Art with Joze Ciuha

I am back from my one week art course in southern Austria. I was near the Slovenian and Italian border in a beautiful open valley with distant mountains. It is known as the lake region of Austria. There is a main bike route through the valley floor so I was able to bike in between events.

The class was taught by Joze Ciuha and he really is worth a bio look on the internet. He had me under his magic spell the minute I met him. He is 80 years old and I think well known in the international art community. The first day of class, I stood there with a large piece of blank 2 x3 ft. paper and 10 more blanks waiting , many large containers of acrylic paint and 3 brushes and felt apprehensive. He walked up to me and said in a heavy accent…Eli, pretend you are 8 years old and just start painting. Well that didn´t seem too hard. Then he would come around and say …are you having fun? Or he would say…are you still having fun…or…always smiling (that´s because I was under his spell) or…Eli, this is a magic brush…and I BELIEVED! Heck, I would have followed him anywhere.

We are at Julie´s until July 27. Dick has me in training for biking. Every other day he finds places that will challenge me enough but not too much that I start crying and calling him names. Then on the other days, he takes real men rides with Julie and/or Georg and I take wimpy walks on the nearby trails.

All is well … but as Dorothy says in the Wizard of Oz…there is no place like home and sometimes I wish I could click my ruby red shoes and make it happen but then once there with all the repairs and gardening, I would wish I was somewhere else again…so-o-o-o-be here now!

Eli
2004.07.01