1. 50 Shades of Ochre A journey through Tuscany

2. A love affair with color My dad instilled in me both a curiosity of how things work and a lifelong love of color when he helped me with my very first science fair project. Together we created a spinning disk with his old Erector set and a color wheel that helped me explain how white was really the presence of all color. I was smitten, my dad was probably hoping to make science interesting to me, but helped create a designer instead. I see the world in Technicolor, and through the years have been disappointed that the pictures I brought home from my travels were never what I remembered seeing. Photo editing software has changed all that, now I can turn the pictures I have taken into what my memory truly holds. Like so many artists, I am drawn again and again to places in the world that offer special light, that light is a reality that the camera often does not convey. In the past painters always had the advantage, I now have my own paint box in my computer that allows me to express what keeps drawing me back to places like Tuscany and New Mexico. First my innate curiosity requires that when I travel, I understand why both the built and natural environment look like they do. It is natural that indigenous stone was used as a building material, but only when I return home do I discover that Monte Amiata, the focal point of many Tuscan landscapes is the source of what we know as raw sienna and burnt sienna pigments that are the basis of the ochre look of Tuscany along with the travertines, marbles and other stones found in the region 3. where art imitates architecture Tuscanywhere art imitates life 4. Laundry day on the sunny side of the street in Lucca. Where life is lived behind 1,000 year old walls 5. In the simplicity of the medieval 6. And the elegance of the renaissance 7. Where the formal was born and remains intact 8. Where texture defines 9. Where villas dot the countryside restored, refined, in ruins or in between 10. And the rolling hills go seemingly into infinity 11. Where the players are selected from central-casting 12. The young and the not-so 13. Some things are all too perfect! 14. The perfect rows 15. The perfect landscapes 16. a town fortified with a massive, fully intact Renaissance wall is a delight of ochers from light to dark, from cool to warm, with a range of green trims throughout town. Cars are not allowed and the bicycle is the chief form of transportation Lucca 17. Luccas Walls 18. Where bicycles rule the streets 19. Even the built-environment seems to disappear into infinity 20. In Italy hot pink is not a girly color and magenta floral scarves are acceptable menswear. 21. Pienza purple stands unapologetically next to historic ochre stone walls 22. And ochre reigns day and night 23. And everyday is laundry day 24. Where we try illusively to peer in the windows to catch a glimpse of local life 25. Villages, even Lilliputian ones surround the countryside 26. Every plateau supports a village 27. Or a family farmhouse 28. The Carrera marble pits might lie just above Barga, but the predominant color in the narrow alleys is ochre. . 29. Montepulciano 30. The gate into Montepulciano 31. Our own gatekeeper 32. Our timekeeper 33. Etruscan motifs 34. Cinque Terremore than Ochre 35. Where everything is a little brighter 36. but the fashionable remain neutral to let nature and architecture play the lead. 37. Or ochre 38. Tuscany offers fresh garden produce 39. Charming terra cotta rooftops 40. In the end more than anything The color Ochre defines Tuscany for me!