Posted: August 11

A painting goes travelling

(Rome) Yesterday the FedEx man came and took the box with my painting of the hillside at Loyola Spain. It should arrive before long in Montreal where the French Canadian province is hosting an art exhibit called Art Sacré /Chantier 2006. The exposition will be part of the province's celebration of Jubilee 2006 and will take place in the Hall of the Gesu – Centre de créativité from September 22 to November 1. Unfortunately I won't be able to be at the opening because we have an important meeting here in Rome to plan for the upcoming general congregation.

This is the first painting exhibit in which I have participated, but I think I feel more relief than anticipation. Who knew when I first received the invitation to participate all that it would take to get a painting on the way? Of course, the first challenge is deciding what to send. The curator said we could send one or two paintings: which ones? After going back and forth, I settled on a recent painting of autumn trees on the hillside above St. Ignatius' home at Loyola, in the Basque countryside of northern Spain. I have long thought that visiting the place where history took place helps you to understand the history. And to understand a person, you must visit the key places of his life. So a painting of the landscape that nurtured Ignatius gives an insight into his character.

The fall colors are much different from what I knew in Colorado. Frequent rains at Loyola make the grass more yellow-green than even the spring grass in Colorado. There is a richness to foliage that surprised me, not at all what I would have expected from seeing so many movies shot in the Spanish central plateau which is dry and brown. My painting is good; it really captures the sense of place and has a lot of feeling. I am usually my own harshest critic, but I like this painting, titled "Holy ground, the hills at Loyola.".

Getting it framed was not hard, and the frame sets the painting off. Even packing it wasn't so difficult. I hoard supplies of old bubble wrapping and computer foam packing so it did not take too long to make what I hope is a sturdy-enough cocoon. Then a trip to my local art-supply store yielded an empty cardboard box big enough to hold the painting (which is 50cm by 70cm just by itself).

No, the hardest part was figuring out how to get the official permission from the Italian government to export a painting, even if it is my own work. Once I finally tracked the office of Beni Culturale per l'esportazione di Antichità, I provided two photographs of the painting and promised that I did it myself. They decorated an official form with all the necessary stamps. Add to that several pages of official forms (with the necessary seals) from Canadian customs, and the packed painting was almost ready to go. All it took was one last dash to my room to dig out my official "Codice Fiscale" (the Italian identification card that establishes your legal identity in business matters), before the very nice Fed Ex man would carry the box out the door and set it on its way westward. Now I feel like I can relax. The hardest part of the summer's work on redesigning the web site is also finished, so now I can get ready for traveling to Zambia in a week's time.