You don't know what you can do until you are pushed – but new skills are a
good way to ward of Alzheimer's, so I said yes to a painting holiday in
Italy. Within, I quailed with typical British scepticism and reluctance at
the idea of exposing meagre ability to the group.
I had a weird imagining of sitting there in a straw hat, my ego massaged as I
dabbed ineffectually at a piece of paper with a fine sable brush. The actual
experience could not have been more different - as I should have understood
from the unusual source of this particular painting holiday.
Point101 is an art website,
where you can upload your own pictures to make classy prints on canvas or
other textures, or buy the work of others – possibly more talented than
yourself. Recently, they have branched out into holidays, both for painting
and photography instruction, which chime with their ethos of encouraging
people to make their own art. But this doesn't mean any old thing fit to be
appreciated only by those who love you. The instruction is highly
professional, and pushes you beyond anywhere you might have been before.
I had painted, regularly but not frequently, small water colours of flowers,
goldfish and candlesticks. My father-in-law's 1940s Foreign Office book of
manners informed him that he could respond to a potentate's richest gift
with 'a water colour painted by your aunt, because it is beyond price'. Mine
rather came into that category.
But this holiday was all about landscape art, the subject for which Abruzzo
provides in spades.
Young, cool, funny and enthusiastic tutor and organiser James Lockett does not
resemble the disappointed art teacher of my worried dreams. For one thing,
he is wearing a blue vest and the kind of straw hat that looks endearing on
Pete Doherty. His partner in artistic persuasion is Selwyn Leamy – ruddy,
and blond as a chick, with a big blue Celtic Cross tattooed on one shoulder.
They bounce with enthusiasm at all times, but are also both experienced art
teachers, academics and artists themselves. Many would quail at the idea of
taking a disparate group of people – nearly all older than themselves - to a
wild and unknown place, and then exhorting them to do much much better,
while telling some very silly jokes.
Example: 'Knock, knock. Who's there? Europe. Europe who? No, you're a poo...'
Followed by gales of giggles. This was much appreciated by my children when
I got home.
Abruzzo is not a destination for anyone who likes shopping, or pizza, or
pocket-sized repro Davids or any of the other crass Italianisms rife in more
touristy spots. It is much more for people who want to connect thoroughly to
their destination, and an art holiday is a good way to do this, as you are
forced to take in your surroundings by intense looking. The area abounds
with unspoilt national parks, medieval field strips, extraordinary, often
ruined, architecture and wildlife instead. You could call it authentic
Italy, unmarred by too much exposure to the modern world.
Having flown into Pescara, we arrived that first evening at an extraordinary
medieval hilltop settlement called St Stefano di Sessanio. Previously a
minor Medici seat, it was gradually abandoned as waves of war and economics
washed out the rural population. Thousands lived there once; after World War
II, the population was reduced to almost nothing. Its solid grey stone
buildings, all jumbled together, with the streets often tunnelled underneath
for protection from the harsh winters and hot summers, are huddled
defensively on top of a hill. The massive buttressed walls are punctured
high up with delicate loggias, finely turned stone pillars and Romanesque
arches. From a distance, you can see the little crenellated look-out turret
poking up between buildings, like a novelty knob on a teapot.
Down in the valley below is a beautiful, primrose-coloured church, Roman in
design, but dating from the great days of transhumance, when flocks of sheep
in particular, but also cows, goats and horses, were driven up into the
hills to feed on rich summer pastures. Their shepherds needed somewhere to
worship, and these spacious churches bear witness to the prosperity that the
animals brought.
Daniel Kihlgren, the half-Swedish heir to a concrete fortune, discovered the
little town, abandoned to sunlight and lizards, while touring the area on
his ancient BMW. There is no equivalent to English Heritage, and he was
fired with a passion to conserve these lesser historical sites, beginning to
buy up as much as he could in the late 1990s. His plan was delicate
restoration and the creation of an albergo diffuso – a hotel 'diffused'
around the town. He has bought up several other abandoned villages since,
and stabilising their forgotten beauties has become his life's work.
To get to my room, I walked up a steep cobbled street and in through an
ancient front door. The steps leading upwards were like a ladder, testifying
to a time when the ground floor was given over to animals in the winter. The
walls are still blackened with smoke, but glazed. Danielli as he is known,
wants to preserve evidence of the people who lived here – 'their poverty' as
he puts it. No brushing over the top, glossifying or smartening up, but
history visible. However, there's no obligation to experience authentic
discomfort - the bed was super comfortable and the bathroom, tucked into a
corner behind a curved wall, ultra modern, with lovely and very different
bath products made from local olive oil. There is a faint tarry scent, and
the pleasant whiff of long departed animals and hay.
