Vera Tormenta Goulart was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1930. Today, at 87 years old, she lives in a small wooden house surrounded by trees and beautiful waterfalls in the city of Vacaria, Rio Grande do Sul. Through her stories we board on a trip to the old world, to post-war Paris. While American jazz invaded Parisian cellars, Vera strode along narrow alleys to reach Academie Julian, where she began her artistic studies. Back in Brazil in the 1950s, the background is a bohemian Rio de Janeiro. In this scenario, characters such as Ferreira Gullar, Darel Valença Lins, Rossini Perez and Vera Tormenta herself, among other artists, tell how was the environment among the cultural elite of Rio de Janeiro - stories that include names such as Cândido Portinari, Jorge Amado and Di Cavalcanti.

 

Vera also had a long career as a journalist and art promoter on important media vehicles, such as Manchete Magazine, Última Hora newspaper and not Paraty's Quinzenário da Cultura.

 

It was in the turbulence of the 1970s that Vera and her family decided to leave Rio and isolate themselves in the interior of Rio Grande do Sul on a farm that, for 20 years, was entirely self-sustaining. Now, her life has not a glance of the frenzy of intellectual circles in Rio de Janeiro and the life in the big city. The loudest noise she hears is from the waters of the river running the side of her house.