Travel - Palma, Majorca circa 1961

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” ― Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

From the time I was a very young girl, I have loved to travel. By the time I was in high school, I had ambitions to go to Europe at a time when almost no one went to Europe. In college, I determined I would go to France no matter how long it took me to find a way to get there. And get there I did - on the Queen Mary.

Since that time, I have traveled to Europe many times. Each time I come home with much to “chew” on. But for me there have only been a few “moveable feasts.” Certainly, Paris was one. The Abbey at Senanque in the south of France was another. And when I have to have my blood pressure taken, I think about the view from my balcony in Sorrento of the Bay of Naples with Mt. Vesuvius on one end and Capri on the other.

For this challenge, I have chosen a collage I finished several weeks ago after several decades of leaving it untouched. The recollection of the view of Palma, Majorca from the water in the 1960s has always been a delight for me. It is another delicious morsel from my past. I painted it first in acrylics many years ago and recently used collage to complete the town and village portions of it. The cathedral is actually high Spanish Gothic, but I remember it much more simply. As a presence dominating the town which was little more than a village then. The actual little village around the bend from the town had a deserted rocky inlet of clear cold azure water, the brace of which made everything else fade into the background. Just writing about the area whets my appetite to return.

                               One of my favorite details of this collage is the sailboat made from a clock’s face and its reflection made by a parrot.

 

                                             Another is the ragged hill running down to the sea which is actually a shoe with a stiletto heel.

I may have spent years completing this work, but I have savored every minute of that time.