Just a note about my daily life: If anyone wants to Google Map my location: I am staying in the Foresteria Fondazione Levi. This hotel is next to the Rio San Vidal, next to the Ponte d'Accadémia, a major vaporetto stop on the Canale Grande in the San Marco neighborhood. Basically I am staying in the heart of Venice, about 15 minutes away from both San Marco and the Rialto Bridge.
Yesterday we stopped by Burano, a small island north of Venice that used to be a major fishing town, but now caters to tourists looking to buy lace, its main commodity. For my bookbinding class we will be making books based on the lace of that island and its history.
However, afterwards a bunch of us took the vaporetto to the cimitero, or main cemetary for the islands. The cemetary is beautiful with the tall trees throughout the island. The graves are a combination of above ground tombs in rows, similar to those of New Orleans, and then older graves classically dug. Igor Stravinsky and Ezra Pound are both buried there with their wives. Joseph Brodsky's grave had quite a few flowers on his. Many graves had photographs of the people buried on the tombstone, some almost 100 years old, still intact. Almost every grave had brightly colored flowers in a vase built into the tombstone. Despite the fact that they were clothflowers, it still added to emotions felt. While walking around the area, I got chills running up and down my back once I spotted a grave of a boy born 1988, and died at the age of 7 in 1995. If alive, he would be exactly my year. Visiting graveyards is strange, especially because the practice of permanently marking graves for commoners seems like a relatively new tradition. I must admit that it is quite possible that I prefer the act of burying someone without a marking or stone that would last more than 100 years. Almost everything we walk upon has been created because something else died there, a natural cycle. Marking the graves is a good thought to commemorate the person who has passed, but more for the people close to those people to celebrate their life and be comforted by their fellow mourners. However, marking graves for every person who died does not seems natural to me for some reason. That person's life will be remembered through the ripple effect of the people they interacted with. Is that not enough? I guess this was brought up especially because of the old photographs and flowers that looked as if they were recent, as if the graves of these people who passed over 100 years ago were still kept up. Anyway, enough with that.
In another thought sequence, I watched Shepard Fairey (with four assistants ranging from 18 yrs to about 30 yrs old) install a board in Campo San Margherita. He used a combination of wheat paste and matte medium to install it. They took these huge brushes (mop cleaning type brushes) and quickly installed a series of screen prints in the Shepard-Fairey-esque way onto a rectangle (6' x 20') wooden panel. It was really interesting to watch these five guys work together to paste it up between noon and 13h30 (1.30 pm). I was fortunate enough to observe it from start to finish, as they arrived a little late and I had some reading with me so I grabbed a bench and killed some time until they got there. The Italian channel 13 had a young guy recording the installation and the crowd gathered around. All the supplies of sheets to post, tape, etc. were kept in a traditional deep purple suitcase. It was windy, which made working a bit more difficult. After the entire installation, Fairey was pretty open about people speaking with him. I walked up and got his signature on the back of stickers that were being handed out in black, with the signatures/tags of the four other assistants in dark blue marker. After talking to one of the assistants I found out that the youngest, Spencer, was the actual baby on the Nirvana cover for their first album way back when. Another, Nick, had gone to college in Florida for printmaking for undergrad, where he met Fairey and started working in his studio screenprinting. Z had made stickers online (or ordered them...not sure which) from Fairey for a long enough time that he eventually met him and started working with him. I am not sure what the story of the fourth, Dan, who seemed like one right hand was, but probably along those lines. Anyway, it was a really great experience to meet and talk with these people. Even just watching a person work, which I have now done on three different days (paper maker, paper marbler, and street artist), is fascinating. When printing, I get into a specific zone of concentration that serves as a comfortable place for me (hence my focus in it). These three (or eight including these assistants) all as makers probably have a similar experience-to an extent, obviously depending on what they are doing.
All in all, my days are packed and fascinating. Now that I have regular computer access in the classroom for my Art History class, I will be writing longer blogs because this is also my personal recording of what happened every day. Also, as the classes pick up I will be doing more in the studio and less out in the street. Just to give you a heads up!
Buona sera!
