Summer Lifestyle: Lucchessia – Dinner at Villa Massei. It is always a treat to go to dinner at Villa
Massei, not only for the atmosphere, the garden, the great mix of people and
the charming and gracious hosts Paul and Gil, but to top it all when the dinner
is in your honor. Philanthropist Gil Cohen and the stylish author, blogger, painter
and landscape designer Paul Gervais de Bedee live in the Tuscan villa, which
boast a spectacular garden, during the summer months and spend the cold winters
in Florida. Two tables are set for dinner under the old camphor trees near the sixteenth
century grotto.
The
path that leads up to the sixteenth century grotto is lit by lanterns.
Villa Massei. The Orange Garden was born as a herb garden
and took on refinement in time.
Meanwhile in the kitchen.
Cook Pola Belluomini puts the finishing touches on the food. The simpatica
Tuscan cook writes a food blog, Le Ricette di Pola and has also written a cookery book
called Le Ricette del Paese delle Camelie.
Lasagne alle Verdure
is a favorite with vegetarians Paul and Gil.
The delicious recipe made with the freshest vegetables from the garden
can be found in Pola Belluomini’s book Le Ricette del Paese delle Camelie.
Mantovana di Fragole
or strawberry sponge cake was the perfect ending to a mostly vegetarian meal, which
consisted of the freshest vegetables from the abundant growth from the garden.
Guests enjoy the
meal in the romantic setting, lit by candlelight.
The Painter’s studio
#1. After dinner, more treats in view
with a private visit to Paul Gervais’s studio. After more than thirty years of work in
non-visual media artist Paul Gervais returned to painting with new works.
The Painter’s studio
#2. In 2011 the painting Blue
Cybernetics captured
the interaction of many short lines of various blue tones, which seemed to be
falling in space. The lines are blurred as if a camera had caught them in
flight but there is no illusionistic intent with this. The line has now retaken
center stage in Gervais's work, but it's a more economic one. Subsequent
painted layers can still obscure previous ones as they did in the works of the
1970s so that the depth of field is a more active participant in the
composition. Best not described as minimalist—too much drama unfolds in the
work—these are paintings that are produced, rather, by a limited set of
decisions.
The Painter’s studio
#3. Paul imagines
the finished product before ever setting brush to surface and he outlines for
himself a plan of execution to which he faithfully adheres. The outcome, given
the accident of real materialization, can never be precisely that which the
mind had pre-seen. The plan of action, in all its modesty, IS the
"work" as much as the end result is, in a sense, merely a retelling.
Villa Massei. Panama hats sit on a sofa, in front of
which, on another sofa, the visitors’ book is signed by the guests.