From Brookline to Venice: Coming Full Circle

This week, Brookline.News published a feature about my work, and reading it made me realize how closely the different parts of what I do have become intertwined.

The article begins in Venice, where my work is currently part of BOREANA: Isola del futuro, a satellite exhibition during the Venice Biennale. My double-sided piece contrasts a foggy Venice with the intensely colorful island of Burano and is partially submerged in the lagoon, allowing wind, water and algae to become collaborators in the work.

But the story quickly comes back to Brookline.

Creating the Art Education I Couldn't Find

I immigrated to the United States from Moldova when I was 13, and art became my refuge through the culture shock and language barriers. It gave me a place to experiment, listen to myself and learn to trust my own intuition. Years later, when I looked for art education for my own children, I kept encountering templates and rigid instructions. It felt like the opposite of creativity. So I created Plein-Air Art Academy around a different idea: teach children real techniques, materials, art history and principles, and then give them room to decide what to do with them.

As I told Brookline.News:

“I give people tools and fill their toolbox with different materials and techniques, but then it's really up to them what they want to do with it.”

More than a decade later, around 1,000 children and adults have participated in our programs.

More Than a Gallery

Something similar happened when I opened the Diana Stelin Gallery in Coolidge Corner in 2023.

What began as a contemporary art gallery gradually became a creativity hub: exhibitions, hildren's and adult art classes, artist talks, book clubs, dinners, music, community partnerships and our annual Carnevale celebration. It has become a place where you don't have to already consider yourself an artist to feel comfortable around art. And that's where Venice comes back into the story.

My plein-air practice influences how I teach. The uninhibited colors my students use have found their way into my own paintings. Brookline's Italian community became part of our gallery community. And now a piece shaped by all of those experiences is hanging in the Venetian lagoon.

As I said during the interview, “It's bringing that full circle.”

Maybe that's the thread through all of it: art as a way to slow down, observe, experiment and learn to trust ourselves.

And somehow, a little piece of what we've built in Brookline has made its way to Venice.

Fall art classes for children, teens and adults at Plein-Air Art Academy begin September 12. I am also accepting a limited number of commissions inspired by meaningful places and travel memories.