Venice Canal

One feeling you get when visiting Europe is an appreciation of how the architecture fits the setting. It would be impossible to visualize a Prague without red tile roofs or a Venice where the old buildings had been razed and all replaced with glass and chrome. In our part of the world - and probably a lot of other parts too!- we seem to be losing our relationship to our landscape. Buildings become "one size fits all" and could exist almost anywhere- just like the blue vinyl in the last blog. Once houses looked more like they fitted the subdivision and all settled in in a neighbourly fashion. Now they loom large on their lots and glitter with lights under the eaves and false-stone tiles that will mildew in our west coast weather. When will we learn to adapt to where we live and not try to impose other ideas? In this canal painting, I've tried to capture the "rightness"of the buildings showing their age and adaptations to time. The colours and reflections in the water...it could only be Venice and that is as it should be.