Where I Left My Thoughts

What I Thought I Was Painting

When I arrived in Chianni, I thought I was going to paint olive trees.

I imagined myself chasing the view, trying to capture the Tuscan landscape before the light changed.

Instead, something unexpected happened.

The paintings gradually became less about the landscape and more about being there.

A paint box left open in the grass.

Lunch beneath the trees.

An empty chair in the shade.

Small moments that would have seemed unimportant if I hadn’t stopped to notice them.

By the end of the week, I realised I wasn’t really painting olive groves at all.

I was painting traces of a life being lived.

The things we leave behind.

The places we return to.

The thoughts that stay with us long after we’ve gone.

Perhaps that’s why the final painting became an empty chair beneath the olive trees.

Not because it was a beautiful subject.

But because it felt like a memory.

And sometimes memories tell us more than landscapes ever can.