The time and space to focus on work, the specificity of the Umbrian landscape and the works we got to see on field trips all combined together in my drawings and paintings on paper. By the fourth week of the residency, I felt I knew what I had come there to make. As I sat in the secret garden behind my apartment and drew the trees and rose bushes, herbs and weeds, I was able to begin to filter the art historical images I was seeing. I felt I hit on something new and exciting  that only could have happened at Civitella. Bringing the work back to my studio in Brooklyn, I see how I have extended and elaborated on my practice.