Odds and Ends, Real and Ethereal

As an artist living on a tiny road on the top of a hill  I need to get out one way or another, or my mind and my work becomes a tiny bit insular. At the desktop, the answer and the devilish details sit keyboard-close. Technology, for those of us over 50, provides an almost impossible challenge. I still am not exactly sure how one text-messages (or if I even want to do so.) Information is overwhelming; ideas are rampant; inspiration threatens to overwhelm. As artists we struggle to balance content and technique (especially , I suspect, in the rich anything-goes atmosphere and ever-more-innovative marketeers of fiber art/craft materials and supplies). As a human I thrive on input and finding and sorting all this new stuff, both real and ethereal.

This is all to say:

Beyond the sewing table, the rust bucket and the blogs I read everyday, some intriguing sites have found their way to my inbox recently. Some mindbending  -- OK, FM (f***ing Magic, as one of my friends terms them) sites, sounds and spaces to explore.

UNIVERSE by Jonathan Harris at http://universe.daylife.com/

This site is a newsreader with a different spin. Choose any topic and see what is happening in thousands of global news media (the "content site" www.daylife.com is amazing as well) that are circling that topic. He writes in the "Statement" section of the site:

"If we were to make new constellations today, what would they be? If we were to paint new pictures in the sky, what would they depict? These questions form the inspiration for Universe, which explores the notions of modern mythology and contemporary constellations. It is easy to think that the world today is devoid of mythology. We obsess over celebrities, music, movies, fashion and trends, changing madly from one moment to the next, causing our heroes and idols to come and go so quickly that no consistent mythology can take root. Especially for those who don't practice religion, it can seem there is nothing bigger in which to believe, that there is no shared experience that unites the human world, no common stories to guide us. Because of this, we are said to feel a great emptiness.

Harris's visual sense and metaphor of mythologies and constellations is pretty cool. To find out more about him and the site, go to one of my other favorites sources of thought provoking information, entertainment and design -- the TED talks.

TED Ideas Worth Spreading - http://www.ted.com/index.php/

These are free downloads of talks given at the annual California tech-world awards that honor, give a platform to and expand the synergy of some of the world's most amazing thinkers. Event invites are highly sought and the price is astounding, but they've made available many of the best talks, performances and ideas through this site -- all for free. You can search by speaker, title or theme. Some of the ones I reccommend:

Hans Rosling -- health statistics in a whole new light

David Bolinski -- on truth and beauty in the cell

These are just a couple of the hundreds available. You can join TED and save favorites, create a profile, etc. if you wish, but the site can be used without a membership as well.

On a more practical level, here's some tips for desktop management, parallel tracks to my somewhat-in-action GTD (Getting Things Done) organizational theory becoming reality:

5 Steps to a Kinkless Desktop  -- http://kinkless.com/article/kinkless_desktop 

Burning in the Deluge

One of Adrian Highsmith's microwave-assisted dyed silks 

 

The rain was at least intermittent, with steady downpour much of Saturday, but we Burning Women persisted amid self-generated heat, art-induced passionate discussion, and even a bonfire, sending into smoke those things that stand between us and our creative dreams.

Since I am at least three-blogs-in-my-mind late with this post, I'll simply document the event with a few pictures. Among the activities: rusting (slow burn), microwave-assisted dyeing, encaustic on canvas panels, a feeble attempt at sunprinting using textile paints, designs inspired by hot topics and themes, and, of course, a good deal of devilish food, soaking in the hot tub and even a bit of sunset-tinted sky.

This workshop repeats at the end of July, and I am looking forward to tweaking some of the schedule, improving my supply selections, and hopefully even having sun available for a few more ideas.

 

Diane Sandlin and Donna LoMonaco work on encaustic panels. 

 

 

Another of Adrian's -- can you believe this is Havana Brown?