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Friday, May 29, 2009
Paper, Paper, Paper and Shops
So far, in our three studio days, we have met two different old Veneitian men who specialize in paper-related trades: sculptural paper making and using pulp experimentally, and marbling paper. Both speak only Italian and French, have lived in Venice for over 20 years on streets that snake back into the depths of the residential areas, and share the same philosophy: to continue to experiment, experiment, experiment. And seriously research the trade and practice what you do - a philosophy I share. Watching those men work was an experience in itself because of the mastery they each brought to their specified trade, almost a serene kind of thing. The process of marbling was studied by Alberto, the master, in Turkey because of the commonality between the serenity of Whirling Dervishes and the process of marblizing paper, a fact I found very interesting.
Last night (after class) and this morning I wandered around looking in different shops: paper shops, mask shops, fresh fruit markets, etc. With two other people, we found one of the oldest mask shops in the city where the people make it within the shop, continuing the craftsman trade handed down through Venice. The man who spoke to us owned the shop, and even gave us the names of the two other shops in the city that followed the same philosophy, explaining that each shop was different and you need to look around to find the mask right for you. (The masks are related to the two week Carnavale Festival prior to lent, aka Mardi Gras for two entire weeks, in Venice at the end of February.)
Walking around the Mercato Centrale near the Rialto Bridge and seeing the market was comforting in a way because of the fresh markets I frequent in Baltimore. Addionally that area, although it contained many tourists, served the locals as well. A bread shop we wandered into was definitely a local hotspot with many Venetians lined up yelling orders at the staff, all knowing each other.
Anyway, my time is up. Wandering is the best advice I could give!
Last night (after class) and this morning I wandered around looking in different shops: paper shops, mask shops, fresh fruit markets, etc. With two other people, we found one of the oldest mask shops in the city where the people make it within the shop, continuing the craftsman trade handed down through Venice. The man who spoke to us owned the shop, and even gave us the names of the two other shops in the city that followed the same philosophy, explaining that each shop was different and you need to look around to find the mask right for you. (The masks are related to the two week Carnavale Festival prior to lent, aka Mardi Gras for two entire weeks, in Venice at the end of February.)
Walking around the Mercato Centrale near the Rialto Bridge and seeing the market was comforting in a way because of the fresh markets I frequent in Baltimore. Addionally that area, although it contained many tourists, served the locals as well. A bread shop we wandered into was definitely a local hotspot with many Venetians lined up yelling orders at the staff, all knowing each other.
Anyway, my time is up. Wandering is the best advice I could give!
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Finding the Venetians
First of all, please excuse the substitute of quotation marks for apostraphies, I cannot find them on the computer.
Yesterday I arrived at my hotel in Venice to be informed by the only other student not traveling with the group over from the states that yes, their flight has been delayed. Delayed by a strike from the pilots, for five hours. So yes, the group is still on the ground in Paris, an hour after they were scheduled to land in Venice. Which was a blessing in disguise.
Jake, the sophomore printmaker who informed me, and I walked around the neighborhood of the hotel for a while, getting lunch hanging out, until 8 pm, when the group arrived (original arrival time: 11.40 am).
Venice lacks the public green space that the states have because most of it is behind closed doors. However, after spending 1.5 hours eating lunch we wander into a green space next to a church just on the edge of a small canal. While sitting there atleast two dogs tried to relieve themselves extremely close to us, with another three smelling us. On the steps leading down to the canal a group of a Venetian father with his two young sons (4 and 6 maybe) and their cousin (12ish) [visiting from the UK] were crabbing near the side of the canal on the steps leading down to the blue water just below. Additionally, a boat of seven people parked next to the canal, the two youngest men hopped over the stone wall to the sidewalk (a small 5 feet, but we were hoping to see the more elderly couple attempt the same....never happened!). They returned with a bottle of champagne and hors d"oeurves (spelling?!?), and jumped back into the boat. Over the next 45 minutes they continued to socialize, drink, and eat. Throughout the time they group greeting quite a number of other locals. Afterwards, the same two men jumped back over the stone wall to return the plates, cups, and empty bottle. Then they turned right around and drove out the way they came!
The moral of the story: I have finally found the Venetian Venice, with locals and community that are the few remants of this vibrant city. And was so relieved to see it.
Vive Venice!
Yesterday I arrived at my hotel in Venice to be informed by the only other student not traveling with the group over from the states that yes, their flight has been delayed. Delayed by a strike from the pilots, for five hours. So yes, the group is still on the ground in Paris, an hour after they were scheduled to land in Venice. Which was a blessing in disguise.
