by Diana Madaras
Back in Tucson at an art store, the clerk helped me gather the painting supplies I needed. In college, I had painted with acrylics, so this watercolor medium I wanted to try was new to me.
Then I bought a Metropolitan Museum of Art calendar and began copying works of the Masters. I fell in love with Winslow Homer’s watercolors. I pulled out a few photos from Exuma, Bahamas where my family had vacationed, and replicated scenes from the island. I converted my living room into a studio and painted with the ottoman as my easel, while the TV tray was perfect for brushes, paint, and water.
During an LPGA committee meeting, I told Chuck Albanese, one of the board members, I was working on a painting of Tucson’s San Xavier Mission. In addition to volunteering for the golf tournament, Chuck was a professor of architecture and also a painter. “Why don’t you bring your painting to my house this weekend and let me see what you’re doing,” he offered.
On Saturday morning, I was excited to show Chuck my masterpiece, but when he saw the painting, he asked incredulously, “Is this watercolor?”
“What do you mean?” I asked nervously.
“You have enough paint on here for five paintings,” Chuck declared.
I was crestfallen.
“You are using watercolor like acrylic,” he said. “Let’s go out back and I’ll show you how to paint a watercolor wash.”
Chuck devised a makeshift studio on the picnic table in his backyard and laid out enough supplies for both of us. Side by side, we painted watercolor washes. He made a stroke and I copied him. Two hours later, we each had a watercolor painting of a little Greek house with purple shadows on the steps. Enthralling!
“You know, my wife Claire and I take a group of U of A students to Greece every summer to paint for a month,” Chuck told me. “Want to go with us this year?”
Claire and Chuck Albanese
“A month?” I said. “I can’t leave for a month. I have a husband and a business and five cats!”
But Chuck was relentless. “I saved a space for you on the trip,” he’d say every time I saw him. “Take another look at your calendar. You work so hard, you deserve a little time for yourself. Diana, you need to do this.”
His words helped me justify the trip. I did work hard and I wanted so badly to learn to paint like him. And even though I practiced for hours at home, I just couldn’t get the washes to look right.
When I looked at my tournament schedule, I realized summer was actually a reasonable time to leave town. My husband didn’t object to my going, and my staff promised to handle everything at the office. So off I went with one backpack filled with art supplies strapped on my front and a larger one on my back with clothes and sundries. When I finally climbed into both packs, I looked like a pregnant humpback whale.
On this “student economy trip,” I knew we’d have to walk for several miles with all of our gear. The maximum weight of the packs couldn’t exceed 30 pounds and that included the art supplies. Only 30 pounds for a month-long painting trip? What girl could do that?
Preparing for Greece
I bought mini-sized everything and packed and repacked a dozen times before I could finally whittle my stuff down to 30 pounds. And no hairdryer!
…
Our first day in Athens, we hiked the hill to the Acropolis. Incredibly, tourists could still walk among the ruins of the Parthenon just as the ancient Greeks did thousands of years ago.
We sat on stone steps and sketched the crumbling walls of this magnificent structure. The following day, we traveled by bus to Epidaurus and sketched ruins all day. Back in Athens that night, a group of women from the local education committee hosted a dinner for us with a lecture—so proud to share their heritage.
The next morning, we toured the public market, but the foul odors and the sight of fly-infested carcasses hanging from hooks made me ill. I waited on a side street until, as a group, we moved on to the National Museum. “So when do we paint?” I asked Chuck impatiently as we walked to the museum. I had one precious month to learn to paint; one week was already gone. Sensing my frustration, Chuck took me with him to the Plaka shopping area later that afternoon. “Let’s paint this scene,” he said as we sat at an outdoor table and ordered a frappe.
I looked down the avenue at the buildings and trees and light posts and shoppers on the sidewalk—and felt overwhelmed.
“How do I get that,” I pointed to the street, ”onto this little piece of paper?”
Diana’s painting done in Chuck’s backyard before the trip to Greece
Chuck explained a few principles of perspective as I watched his drawing come to life. He corrected the lines on my drawing and filled in some of the missing pieces. I made notes in my sketchbook and hung on Chuck’s every word. By sundown, I had a facsimile of the scene. So much to learn!
The next day, we donned our backpacks at sunrise, took a train to the Athens port, and hiked to the ferry. Our line-up of 25 backpack-laden students marching single file through the narrow cobblestone streets of Piraeus looked like ducklings waddling in a row.
