Faculty Information:
Program Instructor:

A painter and teacher from western Massachusetts, Marcia Reed holds an MFA in painting and has been on the Fine Arts faculty at the Williston Northampton School since 1978. She has been the director of the Grubbs Gallery on the campus, since 1996. Her residence and studio is located in the Railroad Station, where she conducts adult classes in oils and watercolors. Marcia is also the owner of the "1 Railroad Street Gallery" in Easthampton, MA. An active painter, Marcia has exhibited widely throughout the Northeast, the Southwest, the Caribbean, Madedonia and Korea.

She is currently represented by four galleries in the Virgin Islands, Portland, ME and western Massachusetts. Marcia has been a recipient of many grants that have taken her to paint on location in Greece, Italy, Portugal and the Caribbean. She has also organized and taught art groups in Holland, Santorini, Greece, Sicily, Antigua, Bonaire and the US Virgin Islands. Her watercolor is on the cover of Sonia Nieto's multi-cultural book, The Light in their Eyes printed by Teachers College Press, Columbia University (1999).

Marcia finds nature to be an "endless source of images." In it she discovers equivalents for human feelings. She wants to pull the observer into the view in order to experience the vitality, subtle movements and exchange of nature. "My work depicts the complete isolation with nature and the sense of mystery and unknown power the landscape possesses."

Other Activities:
In addition to your painting workshop, this program will focus on the cultural, gastronomic, historical and archaeological heritage of this region. You will experience the beautiful, less tame part of Italy unlike other areas often visited by throngs of tourists. Here grazing sheep and chestnut colored cows share fields with groves of cork and olive trees and the locals keep time honored traditions for us to discover.

Sardinians are extremely hospitable and the week will foster personal contact between resident and visitor, at the café in town or in their homes to purchase artisan cheeses and wines. The foods, as in other regions of Italy, have their own unique characteristics, from the traditional Sardinian flat bread, delicious pecorino - highly prized even by mainland Italians - to the distinctive local wines you won't taste elsewhere; all this and more await you. Our exploration of the island will include some of the highlights listed below:

- Daily watercolor painting instruction with Marcia
- Authentic Sardinian breakfast and dinners prepared at the house, using only local and traditional products (independent lunch)
- Visits to an ancient nuraghe; mysterious Bronze age structures dotting the island
- Excursion to the historic town of Bosa with guided tour, lunch and swimming at the beach
- Day trip with painting to Fordonguinus, site of a hot spring and an ancient Roman thermal bath
- A visit to the Roman ruins at Tharros, an ancient Roman port and site of a strategic harbor that helped defend the island from invaders
- Optional morning hike with Sardinian breakfast of homemade sausage, pecorino and bread up in the mountains
- We will stop in the famous town of Cabras where the highly prized bottarga is made, dried red mullet eggs shaved onto pasta generally or eaten on bread as an appetizer.

Facility Information:
We will be staying Santu Lussurgiu in the mountains on the central west coast of Italy. The nearest town is Bosa Marina. The agriturismo where we will be staying are comfortable and cool, housed within the thick walls of a converted old family home. Summers are very warm here, but in the mountains where we will be staying the higher elevation helps keep it cooler than in some of the low lying areas. Siesta is definitely part of the culture of Sardinia and at midday the pace slows and people retreat for a few hours.

About Santu Lussurgiu: this is a small town located in the hills in central Sardinia with few tourists. The town has two lovely restaurants, artisan saddle and leather shops, a pharmacy, post office, artifact museum and cafes. There is a piazza with a cooling fountain in the shade to sit and paint or merely watch the local interactions. On the outskirts of town lie rolling hills with grazing sheep and cattle, olive trees and Mediterranean flora.

Sardinia is known for the ancient nuraghe, prehistoric tower dwellings that were built in the shape of truncated cones, out of rough unmortared blocks of stone. They appear to have played a role in defense and date from the Bronze Age. There are about 7,000 of them scattered around the island.

The Food: Food in Sardinia represents the healthiest of the Mediterranean cuisines. Introducing guests to the food of Sardinia will be a focus of the experience there. Traditional Sardinian cooking uses all local products and wine, with a particular emphasis on vegetables and fruits. Some samples of Sardinian cooking; spaghetti with clams and bottarga, fish grilled over rosemary branches, roasted potatoes from the garden, and many types of grilled vegetables; eggplant, peppers, onions, zucchini, and fennel.

The interior of Sardinia is known for the quality of their meats. The pecorino cheese is also famous, made from the milk of the prized Razza sheep. The local produce and meats are produced naturally without chemicals or growth hormones. Most families make their own wine. The fruits are varied and abundant in the summertime, including cherries, melons, grapes, apples, pears, watermelon, cantaloupe, summer squashes, and little yellow plums called susine.

Language: Italian is spoken, as well as a language called Sardo that shares similarities with Latin. Having been occupied by many cultures throughout the ages, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Spaniards, Greeks, Piemontese, Genovese, Pisani and Romans, Sardinians do not speak a wholly uniform language. In recent years, the regional language, Sardo, has been recognized as an established and legitimate language, and has become a source of pride.

Climate: The weather in Sardinia in the summer is beautiful. It almost never rains during the summer months. The days are long, hot and sunny, with the shade offering coolness. For clothing, we recommend casual summer wear, with at least one pair of long pants, and a sweater or jacket for the evenings, and a bathing suit for visiting the lovely beaches.

Notes:
Price Includes:

* 7 nights in the agriturismo Antica Dimora in Santu Lussurgiu
* Daily watercolor classes with critiques
* Authentic Sardinian breakfast and dinners prepared at the house, including wine (independent lunch)
* Visits to an ancient nuraghe; mysterious Bronze age structures dotting the island
* Excursion to Bosa with guided tour
* Day trip to Fordonguinus
* A visit to the Roman ruins at Tharros, an ancient Roman port
* Morning hike with Sardinian breakfast of homemade sausage, pecorino and bread up in the mountains
* Transfers to/from Calglieri

Price Excludes:

* Airfare
* Lunch
* Art supplies
* Local bus transportation
* Independent meals and sight-seeing.

Also see Vacation Schools in:
Art and craft workshop   Europe   Italy  

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