More Photos from Scenic Bussana Vecchia

Three Arches

If Walls Could Speak

Church at Bussana Vecchia

What Lies Within

Here are a few more photos from Bussana Vecchia. I wish I had more to show you. Unfortunately I had to delete many images from my memory during my trip, to make room for more.

As you can see in the top photo, there were arches everywhere. And the weathered stone had a lot of stories to tell, as did the vines that inched their way along the ancient walls. It was interesting to see such old architecture retrofitted with pipes that carried plumbing and other modern amenities. Somehow they didn't detract very much from the overriding feeling of antiquity.

The church is still in terrible disrepair. I don't know how much of it is the original destruction from the 1880s earthquake, or more recent damage. Notice the tree growing from the top of the wall on the right, as nature makes her claim on all things that belong to another time.

Passageway

I can't remember whether this last photo was taken in BV or in another one of the towns we visited, but the feeling it conveys is the same. The mystery of antiquity and the drama of human history are implicit in every stone.

Here are links to Wikipedia and the main Bussana Vecchia website, so you can read more about the international artist's colony that BV is today. Be sure to check out Wolf's and Jana's studio, which is the oldest in BV.

I'll be showing some photos from a few other charming towns in Northern Italy, as well as some from Venice, in future posts.

All images and text c Lynda Lehmann. If you would like to view more of my art or make a purchase, please visit Lynda Lehmann Painting and Photography or my gallery at Imagekind, where you can choose from several sizes and paper types or buy my prints plain or matted and framed.

A Street in Bussana Vecchia

Bussana Vecchia Street - Image c Lynda Lehmann

This is a street in Bussana Vecchia, a medieval village in the Ligurian Region of Northern Italy. It was once a thriving city, until the late 1800s, when it was felled by an earthquake. It became a ghost town, deserted and inhabited only by ferral cats, until a few movie stars and artists discovered it, many decades later. Now it's an international artist's colony. It's a place of charm and mystery, in which the past stares at you from every arch and alleyway. History oozes from every stone.

Here I am, standing in front of some of my prints which I just hung in a local cafe. The photo of Bussana Vecchia was the first one to sell. Witness the empty spot where it hung.

For my next post, I'll tell you about a strange synchronicity in my life, centering around this quaint and colorful citadel on a hill in Northern Italy.

ADDENDUM: I'm not in Italy at the present time, but here on Long Island, where I live. When I said "local" cafe, I meant here at home. Sorry if the way I presented this was confusing. I didn't mean to imply that I'm in Bussana Vecchia now. I wish....

All images and text c Lynda Lehmann. If you would like to view more of my art or make a purchase, please visit Lynda Lehmann Painting and Photography or my gallery at Imagekind, where you can choose from several sizes and paper types or buy my prints plain or matted and framed.

Passages: The Road to Self-Knowledge

Masks

We hide behind our masks: our jobs, affiliations, and credentials. Each of us strives to live a good life. But we get caught up in the pursuit of creature comforts, entertainment, and ego-driven goals. These strivings obscure self-knowledge.

Only mindfulness is the path to the heart of your life.

Passages

The Yellow Door

The light is within you.

All images and text c Lynda Lehmann. If you would like to view more of my art or make a purchase, please visit Lynda Lehmann Painting and Photography or my gallery at Imagekind, where you can choose from several sizes and paper types or buy my prints plain or matted and framed.

Parallel Lives

An elderly woman walks her bicycle down a narrow Alassio street, while a younger woman veers off the street into an adjacent doorway. They are in such close proximity in space and time, but each is oblivious of the other.

"Parallel Lives" can be looked at in several ways, I guess. It's a good metaphor for alienation and depersonalization and such. It could also be a metaphor for pattern and routine and limited consciousness/entrenched thinking, with the way the structures of those doors wall the woman in. And it could be a comment on aging, of course. Or culture. What does it make you think of? Image c Lynda Lehmann.

You will soon be able to purchase this image, framed or unframed, on my Imagekind site:
http://www.lyndalehmann.imagekind.com/