 

 

 Fabric in process by Suzanne Cooke- rusted and printed

 

 

Creating in Connecticut

 

Since Wednesday, I've been adventuring in the Northeast. My longtime colleague Susan has been directing a kid's program at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, near her home up here in the land of tall trees. She flew me up to help wrap up the second of two weeks, and to help shape the final "show and tell" for parents, and add a bit of help for a teacher's presentation next week. (I've got a hitch in the downloading photo process -- forgot the cable AND the cardreader, so more art later).

This program, NEW WORLD KIDS,  has been a pilot/continuation/experiment taking work we did years ago with Learning About Learning Educational Foundation and updating it for today's parents, and, in this case, a primary audience of 5-to-6 year olds. Throughout the week they've  been working with Susan, the museum's education staff, and a slew of tecnical supporters-- one aim has been to get pictures and good video for taking the program to the next stage, bigger and broader, we both hope (stay tuned for more). Exploring what we call "the Sensory Alphabet, " (formerly "the elements of form" for any of you in the audience who may be Paul Baker theater people), these little kids have been building fluency, learning about their inherent  preferences and working through the open-ended creative process of taking ideas into form.

Here's more from Susan's essay describing the program and process:

"The Sensory Alphabet is what we call the building blocks of creative literacy. Just as basic as the traditional alphabet used to teach the literacies of reading and writing, it is the basis of our sensory connection to the world around us – line, color, texture, movement, sound, rhythm, space, light, and shape. (It is tempting, first off, to think of it as an arts or design vocabulary...but it is more than this...it is just as fundamental to an ability to “read” physics, basketball or DNA.)
This elemental vocabulary is the pattern language of everything that is “out there.” Because it describes, but doesn’t define, it enlarges the capacity for seeing patterns. It lets us see both lemons and windows as shapes...both ballet and algebra as lines. It also enlarges our capacity for perceiving patterns between disparate objects, fields and cultures...and this ability is one of the hallmarks of creative, innovative thinking.

"Consider The Sensory Alphabet as another very basic symbol system we want our children to acquire, just as basic as the traditional alphabet and numbers parents and teachers have long taught their children. The Sensory Alphabet multiplies children’s early repertoire of ways to symbolize, understand and communicate their ideas. Equally as importantly, it builds the foundation for a more informed interaction with the digital media that demands fluency in this symbol system, conveying ideas through images, videos, icons and sounds. As is obvious, these new media have largely abandoned written language ––and even the spoken word -- as the means of communicating meaning, information and story.

"Practicing Creativity

Along the way we consciously engage the creative process in small and large ways. Each interactive (or open-ended) activity includes:

1. looking/ gathering /collecting ideas
2. playing/experimenting with various media
3. selecting/editing/creating
4. reflecting on the work. "

                                                                       Susan Marcus,     
                                                                       educator and consultant

 

This pretty much describes my approach to both teaching and making art -- filling up, playing around, selecting and shaping, and reflecting on the process. Using a basic set of ways to think about and investigate ideas non-verbally. The reflection part of the process is often what this blog helps me with. By trying to succinctly explain, capture and summarize either product or process, I seem to find ways to make it clearer for myself, to see my stengths, to take the next bold step.  

Homage to Lady Bird

 

Once upon a time, I was one of a group of young women artists who spent the day at the LBJ Ranch, a few years after Lyndon's death, with Lady Bird and some of her women friends, a group including former press secretary Liz Carpenter, a senator's wife of two, and a couple of other close friends, including Patsy Steves, a San Antonian friend of the educational foundation where I worked. These women had made a tradition of spending a week together each year to create, enjoy, relax and rejuvenate their friendships. They invited artists, noteworthy speakers, chefs and others to teach at their informal  gathering, and obviously took pleasure in each other's company. I remember that Lady Bird was as gracious a hostess as her reputation predicted, but that she also had an unexpected quietly wicked sense of humor. She, along with the other women, journaled, played with clay, collaged and even acted in skits in this morning-long creativity workshop in the ranch's living room and outside on the patio. 

