Dear Friends,

I have had an eventful four months since my last art newsletter!

My exhibition of watercolors and acrylics at the Skoufa Gallery in Athens was well attended and successful. A photograph of one of my paintings appeared in the English weekly newspaper Athens News. The exhibit title Fragments of the Sea was taken from a poem by the Greek Nobel prize-winning poet Odysseus Elitis; it was translated correctly, but somewhat prosaically,  “Sea Bits". Oh well…..   Eighteen works had found new homes by the end of June, and some $5,000 Canadian was raised for Dikeme-College Year in Athens. I continue to be represented by the Skoufa Gallery in Athens, so please drop by if you visit Greece.

Most of my time in Greece was spent setting up and then taking down the exhibition and visiting friends, alumni,  professors and family in Athens. I did rent a car and travel down through the Peloponnesus in mid-July. I visited my grandfather’s village of Isaris near Megalopolis then spent five days on the island of Kythira in the far south. The heat was fantastic:  phasmagorical. The temperature reached 47°C as I crossed the plains below Sparta, with a 60 to 70 kph  wind from the West blustering behind me as I drove, nudging the car leftward and kicking up small dust devils. I painted a series of small watercolors of olive trees along the route early in the morning, while the temperature was still reasonable, but most of the time it was too hot for any meaningful cerebral function.

Olive Trees, 2007, watercolour, Greece

Much of this region burned in August, when the same blistering dry wind and phenomenally hot days triggered uncontrollable fires that raged for days.  Millions of olive trees, thousands of hectares of pine forests and some 80 villages all burned, including Isaris. Scenes like the one above are gone now.

After leaving Greece in July, before returning home, I had 10 days in Switzerland.  I lived in Zürich from 1978 to 1980 and taught at the American International School of Zürichin Kilchberg.  Zürich, Geneva, and Vancouver rank 1, 2 and 3 (in varying order) for “the world's most livable cities”.  I prefer Vancouver now, but many of my oldest and most loved friends are in Zürich (Luzern, Bern, Basel, & St Gallen). Three of the small works I painted last winter in Paris found new homes amongst them.

Upcoming events! Pane et Formaggio 4532 West 10th Avenue, Vancouver October: Still Life Paintings November: Paris in Winter December: Watercolour Paintings from Greece

I will be exhibiting some smaller works (shown for the first time) at Pane et Formaggio, 4532 West 10th Avenue in the Point Grey neighborhood.  The place has a fantastic coffee, baked goods, cheeses, and charcuterie items. Michael Whynot, partner at this, my favorite spot for morning coffee or lunch near my daughter’s school, has generously allowed me to show a few works. In lieu of commission, he has asked that 25% of the sale price be donated to the patron’s charity of choice. In October, I will exhibit six still-lifes with quinces, brie, pears etc.  In November, I will hang six small works from the 2007 Paris in Winter series. If all goes well, in December, I will show some of the small Greek watercolors. Let me know when you may drop by, and we can have coffee together.

Two and A Half Quiches, 2007, acrylic on multimedia artboard, 5.5 x 14 inches

With affection, David