Jake, the sophomore printmaker who informed me, and I walked around the neighborhood of the hotel for a while, getting lunch hanging out, until 8 pm, when the group arrived (original arrival time: 11.40 am).
Venice lacks the public green space that the states have because most of it is behind closed doors. However, after spending 1.5 hours eating lunch we wander into a green space next to a church just on the edge of a small canal. While sitting there atleast two dogs tried to relieve themselves extremely close to us, with another three smelling us. On the steps leading down to the canal a group of a Venetian father with his two young sons (4 and 6 maybe) and their cousin (12ish) [visiting from the UK] were crabbing near the side of the canal on the steps leading down to the blue water just below. Additionally, a boat of seven people parked next to the canal, the two youngest men hopped over the stone wall to the sidewalk (a small 5 feet, but we were hoping to see the more elderly couple attempt the same....never happened!). They returned with a bottle of champagne and hors d"oeurves (spelling?!?), and jumped back into the boat. Over the next 45 minutes they continued to socialize, drink, and eat. Throughout the time they group greeting quite a number of other locals. Afterwards, the same two men jumped back over the stone wall to return the plates, cups, and empty bottle. Then they turned right around and drove out the way they came!
The moral of the story: I have finally found the Venetian Venice, with locals and community that are the few remants of this vibrant city. And was so relieved to see it.
Vive Venice!
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Buongiorno d'Italia!
Buona Sera!
It is currently 11:31pm in Bologna in Daria's apartment. A fan is set up in the red tiled floor to assist the kitchen air from becoming as sticky as the rest of Bologna. Two of us dressed in t-shirts and boxer shorts work on the white marble top kitchen table: one studying for her last exam-a finalization of the said semester abroad, the other typing her first blog entry of the summer in foreign lands, or as it seems. Spending a summer between studying in Italy and trail construction in California is definitely 'abroad,' having never stepped foot in either place definitely constitutes as 'abroad' for me. (Although technically in CA through a plane connection, but that's a detail you and I can agree to ignore).
This summer I will be studying in Venice, Italy through the Printmaking Department focusing a studio class in book binding and art history class on the Venice Biennale. First I visited Daria for a week (where I am currently), then in Venice studying. After which I will head out home on June 15th. Then on June 16th I fly out to California for an internship in trail maintenance and construction in Whiskeytown Recreation Area in Northern (central) California, a job I found through the Student Conservation Association. Moving natural objects, restoring trails, etc. lasts from June 16th through August 17th, when I fly home to White Plains, NY. And start my senior year at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) at the very beginning of September.
Yes, this is an introduction to the blog, it will be up and running as a 'true' blog shortly, as this will be a chronicle of the trip for both you, my friends and family and random readers, and myself. Until then, I will leave you.
Hopefully the summer heat is bringing a break and peace from the business that spring can at times provoke.
Ciao!
It is currently 11:31pm in Bologna in Daria's apartment. A fan is set up in the red tiled floor to assist the kitchen air from becoming as sticky as the rest of Bologna. Two of us dressed in t-shirts and boxer shorts work on the white marble top kitchen table: one studying for her last exam-a finalization of the said semester abroad, the other typing her first blog entry of the summer in foreign lands, or as it seems. Spending a summer between studying in Italy and trail construction in California is definitely 'abroad,' having never stepped foot in either place definitely constitutes as 'abroad' for me. (Although technically in CA through a plane connection, but that's a detail you and I can agree to ignore).
This summer I will be studying in Venice, Italy through the Printmaking Department focusing a studio class in book binding and art history class on the Venice Biennale. First I visited Daria for a week (where I am currently), then in Venice studying. After which I will head out home on June 15th. Then on June 16th I fly out to California for an internship in trail maintenance and construction in Whiskeytown Recreation Area in Northern (central) California, a job I found through the Student Conservation Association. Moving natural objects, restoring trails, etc. lasts from June 16th through August 17th, when I fly home to White Plains, NY. And start my senior year at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) at the very beginning of September.
Yes, this is an introduction to the blog, it will be up and running as a 'true' blog shortly, as this will be a chronicle of the trip for both you, my friends and family and random readers, and myself. Until then, I will leave you.
Hopefully the summer heat is bringing a break and peace from the business that spring can at times provoke.
Ciao!
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