ceiling half cleaned and glowing with color, half dark with the grime of centuries. Until this moment, tiny pictures in text books were all I had. I stared at the ceiling until I was ushered out….I got it…art…painting…the profound immaculate and messy beauty of it. I knew I wanted to be an artist…to learn more (everything) …to see more…

Over the years, I longed to return to Italy to experience the landscapes that inspired both a Renaissance and my own life path. It was my dream, but career, children, finances, time constraints kept me away…now slow forward forty years and here I come full circle.

Returning to Italy as an artist and teacher, bringing eager and longing student artists with me to encounter this place as an adult with a whole life of experiences in tow became something entirely new… the completion of one circle and the beginning of a new one.

I will be returning to Tuscany again this fall with another group of students…It’s just me this time. It turns out I can’t be around oil paint at all. So Susan and I have parted ways as co-teachers, but continue our friendship and collaboration with this current exhibition of paintings. http://www.colegallery.net/searchresults.php?exhibitionId=270&start=1