Posted: July 24

Back to Brugge

(Rome) I have been home for a week, mostly catching up with emails to answer and problems to resolve after being away for three weeks giving the retreat or visiting Brasil and Argentina. Tomorrow, however, vacation starts. Two weeks away. We have a new auto-responder feature on our email at the Curia, and it was a great pleasure to write a message saying that I won't be answering any email for two weeks. That is the new definition of freedom, I think, since now you can answer email from anywhere in the world. So to be free from the burden will be great.

Even better is the fact that I am going to be painting for two weeks. This spring was very busy, with far too much time spent at the computer and far too little at the easel. Perhaps this will adjust the balance a bit. I am going to Brugge, Belgium, a beautiful city near the coast famous for its canals and old town. I visited there once years ago to take photographs for the museum exhibit on the encounter of Jesuit missionaries and Indians of the Plateau (Montana and Idaho) in the 1840s. Father Peter de Smet who led the Jesuit group came from Belgium and I was gathering background images for the show. We actually ended up opening the exhibit with an image of a small footbridge in Brugge to counterbalance an image of a rainbow over the hills in the Bitterroot range of Montana. So I am looking forward to returning with even more time than the first visit.

This will be an experiment for me as well since I have never gone on a trip just to paint before. There is a whole school of this type of painting, often called "Plein Aire" – meaning you are on location in front of your subject rather than painting in a studio. Proponents of this approach praise its virtues since the human eye is much better at detecting color and value than the camera lens, and it is hard to paint just from a drawing. On the other hand, plein aire painting has its own challenges, not the least of which are the passersby who like to kibbitz while you work. I have done some of these on-the-spot paintings in Italy, but never day after day. How will it work out? Stay tuned, but not for a few weeks. No email and no internet connection until them.