In 1999, during a time of crisis in my professional life, I fled to Italy for a sabbatical.  For six weeks I looked at art, wrote in a journal, made black-and-white photographs, and began healing physically and spiritually. The beauty of the landscape and art renewed me, and I found the religious imagery of women in Italy particularly powerful.  At the convent in Todi, I found solace in the glow of Mary’s halo in the dark courtyard outside my bedroom window. Sister Tomasina allowed me to photograph her as she frolicked, her habit held high and her sensible nun-shoes off, in the waves of the Ligurnian Sea with her two elderly woman friends.  But mixed in with religious images were ties glimpsed in a Venetian market near the Rialto Bridge, mundanely patterned on the outside but with crotch shots of women splayed across the inside.  So many reverent paintings of Saint Agatha, who cut off her breasts to discourage men and attract God.  On the path to the most holy Basilica de San Francesco in Assisi, repeated posters of a nude woman in bondage, selling diamond rings.  A woman depicted as paper doll in a village store window near serene Lake Trasimeno.  The contrasts between sacro and profano representations of women were profound, and I began to document them. And of course there were other images from my pilgrimage:  the eerie beauty of ancient steps in a monastery, statues from times ancient and modern, angel wings on a backpack in Florence, shadows and light …..

In the spring of 2007, I returned to Italy, this time spending three weeks in an apartment in Florence on the Piazza della Signoria, and one week in southern Tuscany. I continued photographing representations of women, as well as exploring many other aspects of this rich cultural landscape. Below are photographs from these two journeys.