This gathering  seemed to me, then and now, a measure of their open curiousity, their willingness to step outside their usual roles, and it certainly deflated any notions I might have held about "famous people" being fundamentally different than other people. (I was still that young!) And, as I am now not too much younger than Lady Bird was during that gathering, I appreciate that she and her friends took time for each other, time to be together, laugh, eat, get their toes done, speak in their own inimitable voices.

Some may fault Lady Bird for chosing wildflowers as a special cause. She answered the criticism this way:

“Some may wonder why I chose wildflowers when there are hunger and unemployment and the big bomb in the world. Well, I, for one, think we will survive, and I hope that along the way we can keep alive our experience with the flowering earth. For the bounty of nature is also one of the deep needs of man.”

As an artist, I, too, wonder if what I do is "important." If making the art that calls forth from my heart is justified in a world that has such pain, anger, violence and damage. I've come to feel much as Lady Bird did about her flowers. We each have something that our heart calls us to do. To do otherwise is unwise at best, at worst, can make ones life misery. Right now I am called to art and teaching, and so that is what I do.

One of my wildflower inspired Borderland altars. This one features a photograph of a Texas thistle.

As a Texan I appreciate the legacy of wildflowers Lady BIrd left us. We who live in the Hill Country owe much of the beauty of our roadsides to her work, the awards she gave annually to the highway maintanence divisions who preserved flowers, and to her continuing advocacy for beautiful parks -- state and federal -- near the ranch and across the country.

 

When I'm not in the Studio

 

 

 

True confession. I have excuses for my woeful absence from art-making since my return home. Economic for one. Funny how a trip empties the coffers. As a advocate of "when the doorbell rings and the bank account is empty, better answer" school of employment, I've been wearing my consultant hat and my art eduator workboots. I have managed to craft a life that is creatively challenging, it just happens in different directions sometimes.

This spring and summer I've been working on a library outreach family program in association with a major showing of the works of Fernando Botero. -- the first U.S. venue for his exhibit that traveled Europe the last few years. The exhibits are spectacular, and ring with resonance in this majority Latino city. Botero, whose work I had dismissed as facile from my scant exposure to his ubiquitous bathing women posters, has become an artist of interest to me. His work has this dark, ominous quality that both defies and defines his baroque volumetric vision of the world. Also, Botero has taken on some heavy topics in his work -- most recently Abu Ghraib and torture.  (These drawings aren't part of the show, but a lecture about them was part of the programming.) Many of his archetypal portraits are subtle but telling examinations of power and its effect on a nation; others present quite chilling images of violence and distruction. And his studio practice and productivity  is inspiring. (OK, no matter what else is going on, I am trying to do some work at least eight of the week's overstuffed hours.)

If you are anywhere close to San Antonio between now and mid August, I strongly recommend a visit to the exhbits at the Southwest School of Art and Craft and San Antonio Museum of Art. See www.boterosa.org for more information.

As part of the citywide celebration of the exhibits and Botero, we've been producing family day workshops at each of the city's 20 branch libraries, three per Saturday, and usually one of those is mine. My colleague and longtime partner-in-work Zet Baer (also a fiber artist) and I planned the program, recruited staff and volunteers and are also lead teachers some of the weekends. 

 

We've had great activities for kids and parents. One of my favorites: Kids see prints of Botero's portraits; make a Boteroesque hat to wear, have their face painted to look like one of his portraits. We have a sheet of mylar that reflects their image as if in a Botero painting (like a fun house mirror) and then they paint a self-portrait. Or even another painting of their own in Botero's signature style. This is a wonderful exercise in looking closely, learning through copying and paying attention to style as signature.

