From My Porch to Venice
A journey that carried my art across an ocean.
A little more than a year ago, my porch was simply the place where I painted. I did not know it was becoming the starting point of an international art journey.
I was learning through experimentation, making messes, following lines, and allowing each painting to tell me where it wanted to go. I did not have a perfect plan. I only knew that creating made me feel more like myself.
That porch became my studio, my classroom, and one of the quietest places inside my life. It was where I painted through uncertainty, built confidence, and slowly began to imagine that my artwork might travel farther than I ever had.
In July 2026, it did.
My work was selected for an international exhibition at Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello in Venice, Italy. On July 14, I boarded a plane with Ashley for my first international trip. I carried excitement, nerves, painted clothing, and the strange realization that something I had created at home was already waiting for me inside a Venetian palace.
Venice felt like stepping into a painting. There were no cars rushing past us. There were bridges, narrow passageways, water moving between buildings, music floating through the streets, and cafés still alive late into the night. Getting lost did not feel like failure there. It felt like part of the experience.
On July 17, I walked into the palace for opening night and saw my paintings hanging on walls that had held centuries of history. It was difficult to fully absorb. The journey had begun with paint on a porch, yet there I was, standing in Venice as an exhibiting international artist.
The exhibition was only one part of what Venice gave me. I danced in the streets during Festa del Redentore. I met photographers, sculptors, musicians, and creatives whose lives had also been shaped by the need to make something. I sat in late-night cafés, listened to classical music, wandered through St. Mark’s Square, and allowed myself to be present inside a life I had once only imagined.
I also recorded a video artist statement before the exhibition, speaking about my work and the world I am building through Ourea Luna. Saying those words aloud made the journey feel more real. I was no longer only creating individual paintings. I was beginning to understand the larger story connecting my paintings, writing, wearable art, and the way I want people to experience creativity.
Some of the most meaningful moments were not the grand ones. On our final night, a shopkeeper named Luigi sang opera and told me, “Don’t ever change who you are.”
That sentence followed me home because Venice had already reminded me of the same thing. The parts of myself that once felt unusual were the very parts that helped me create this life.
I returned to South Carolina changed. Not because Venice made me an artist, but because it showed me what could happen when I stopped waiting for permission to become one.
The porch is still part of the story. I still begin with paint, curiosity, and the willingness to make a mess. But now I know that a quiet beginning does not mean a small destination.
Sometimes a dream starts in the most ordinary place.
Then, little by little, it learns how to cross an ocean.
Poetic truths we are unfolding. New beginnings worth exploring.
Patricia Graham
International Contemporary Artist and Founder of Ourea Luna
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If this journey moved something in you, you are invited to bring a piece of it home. Commission an original painting and let your own story begin.