Tracking Down the Artist

Mona and the artist Marija

While strolling along the Main Street in Rovinj, we came upon a lovely shop that featured Naïve artwork. Naïve refers to work by an artist who has not had any formal training. When we previously visited Croatia a few years ago, we saw an exhibit at the Croatian Museum of Naïve Art in Zagreb and Mona commented how much she liked the work in that exhibit.  

What she actually painted

In today's case, we were seeing the work of local artist Marija Peti Božić who paints in reverse on glass. She paints on the back side of the glass the final image seen on the front. Because of this, she paints her layers in reverse with fine details and foreground painted first then background painted last.  We loved her work, and bought a small painting as a souvenir.  We wanted a photo with her, but her husband was manning the store as she was at her studio in the small town of Bale. 

It was too late to go the same day, but since we were leaving Pula for our next destination the following

What you see when viewing

morning, we went on a quest to find her before leaving Istria.  Her husband gave us the address to the studio, and we drove about 25 minutes from Pula to Bale.  Because the center of Bale is also pedestrian-only, we parked in a nearby lot and strolled the narrow lanes until we arrived at.....their home.  She keeps her studio on the ground floor, and they live upstairs.

Her limited English was far superior to our non-existent Croatian, and we managed to communicate just fine.  She seemed very happy that we made the effort to see her, and she readily obliged us with a photo.  Success!

The whole gang with Marija