This is the second of 3 paintings I did during the one month I stayed at a goat farm in the Cicerale Alento lake area.
The top left of the painting shows Cicerale ancient town sitting atop a ridge line overlooking the lake and looking up at the Cilento mountains. The ancient building with the tall wall will be the Cicerale Degas Museum after its restoration. The painting will be kept there. Edgar Degas was a French impressionist Artist (1834-1917). Before the museum is ready, it will be kept at the Cicerale Municipal Hall, where I visited and had the honour to meet the Mayor.
The bottom part of the painting shows the place I stayed – I Filadelfi 1828, a goat dairy farm with a family run country house. It is a beautiful place surrounded by nature, like a dreamland. I painted what I saw everyday there – the family’s daily life.
The farm owner Marco is milking his goats. His wife is picking lemons, olives and berries. The children are playing. The owner’s dad, Claudio is harvesting grapes at the family vineyard. I painted myself too, painting this very painting, surrounded by the cats. I also painted the worker herding the goats on a horseback.
As dreamlike as it seems from a urban Singaporean’s eyes, there is a lot of hard work in managing a goat farm and living in the countryside. There are wildboars, health of the goats, weather and accessibility (such as water and garbage collection services) to be concerned about. But overall, I see Marco is a happy man doing what he likes!
Claudio told me that I transformed theirs and my dreams into something we can see every moment. I told him I just painted what they built – the dreamland.
On my last day, I did a mini painting and gifted it to the family. In that painting, I painted myself playing with Marco’s son flying paper aeroplanes. May all our dreams come true!
