 |
| Painting The Hora and the surrounding mountains |
Go with the flow wherever you are. It’s wisdom.
When I went down to the bakery this morning for the wonderful fresh
bread that comes out of the Greek ovens, Olympias called to me as I was headed
back home. She was on her own at the
school yard making strides on the last part of the mural—the Hora. “Won’t you come and paint with me?” she
said, so I went home and changed and returned to the schoolyard. Now I am getting my first taste of Greek
summer heat. I couldn’t keep up the
painting for too long as the heat radiated off the concrete basketball court
and the concrete wall and the fluid loss was just too great. So I had to finish for today. Off to the beach. Olympias remembered the film, “Never On
Sunday” which ends with Melina Mercouri saying, “And they all went off to the
beach.” So that’s what we did.
 |
| A natural face in the rock |
 |
| Mythic face |
The weather is now warm enough for swimming although if you
stay in the water for too long you do get chilled. Five minutes on the sand and you are
recovered. It’s an amazing sea; the
water is magical and like silk. I’m
thinking of renting a kayak if I feel motivated enough to put down my book, get
off my beach chair, and sweat a little out on the bay. These next and last days are quite
leisurely. I watch the Aegean Speedlines
ferry come in and out of the port and feel some reticence about leaving. I can stand on the upper deck as the boat
pulls out and look back at the bays I’ve visited. The boat will stop at Milos and Sifnos before
continuing to Pireaus where I’ll taxi on to Athens.
 |
| Profile of a man |
 |
| A natural foot and hand sculpture |
Yesterday I spent some time photographing the rocks that
form a barrier between the port of Livadi where I live and the Livadakia Bay
and beach where I frequent. I’m taken by
the natural sculptures of the stone and the carvings made by the sea and
wind. The stones are like mythic faces
of gods and characters from the Odyssey.
Also in antiquity, Serifos was known as the Island of Mute Frogs. No one can tell me anything about this and I
cannot find a record of mute frogs (there is such a species) outside of North
America. But as I photographed and
examined the rocks, they seemed like multiple frog sculptures as the wind
causes the rocks to be rounded and sometimes form a froglike face. I wonder if this was the story from antiquity
and this is how it got its name. It may
not be, but I like the idea. The rocks
inspired the thought of paintings and certainly sculptures and I’ll be glad to
be in a place where I can execute something if the mood touches me.