 

Burning Woman Workshop

 

The summer at El Cielo has been unusually wet and cool for Texas, but, we're getting steamy and I suspect that drier weather is upon the proverbial doorstep. Last year I launched the first Burning Woman workshop, with a slight nod to the Burning Man event of the Southwestern desert, and a more-than-slight wink at the ever threatening menopausal wave that haunts many of us women of a certain age. This year, I've got two Burning Women workshops scheduled -- the August event is completely booked, and I hope to find a few more adventurous souls for the July 28-29 event.

Like last year, we'll be exploring the role of passion, heat and inner fire in our work, whether its in fiber or another media, though the techniques will focus on fiber/ mixed media tools and materials, the heart work comes from whatever lights your switch. Each event is a little different, since to keep these home studio workshops fresh for myself -- and since each one is limited to 6 to 8 participants, an intimate number -- it seems right to make each one as special and unique as possible.

 

This one comes at a good time for me, because I'm finding it difficult to get the heat off of my skin and into my work right now. Perhaps the fires are a bit banked after the long absence from the studio, or maybe its just part of the natural ebb and flow that comes with creative work, but I am ready to feel a little more passionate about what I put my hands to. Though I put these workshop events together for others, and certainly feel I have some experience to bring to the participants, the chosen topic often seems to turn up just what I need at a certain time -- even though the calendar was planned months ago. As I research, design and try out the processes and techniques, the writing exercises, the stillness and the action that feed each other, I usually get my next right action. I think it has something to do with focus and motion, pulling the bowstring and putting my eye against the arrow shaft.

So, here's a little more about the workshop. If you are interested in attending, leave a comment or email me directly.  If you come back later, the brochure should be posted on the workshop link on the righthand sidebar.

 

Burning Woman Workshop
July 28-29, 2007
Saturday , 10:00 am through Sunday, 3:30 p
For women artists only.

Are you burning with a desire to make art, only to find it smothered or smoldering? Or are you finding burn-out to be a challenge in your life at work or at home? Do you even know your is your heart's most passionate creative desire? Can you remember when you last let art-making take charge of your time and energy? Maybe you just need to fan the flame a little?

 

Where ever you find yourself on the farenheit scale of creativity, take the time at this retreat to channel that inner fire into creative expression and explore the relationship of passion, energy and desire to art and art-making. Participants will be engaged in a life-affirming series of exercises, meditations, rituals and art-making in a variety of simple media, including fiber, paper, paint and dye.

We will practice sun-printing, burning and rusting on fabric and other surfaces; explore microwave dyeing and sun-batched color on cloth. But even if your discipline is other than textiles, you will find renewed energy from this focus on creative passion as we create rituals and light bonfires to keep our inner vision burning bright.

 

Participants will also enjoy the pool. hot tub, walks along Hill Country roads and trails in the area surrounding El Cielo Studios. The airconditioned studio, located next to Susie's home, offers 1200 square feet of work space, as well as room to spread out under the oaks and on the deck overlooking a 20-mile view into the Texas Hill Country. come dressed for the weather, for swimming, for outdoor explorations. Accommodations are available in the house and studio for a modest fee, and all meals except for your Saturday sack lunch are included. Most supplies are included in the tuition, as well.

Fee: $150, accommodations $15-$30, depending on room. El Cielo Studio is located about 1 hour north of downtown San Antonio. For artists coming from afar, rooms are available before and after the workshop on premises or  I can make arrangements for you at a downtown or near-airport motel or hotel. Or book a stay into one of nearby Bandera's dude ranches for a true Texas getaway! Email me directly at susie monday @ sbcglobal .net. (Remove spaces to send email.)

Island of Glass/Island of Color

 

The last of our travel destinations -- two of the islands of Venice - Murano, famous for glass, and Burano, known for its lace and its riotous islandscape of color. I'll let the photos speak for themselves, but, of all the delights of Venice, I think that Burano was my favorite of all. The tradition of painting the houses bright colors reputably originated with the women of the island village, who painted their cottages with one bright color after another, so to make them visible to their fishermen husbands and sons as they made their way home in the mists.

Don't you think any of these photos could inspire a quilt? 

