If you want to play a song in the background while you read this letter:Ghosts on the east end
Hello 2026!
In my last newsletter I talked about power and authenticity for us, as artists and as people: how sometimes choosing the hardest path leads us to the only thing that, in this world saturated with information, is still inimitable… our uniqueness.
I’ve chosen three illustrations that represent exactly this idea: peeling away layers and showing what lies beneath!
“TRAVEL”This painting is about the bond that forms between travel companions and places, how everything becomes one, how we become inseparable, how we become a mountain, able to face the hardest climb and the steepest descent without fear.
“FROM MY WINDOW”.Since I’ve lived here, I have large windows that open onto animal, wild and mountain worlds. I can watch nature in its dances, silently, without being noticed, and that’s what I’ve tried to convey with my painting.Acrylic on cardboard and vintage frame. Size: 20 × 15 cm.
WHAT IS INTIMACY?The sea said to the fisherman: — Intimacy is when you stop seeing me as a simple stretch of water and start thinking of me as a companion. When you no longer look at me as a resource, but truly begin to feel my presence. It’s when my waves follow the rhythm of your breath, when you come close and sense my moods — my calm, my fury, my silence. And like your net gathering fish, I gather your thoughts: I welcome them, I keep them, I become their only witness. I hold them within me, and they remain our secret.
from my newsletter:
“My career as an illustrator has never been a straight path. It reminds me of that scene in Big Fishwhere Edward sets off with the giant and finds himself at a crossroads: he can take the familiar road or the winding one. In the end he chooses the second, knowing he can’t die. And what does he find? Experiences, places, unexpected situations. But above all, he finds himself.
I’m “an Edward”: I chose curiosity, freedom and adventure.That choice made my path much longer. A shop in the town centre would certainly have made things simpler and, above all, would have shortened the journey… but do you know how many things I would have missed?
Would I have been myself if I had chosen that path?”
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I promise not to bombard you with emails: I’ll only write when I have something to share and, now and then, a little gift for you!
until next time
xxx Andrea
