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Artist and environmentalist Piera Pugliese shares her efforts behind the canvas

August 21, 2025   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

In 1984, David Attenborough, a famous British naturalist and filmmaker, told the world. “The next 50 years will determine the fate of all life on this planet.”

It was a comment that made a big impression on Headwaters Arts member Piera Pugliese.

“Now we are into 40 years of that 50, and we seem determined to kill off all things.

“It would be hard to to gain appreciation if I painted landscapes of a possible future. I want to paint.’this is what you’re losing in the next 50 years,’” she told the Citizen, speaking from her home in Toronto.

Piera Pugliese did her own solo show at the Headwaters Arts Gallery at the Alton Mill Arts Centre through July, called “The Next 50 Years.”

Although she has not participated in a walking protest as such, Pugliese has written to her MP on the matters of protection for the very waterways and landscapes she loves to paint, especially en plein air.

Sadly, she remarked, “I haven’t been able to paint en plein air because it’s too hot and smokey.”

Pugliese has participated with the McMichael Gallery in Kleinberg for many years and has been trying to find interesting places to paint along the Humber River.

She was recently awarded the 2024 Kleinburg Village Prize for En Plein Air Painting.

“Why we aren’t doing better for the forests and waters,” she quipped. “In Italy, there’s the mafia and in Canada, there are the lobbyists.”

Her husband still has family in Italy. He established the first pizza restaurant in Toronto, called Vesuvio, and ran it for 64 years until the pandemic shut it down.

Pugliese went to study drawing and painting at OCAD in 1992 and went back when her daughter was 12, again drawing and painting. She took electives, getting into “making anything that interested me; I did as much as I possibly could.”

A jewellery course in Haliburton brought her to the surprises of silver clay, which is molded like clay, and once baked, it becomes silver.

Pugliese agreed that her paintings were like portrait paintings of nature. Much as she enjoyed the many options an artist has for their creativity, she admitted, “By the third year [at OCAD], I realized I had to apply myself to what I was going to do. The rest was just interest, almost play.

“For me, I do a lot of cooking; that’s creative too. As a celiac I have to cook every day. We eat out very rarely. Our pizza was expensive because we used the best ingredients”.
When they had the restaurant, they did find a crust that was gluten free; it had to have its own container and needed very careful handling around the other flours.

One of Pugliese’s two daughters, Ester, is a visual artist who makes interpretive paintings. She goes through a neighbourhood to record sounds which she programs into marks on a sheet of paper, before incorporating shapes and colours with them to tell stories within those paintings.

“They are very beautiful,” her mother praised her.

Three years ago, Pugliese responded to a call for submissions to the Headwaters Arts at the Alton Mill Arts Centre for its annual Fall Festival Show and Sale. Very quickly, she became a member and really enjoyed and appreciated the Mill itself, the resident artists, and the beautiful property. Next, She plans to apply to the MillCroft Inn, where local artists’ work is also hung.

While their restaurant was open, Pugliese’s husband needed her help. Because she could not pursue her art as she wanted, they had a gallery in the restaurant: the Bending Spoons Gallery.

There was a different show every month; different artists.

“It was fun talking to lots of interesting people,” she recalled.

Vesuvio was located on Dundas Street at Hyde Park.

As a member of the Women Artists Association of Canada (est. 1887) Pugliese is staging her next show in one of the two galleries there.

Her ambition is to keep on painting and have less administration to do – the work of finding new shows and communicating on social media.

In her studio, her method is to bring home her original plein air painting, which is typically done in about four hours and in oils. At the same time, she takes a number of photos to confirm the true light and the colours in the moment she puts the scene on her canvas.

She then begins to modify her plein air painting, where working in the studio is more deliberate, offering much more planning for how to capture the colour, the mood.

She takes it home to discover what is needed to change, to focus the viewer’s eye. Then the photo references on that day take into consideration whatever the colours need. Sometimes, she uses a much bigger canvas.

“Almost all my paintings are oil. I have two or three on the go all the time for the oil to dry,” she explained. My iPad makes sure the photo I’m working on is clear. The iPad is better.”

What Pugliese wants most is to keep painting for many years; definitely to grow.

“Sometimes I wonder if I’m not making much of a statement. My next show is in the Women Artists Association of Canada gallery.

“It’s all about flowers,” she said. “I painted flowers because they were all gifts.”

To learn more and get in touch with Piera Pugliese, go to pierapugliese.com or piera@pierapuglises.com

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