Once the ferry left port, I stretched out on a bench and fell asleep. Between the I0-hour time difference and the noise from the motorcycles that raced up and down the streets all night, I hadn’t slept for seven days.
That afternoon we pulled into the island of Sifnos. The trail of ducklings slowly climbed the hill to our quaint blue-and-white hotel where we settled in with our roommates and then ate lamb and fried vegetables for dinner.
The next morning, we all assembled in the town square and watched Chuck sketch and paint the bakery. He used cobalt blue for the windows and purple shadows on the white building. Somehow, he made the colorful cobblestone streets appear three-dimensional.
Finally, our turn. I sat in the shade of an olive tree, dipping my brush into water and paint, living the enchanted life of an artist! I finished my watercolor by noon and couldn’t wait to start the next one.
Diana painting in Greece
During the afternoon, we painted on our own. I found a charming scene through an open gate with pots on the porch. I sat on the edge of the sidewalk and set up my paints. The owner of the house noticed me and came running out with freshly baked cookies and iced tea, feeling honored I’d chosen to paint her home.
Back at the hotel, I propped up my finished watercolor paintings on the desk so I could study them-my prized possessions.
“Thar’s a little gem,” Chuck said pointing to my courtyard painting during the group critique. My heart soared.
Our next stop was the island of Paros, where Chuck and I spent the afternoon in a Greek café painting a table and chairs. As long as we ordered an occasional Greek coffee, the shopkeeper didn’t mind.
Diana showing her work in Greece
Chuck helped me draw the complicated legs under the table and showed me how to make the checkerboard on the blue-and-white cloth. When we finally finished the painting—my favorite of the whole trip—I wanted to start another.
I simply couldn’t get enough. And here, I didn’t have to cook, clean, drive, answer the phone, deal with business issues, or clean the litter box. I could just paint. I was no longer the PGA tournament coordinator or the owner of Marathon Marketing or someone’s wife. I could just be me, and it felt wonderful. Freedom for the first time since I was a kid! Rediscovering my authentic self felt euphoric!
Had I found my place in the universe at last? I wrote this poem in my journal:
Greek Odyssey; I came to find art, but instead I found me
I’m surrounded by nothing familiar
Crooked streets made for donkeys
And white houses with women in scarves.
I smell fried cheese and lamb at the outdoor café
And fish from wooden boats in the bay.
Are nights here so warm or is it hot talk and wine?
It’s been three weeks. I can’t remember the day.
Sunburned layers peel down to
Skin still alive.
No nylons, no TV, no telephone, no lies.
Now that I’m awake it would take
A tar-rolling machine to make me lie down again and sleep.
…
Most nights, I would have dinner with the college kids, but I craved adult conversation. My favorite dinners took place with Chuck and Claire. We liked to wander down to the water’s edge to watch the sunset, drink wine, then eat a leisurely dinner and talk about the day’s work late into the evening.
My new world had shapes and colors and shadows and dimension. And when l closed my eyes at night, black and white landscapes suddenly rippled with color and morphed into beautiful paintings—all fairy dust by early morning light.
”Ready to paint now?” l knocked at Chuck and Claire’s door at seven in the morning. “The light is perfect!” The sleepy professor rubbed his tired eyes and asked, “How about a cup of coffee first? And breakfast?” I later overheard him say I was the most intense student he’d ever taught.
By week four, we had visited three islands and became entrenched on Mykonos. No tours or lectures were planned for this last leg of the trip, so I could paint all day.
“Let’s take a little break and walk around the town before we go back to Athens tomorrow,” Chuck suggested as he wiped the paint from his watercolor tray. When the shops opened at 4 pm after the siesta, he, Claire, and I meandered through the streets near the port.
Greek Table, by Diana Madaras
Our last stop was a small art gallery with a huge window overlooking the Aegean. The artist/owner sat in a high-backed wooden chair and greeted customers at the door. His paintings of Greek men and fishing boats hung from nails on the wall. “Wow,” I thought. “I want this life!”
“Someday, we’re going to open our own gallery,” I declared. “Chuck and I will paint, and Claire can run the shop.”
They laughed, but the seed was planted.
(Diana returned to Greece with Chuck and Claire in 2018– 25 years later. Read about the great adventure they had in this blog, and see the new paintings created in Greece more than a decade later here and here.)
Bouganvillea by the Sea, by Diana Madaras — 2018
Diana Madaras Blog 