2024 Celebrates Roots Tourism ▾
For those of you with Italian heritage, Philítaly will guide you on an emotional journey tracing your origins. Roots Tourism 2024 is an Italian State Department/Foreign Affairs (Ministero degli Affari Esteri) funded initiative promoting the search for one's roots in Italy. It encourages you and members of your party to explore your Italian cultural origins. Philítaly brings you on a customized travel experience bridging you to the past, exploring life traditions and stories, enjoying authentic food and wine, and retracing the footsteps of your ancestors, through a guided and curated cultural journey. Find the already prepared viaggio that's right for you or create one of your own with Philítaly.
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Drawing In Italy's Umbria and Tuscany regions
Experience Drawing in a small group
May 26-June 2, 2024
Starts in Rome and also visit Fabro Scala, Citta della Pieve, Orvieto, Montegabbione, Civita di Bagnoregio, Perugia, Scarzuola and Bomarzo.
Enjoy a week creating art and soaking up the Umbrian culture, with a full immersion in historical cities and picturesque towns on day-long excursions.
Professors Davide Prete and Lynn Sures lead this small group of 7-12 participants in drawing and visits to off-the-beaten-track places often overlooked by travelers.
Davide Prete
Davide studied at the Institute of Art in Venice, Architecture at IUAV in Venice and his Master of Art and Master of Fine Arts at Fontbonne University in Saint Louis MO. He also studied new technologies at FabAcademy.
After teaching in different colleges such as Corcoran College of Art, The George Washington University, he is now assistant professor at the University of the District of Columbia where he teaches Drawing, Sculpture and Digital Imaging.
Davide says:
My recent work explores the mathematical beauty of “minimal surface” -- a surface that locally minimizes its area. I’m especially interested in Scherk surface examples that arise in the study of harmonic diffeomorphisms of hyperbolic space. Using software and virtual reality I am able to visualize variations of forms that achieve minimal surface subject to a constraint. This process can involve bending, scaling and twisting the forms. I’m able to transform these visualizations into physical objects by combining new manufacturing technologies like 3D printing and laser scanning with traditional metal casting. My inspiration is to express figurative images through a mathematical language, and discover what I call a new form of shamanism.
Lynn Sures
Lynn has an MFA from the University of Maryland and studied at Atelier 17 in Paris. She is Professor Emerita at Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington. She is a Research Associate in Drawing at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, and was recently a SARF Fellow, drawing in Kenya.
Lynn says:
In my studio practice, the reasons for working are always clear in my mind. I might relive a place or an experience—the narrative of a site, contemplating natural or architectural phenomena, awareness of a moment in the world—and then work towards an allusion to this thing, via the inexactitude of memory and the full range of physical senses. Or I might be focused on a specific scientific phenomenon because the sciences of geology, anthropology, and physics guide my lifelong curiosity in time perception, evolutionary development, and capacity for change. I internalize what I observe or uncover in research, and naturally interpret the sciences in my work.
As an artist, I am in my preferred place in a long and physical process of making. During this time, a vivid connection with the material as well as the concept, the reason for being, roots me in my work.
Instagram @lynnsures
We offer a one-week session with diverse drawing destinations within the regions of Umbria and Tuscany.
You will receive daily instruction in black and white materials including pencil, conté, charcoal, brush and ink as well as color techniques using colored pencils and watercolors.
You will have the opportunity to exhibit your drawings in Fabro for the town to enjoy.
You will stay at La Villa Il Poderaccio in Fabro in the evocative countryside between Rome and Florence.
These vacation home suites are finished with traditional Italian stone, wood and plaster construction and you can choose a private or shared bedroom and private or shared bath. Each suite contains a living room with a flat-screen TV as well as free WiFi.
The villa complex has a private outdoor pool, and participants can also relax in the garden, use barbecues, and enjoy the incomparable 360-degree view from the property.
This once in a lifetime drawing and cultural travel experience includes:
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Tuition for a week of drawing experiences with personal instruction
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Pick up and drop off from Fabro Scalo train station to the Villa, "Il Poderaccio."
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Luxury 7-night stay in a room suite at La Villa Il Poderaccio
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All drawing materials for the workshop
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All transportation for our all-day drawing excursions to evocative hill cities and picturesque, characteristic Umbrian locales
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A final exhibition of drawings at Il Poderaccio in Fabro
Each participant is responsible for:
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Roundtrip airfare to Rome and train to/from Fabro Scalo train station
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Entry fees to castles and museums
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Meals
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Alcoholic beverages
Payment and Refund Policy
Full payment for the land package is 90 days before the start of the group portion of the trip, so in this case as soon as you decide given the limited space available. In case of cancellation for any reason, prior to 45 days before group trip start date, full refund of what you paid Philitaly Cultural Exchanges, LLC will be provided minus a $350 service fee. Otherwise, if canceled for any reason within 45 days of group travel start date, then no refund provided.
8 DAYS / 7 NIGHTS
MAY 26-JUNE 2, 2024
Fees And Accommodations For One Week Session
$2,900 per person based on double occupancy
Purchase your flight on your own to have more control over possible changes. Choose a flight from the closest airport with non-stop flights to the Italian hub city where the group meets. If you are not close to a city with non-stop service to the hub in Italy, we suggest you take a domestic flight to the US city that offers non-stop service to Italy hub or fly to a European city with layover to the hub city in Italy where the group meets.
Consider travel insurance for peace of mind to protect land, air and trip cancellation as well as medical service and evacuation insurance. Click here to view options for comprehensive insurance, not just for flight cost, like most airlines sell.
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