 

 

 

And Then Venice

 

People have told me that they were disappointed withVenice. True, the vaporettas packed us in like sardines. The high tide seeped up through Saint Mark's famous expanse one morning. The day tours poured in and poured out, annoyingly touristic. A scoop of gelato that cost 2 Euro anywhere else in Italy cost 4 near the Academia bridge.

 

But then there was moonlight. Music with couples twirling. Lights flight over moving water. A lonely sax note floating above the bell tower. The muscled gorgeous boat men and the hauntingly romantic gondolas, so familiar from photos and movies, but so much better, real, humanly historic in person. Crumbling foundations and salt-scarred monuments, wrapped in the lap, lap, lap of seatide. And the famously famous Venice light.

 

I'd return in a moment. 

 

The Travelogue Continues: Como

Trying to wrap up this trip report, even if its only a few photo memories. These are three from our 2-day, 3-night stay at beautiful, misty, mystical Lake Como (and no, we did not see George, though we understand he was at the villa Clooney after Cannes.) Our second day was stormy, with wave after wave of rain rolling in off the lake, and we spent the day reading and looking out the window of Paul and Nicole's bed-and-breakfast in Argegna, certainly the best of all possible places for budget conscious Como travelers.

 

Backed up in the Studio

 

Despite the recent posts, I actually have been back at work since the first week of June. The only problem -- its not been studio work. Several left-in-the-lurch consulting jobs, the Botero workshops in the libraries, a little weeklong gig at the King Ranch, here a little, there a little.

But I finally returned to my own real true self with an indulgent all day printing session. The impetus, to finish some submissions for "Alterations," an upcoming show in Tubac, Arizona -- a benefit of my membership in Art Cloth Network, a smallish group of art cloth makers. Who knows if they'll make the jury cut (Elin Noble is our esteemed and highly respected juror), but it was a treat for me just to get back to work after a 7 week absence. No matter how great a vacation is, it does seem to put me behind the 8-ball, schedule screwed and bank account empty.

These are  rusted, discharged, screen printed installation pieces, on  crinkle cotton gauze and silk broadcloth (the red).  They stretched me  in  size and technique, and while I am frustrated at my inability to take any good pictures of the work, I am happy with the actual work -- though I can see that I have further to push it.

5 Terre

 

Cinque Terre (chinck-way terr-eh, more or less) is a one of those magical places on earth that can hardly be believed. Five villages connected by footpaths, ferries (except for Corniglia), a winding road and a railroad make up the official region, which has been designated an international heritage site by the UNESCO. The terraces that surround the villages were built as many as a thousand years ago, the villages until World War II had no access except by foot or boat. Now, with eco-tourism filling the towns  and train and trams (providing ecologically sound transport) with visitors, they manage to retain their magic and Medieval qualities. We stayed in Corniglia, the smallest and least developed of the five town, due mostly to the fact that unlike the other four, the town clings to the cliffs 370 or so steps above the train station.

Our "beach,"  (unlike the one above in Rio Maggiore, I think)  was a stony cove,  another set of 400 steps down, but its quiet, near-deserted aquamarine peace, was well worth the climb.

What else? Fried anchovies, the best pesto I've ever eaten, crunchy hot farinata (a kind of chick-pea pancake or pizza crust), a fizzy light wine kind of like Portugal's Vinho Verdi, and lemon "slushy," a granita made with fresh giany Myers lemons, sugar syrup and crushed ice. Five days in Cinque Terre was our reward for museum-eyes (that state of not being able to take in one more painting) and what the German's term reisenfieber -- that experience of standing in a train or bus station and being unable to understand anything whatsoever with a total panic that one has missed the last train to one's destination of the next 24 hours.

