When Maria Grazia Repetto moved from her native Italy to the Pacific Northwest in 1995, she immediately fell in love with eastern Washington’s cowboy-country charm and Seattle’s moody, rain-soaked landscapes. “It was so similar, but so different,” Repetto says. “I loved the colors of the Northwest, but they were different from Italy. The blue of an Italian sky, for example, is the blue of the Madonna, while the blue sky here is more of a light purple, a softer blue.”

The natural beauty seduced Repetto and she was glad to be closer to her oldest son, who had moved to Ellensburg, Washington, to attend flight school. But, with only her younger son in tow and very little grasp of the English language, the Italian artist says she was, in those early days after her move to the United States, somewhat lonely.