The Cortona Experiment

by Jacquelyne Blair

19 February, 2012

Our tiny tripod family of three consists of my 8 year old daughter ScarlettRose, my husband Michael Phillips, and me. I am Jacquelyne Blair. We are making the big plunge into the unknown and couldn't be more thrilled and overwhelmed! We have never been to Cortona but have found a lovely rental in a 400 year old stone house in old Cortona. Have any of you been there? Could you imagine leaving all that you know and taking flight with a one way ticket to Cortona? Let me know some of your favorite shops, trattorias, favorite natural scenery, art and architecture, etc.  Luca Signorelli and Pietro da Cortona actually also graced this fine house and made it their homes as well.

Our 'true north' and spiritual heart home and haven however, is and always will be Venice. Venice is for us a dream destination because it is a small city that is also a magnificent wonder and home to more than 100 churches, galleries, museums and scuolas of some the great master painters of Venice: Tintoretto, Carpaccio, Tiepolo for example. It is a city that can be covered by foot all in one day, but it has a tremendous wealth of major masterpieces that rival the great art centers of Paris, Rome, Madrid, etc. but without the tremendous size, urban sprawl and perhaps most delightfully no cars, trains, trams, buses..well, you get the picture. Venice is a water city in every sense. It is a real life' Brigadoon' (it's an oldie but a goodie film for romantics and dreamers). There are water doors and palaces growing out of upturned forests, bridges turning in every direction, water laps and echoes just outside your window and lulls you to sleep like a newly born..well, adult.

Venice is the focus of our "Art In Venice Tours" led by my husband who is a tenured university professor and professional painter and myself, also a professional painter, writer, photography enthusiast,   passionate keeper of art journals,  vagabond gypsy, philosopher by trade, intellectual seeker, bazaar and antiques market fanatic that I plan to create marketing trips for with like-minded treasure seekers or just travelers at heart. Tours will be planned for parts of France , Morocco, Tunisia, Greece, Bali and more. I am also in search of owning our own character house that rambles on and where I can soak in a claw foot tub surrounded by ramshackle surroundings that I will weave into a bohemian paradise with exotic pieces, art, heaps of books, candles, a weeded over garden awaiting budding tendrils of a blooming paradise, earnest, earthy fires alight in tall rooms and in it safely ensconced, my family.. and hopefully a big floppy dog named something like George or Edward and an ordinary cat named something like Penelope Plum.

But until our house search begins and that should be an exciting challenge, one would hope, keeping all abreast of the countless dreadful, sad places that someone will call home one day; but until then there will be stories of property agents, roofless, overpriced towers, and naturally that one absolutely perfect character houses with groves of ancient olive trees and truffles abound at their feet, a 5 star pool nestled amidst rose gardens all for the not so perfect price of 4,000,000.00 Euros(give or take, naturally- right?). This is not to forget the critters ( obviously I mean mice and rats!), frolicking about in a perfectly good boned house, that will send me shrieking for the solace of crisp, cream colored, antique sheets from the Nice market pulled over my head with Van Morrison drowning out the images with 'Into The Mystic.' It  will be a great adventure and it is all part of The Cortona Experiment because our little stone perch in Cortona will be our starting place, our stepping off point, our spiritual nest from which the new volume of our lives begin...really begin.