 

We hiked, kayaked, sat and drank coffee, wine, sat and ate and ate, walked around eating, carried a picnic down the cliff, swam at the "free" beach (ie clothing free) that was reached via a rabbit warren of cliffside paths straight down the rabbit hole (and fortunately exited via a post swim discovery of a access-by-fee abandoned train tunnel back to Corniglia -- 10 euros was never better spent), took a ferry, climbed and climbed those stairs and slept under the bell tower of a church, between peals, at least. This place, dispite its protections, has a fragile path  to tread between economic stability  --even prosperity  -- for its population, so historically poor and a disneyfied version of itself, with just a few too many polishings of its rouch edges. I wish them all prosperity AND sustainability.

 

Other Color

Sweet. Siena is famous for its Palio della Contrade, a no-hold-barred horserace held twice yearly in Il Campo, with horses competing from the different areas of the city. Each district has a flag, and those are prominently featured in all the touristy market stalls. But the colors and patterns that I can see coming onto my fabric and quilts are those from the region's equally famous majolica.

 
 

    

 

Siena-hued Siena

  

A new box of crayons still calls to me. Its where I learned that colors wore specific nametags: aquamarine, jade, umber, siena. And now I know that Siena is siena. Technically, siena is a natural earth pigment, one of the oldest kinds of pigments that have been used by all civilizations. According to Colour, Making and Using Dyes and Pigments, published by Thames and Hudson, siena results from yellow iron oxide, geothite, with a small amount of manganese oxide mixed in. But, looking out over the roof tops in this Tuscan town, it is quite clear what place ended up the namesake.

 

Green Space

 

In this city of grey stone, narrow streets and a certain grim Medieval formality, green spaces are magnets for sunloving travelers and residents of Florence. Most famous of all are the enormous formal gardens behind and above the Pitti Palace, the Boboli Gardens. This park gives credence to the  idea of architecture and landscape design as being the cinema of the Renaissance. But what a slow cinematography it is -- here you see vistas and grand scale living landscapes that were imagined beginning in 1550-- what visionaries those artists were, planting the trees and laying out the pathways for visual treats that are still evolving 4 and half centuries later. (Look quite carefully at the photo above -- those are people at the far end of the path, and this gives a pretty good idea of what the scale of the gardens encompass.) For a visual tour, see this website, too. We barely walked a few paths before succumbing to the rustle of leaves, the splash of Neptune's fountain and the shade of a tree perfectly proportioned to appear in a child's garden drawing

 

 

Even the little pockets of green behind tall walls of  villas, and city parks in areas beyond the historic center were particularly welcome to this country dweller. Window boxes added notes of nature that softened the edges and gave one's eyes a rest. Urns that a gardener friend informs me cost thousands of dollars here in the U.S. were strewn here and there in unexpected places. We toured a private garden one day -- and I was always on the lookout for florists shops and window planters.

 

      

  

Street Theater

 

During the month of May, Florence celebrates with the Maggio Musicale festival of the arts. We didn't make it to any of the performing arts events although we did see some of the special exhibitions -- "Cezanne in Florence," an exhibit of Cezanne works collected by two Florentine artlovers (one an artist), and the influence of  Cezanne on Florentine painters of the time -- as well as a fascinating exhibit of costumes from opera and dance performances from previous years of the festival. These were displayed in historic room exhibits at the Pitti Palace -- quite enchanting and creative, inspiration for any artist who creates wearable art.

 

Florence streets were theater enough. If I learned anything about myself in this incredibly rich cultural environment, it was that being was enough without too much doing. I saw fewer museums, fewer churches, fewer of the frescos I meant to see. I literally couldn't get past the street.

 

First, the architecture and the rhythm of spaces: from narrow Medieval outstretched-arms width corridors into open, empty (but for the people) grand piazzas, from arcades of arches to bridges choked with people, bikes, cars, walkers, runners, strollers, from the formal gardens of the Pitti Palace to the clock towers that studded the skyline, popping up in unexpected courtyards.

