This past summer, I was one of 32 artists selected by the Hungarian Multicultural Institute to spend four weeks in the village of Csopak, on the shore of Lake Balaton, working on my art. Divided into three sessions of ten to eleven artists, we shared a large guesthouse, the Forrás Fogadó in Csopak, a village on the shores of Lake Balaton. We were a widely varied group of painters, photographers, installation artists, a video maker and a writer/performance artist. At the end of the Residency, our director, Beata Szechy, arranged for an exhibition of our work in Balatonfüred, a resort town since the 19 th Century in what is often called the “Hungarian Riviera.” The cultural attaché from the American Embassy attended the opening reception and selected my watercolor, “View of Lake Balaton,” for the collection of the American Embassy in Budapest.

My room had a wonderful view that allowed me to paint without ever leaving it, but I really loved wandering with my watercolors and camera through the back lanes, fields and gardens of our village. It seemed a simpler and more wholesome existence than what we enjoy here at home, at least to an outsider such as myself. Particularly enjoyable were a visit by ferry to Tihany, with its 18 th Century abbey built on top of an 11 th Century monastery, and the town of Veszprém with its old castle district—a collection of eclectic buildings from the past few centuries built on the ruins of a castle. Many other wonderful sights and encounters made Hungary an unforgettable trip!