Artistic Inspiration~Zalipie, Poland

I found a picture yesterday with a snippet of a bright, flower painted cottage.  Intrigued, I searched for where it came from and came up with these... images of a village by the name of Zalipie in Poland.  I was overwhelmed with the photos that I was able to find.  Picture after picture of this magical village with nearly every available surface painted with bright, folk-art flower patterns!  They paint the outside of the house, the inside of the house, the dog house, the chicken coop, the bridge and the barn; anything that can be decorated-is.  I read a few different theories as to why the women of this particular town do this, ranging from copying the style of a local artist to decorating the whitewash covering the scorching  from open fires. Whatever the case, I have a new travel destination on my bucket list and feel completely inspired to get painting!

Most of the pictures I found seemed to have come from this wonderful photographer's flickr page. If you search Zalipie there is plenty more to be found...