Then: there was the theater of people. I know I read somewhere how many thousands of tourists flood into the historic center of Florence daily during the high season of summer - cityloads full- and we were at its starting gate. Between 11 and 2 the streets could be overwhelmingly crowded, but then everyone sat down for lunch sooner or later, then to a siesta. By evening, most of the daytrippers -- people on bus tours or short trips into the city -- were gone, and those of us left in the center attended the evening performances, both formal and informal, with a bit more breathing room. Nightly between the Duomo and the Medici palace and Uffizzi, street performers held forth: clowns, musicians, orchestras in cafes, bands and instrumentalists, too. Pure magic against the stageset of these old stone walls and cobbled streets.

All in all, this reminds me to take time to watch people whereever I am. We often blind ourselves to the interesting dramas of our own streets, given their familiarity and our own task-directed days. I vow a little more people watching, a few more admission tickets to the street theater going on around me this summer here in San Antonio. 

Pattern Frenzy in Firenze

Suffice it to say, Florence sightseeing was an egg hunt of major proportion. I expect to see some of these patterns and rhythms in some work to come.

 

 

 

Mercato centrale

 

Pluses and minuses of living next door to the Mercato Centrale of Florence for a week:

+ Almost instant access to the freshest most beautiful food in the world

+ Tidbits and tastings -- olive oils, vinegars, meats and cheeses -- throughout the two market floors (Have you ever tasted 45-year old balsamic vinegar -- reserved fro fine meats, cheeses and desserts?)

+ Inexpensive and colorful kabab cafes operated by Arab and African immigrants who work and live in this district

+ The Forno (literally, oven) operating across from the market, with its racks filled with foccaccio, pizza, calzone, pane (bread), lasagna and other aromatic enticements

+  "Our" corner gelateria -- the San Lorenzo -- with the best prices for quick snacks and late night libations, too.

+ A view of the dome of San Lorenzo, and the layered sounding of bells at 7, noonish and midnight.

 + A very convenient location, once we had the winding plan of the city in mind -- just a few minutes to the Duomo.

+ Street stalls stretching the length of the next plaza away, filling the street with a bazaar of silk scarves, kitchy souvenirs, purses and jackets with their aroma of  leather wafting up to our window.

 

 
Minuses

- Those same mobile street stalls lived in garages under our 3rd (in US terms 4th) floor apartment, and -- until we figured to close the double windows and shutters and use earplugs -- the noise of their rattling, metalic departure in the early AM was sleep shattering. (Even if their movers were some of the most beautiful shirtless men I saw in Italy, and that, my dears, is saying a lot.)

 

– Tiny shower

– That's it. 

If you're interested, contact the owners of San Lorenzo apartments (I think they are associated with the restaurant down stairs and stones throw away, the Traattoria Garibardi). The Beatrice was the front apartment and had the peekaboo view of San Lorenzo, the rear one, far quieter but only an interior courtyard view, was Dante. Both had simple furnishings, cooking corners, small bathrooms, airconditioning and TVs -- quite good set-ups for the price and location.

$60 Trip to Paris

 

How to share the journey? How to linger in the images? Bask in the afterglow?

Keeping a journal on trips is a longstanding habit and ritual. The oldest one in my collection dates from sometime in the 1960s (when I get home from my current teaching gig in Kingsville, I'll post a sample page), and  I filled another nice fat book on this three week-plus trip to Italy. And I came home with more than 600 photos on my digital camera. My plan is to share -- over the next month -- the inspirations, the landscapes, the  flavors and vistas both from my journal and from my photo files. And, please note, this online journaling is at its heart a way for me to keep the journey going a little bit longer.

Jumping into work the day after a grueling return trip (bad layover to begin with, delayed by 4 hours because of Midwest thunderstorms, lost luggage) I am still trying to catch my breath. This dream of a lifetime trip almost seems to have evaporated overnight. So, indulge me as I return via picture, day by day, room by room, train ticket by train ticket.

