Paleochora

In 2006, I spent eight days in Paleochora with a small group of women. Paleochora is a small beach town on a peninsula in southwestern Crete, the largest of Greece's islands. We took small day trips to explore caves, old ruins with mosaic floors, and swim in the refreshing Libyan Sea. The sun was bright, the water salty, and the food fresh!

Paleochora generates an energy that is at once both laid-back and primal. It's easy to forget the rest of the world exists when you're there, and it's true that many of the hippies that traveled there in the sixties have never left.

When I made this painting, I thought of that time I spent in Paleochora - the buzzing of the cicadas, the sun shooting sharp glinting light off of the sea waves, and the dusty smell of the wild thyme that dotted the hillside and the way my skin felt salty and scrubbed from swimming in the sea. I remembered the lunches we ate - salads of chunky cucumbers, tomatoes, and feta cheese drizzled with local olive oil and vinegar. And the nights so quiet and the sky so vast.