 

Of course, I'll weave in the present tense, too. I'm certain that June at home will have its own savory moments. But perhaps not so savory as the $60 trip to Paris. The enroute trans-Atlantic leg was also delayed by thunderstorms. We ended up with vouchers for hotel meals and little cubicals in Orsee near the airport. Jumping into a cab, we took a whirlwind trip around the landmark sites of Paris, a first for Linda, and even though I had been to Paris a few decades ago, I'd never seen it this way. Sure, it cost each of the three passengers $60, but I doubt I'll get to Paris that cheaply again!

 

 

 (P.S. I promise not to post all 600+ pictures.)

Firenze

Would you just like a list of all that we have eaten?

The full report must wait until I can upload photos and use a keyboard that has a familiar ching ching to it. However, let this be a warning to you all.  I am now working on a fiber arts Italian adventure for next year. It will begin in Florence and proceed to Selva, a Tuscan home and studio deep in the woods of a 1000 acre estate near Lucca. We will see silks and cashmere goats, weaving and dyeing, and do our own work (as well as cooking classes) in the kitchen studio.

Foods to consider: bread soup and bread salad, bufalo mozzerella (forget everything you thought you knew about the cheese), gelati in all imaginable flavors, buttery lettuce and tomatoes shaped like the duomo, chocolate bars by the Bolognese Majana, lasagna from the street corner cafe, eggs with yolks as orange as saffron.

And that was I think day one. 

Fine Cuisine for the Right-Brained

This had better be quick. In case I hadn't realized it yet, our departure to Italy is one week from tonight. You may be the organized focused sort who has it all together before a three-week journey but, I, on the other hand, do not.

OK, my suitcase is packed. (That, I know, is crazy. But Rick Steve, my new travel guru (along with Anthony Bourdain) says pack it all and carry it around for a day to see if you REALLY want to haul all that stuff. All of the less pleasantly anticipatory tasks are not (complete). And to compound the craziness, we launch the Botero Family Days for the public library system this week, and I am fine-tuning the art projects, buying supplies and organizing for that afternoon event at Landa Library. (For those of you in San Antonio, stop by from 1:00-4:00 for Colombian music and culture, collage, painting and sculpting inspired by Fernando Botero's work.)

So what did I do yesterday? Took a five hour drive through the countryside to Marble Falls. It was business-related. One hundred pounds of foundry clay awaited me at Dan Pogue's sculptor's studio -- at a better price than having it shipped from Dick Blick, especially if I did the schlepping. Of course, this involved a few sidesteps: a stop for pork ribs at Ronnie's Pit Barbeque in Johnson City, avoiding a round trip route by taking a side trek though Lady Bird Johnson country and a short little step in at Wild Seed Farms, and then a two-lane highway alternative to the interstate between Fredericksburg and Boerne. All this with a few roadside photo stops. In otherwords, an errand morphed into a pre-vacation vacation, just in time for sanity.

 

 

Meanwhile, in the email inbox, June Underwood's Ragged Cloth Cafe post about right-brained acendency for the future. Finally. Seems like I've had to endure round peggedness thoughout the square holes for not jsut the Industrial Age, but the Information Age as well.

I won't repeat her post, you can follow the link, but in short, the book by Daniel Pink just moved to the top of my wisl list. In short, though, what the world needs now (and will be looking for) are those of us with right-brain skills and experience. We in the well-enough-off American and other First World abundence may actually have enough stuff. Our hunger is for experiences packed with emotion, creativity, story. Just those things we artists happen to be good at delivering.

 

So, rather than see my escape yesterday as a flaky artist's escape from the calendar countdown, I prefer to see it as a refreshing palate-cleansing course in this particular life's banquet. The green was calling, the flowers were strewn along the roadside ever so much like magic carpet, a swirling, breezy tapestry of golds, reds, orange and blue. The gallardia, Englemann's daisies and blue mealy sage were splendid and so were the pork ribs. I am sure my right hemisphere is feelling nourished and saited with spring. What's on your plate today?