Merging my multiple loves for expression, I have pulled from my 15 years of travel and 60,000 photos in Italy, and combined them with graphic overlays for one-of-a-kind monoprints.
Milan, Florence, Venice… Monuments and cobblestones… Manuscripts and textiles… These are a few of the lush details that I’ve combined in the 27 pieces on display.
The artwork will be available for sale throughout the show, and will also be listed in an online showcase.
“Affamata di Sapere” – “Hungry to Know”. That seemed like a meaty phrase around which to create a letterpress printing project. It was last year, in conversation with a friend here, that I had first heard that phrase and it leapt back off the pages of my notebook just two days ago. I knew I wanted to integrate that into a piece.
Last year here in Italy, I traveled with an international group through the Legacy of Letters tour. Part of the program was the group collaboration on a large printed piece that was both poster and booklet. Our creation was rendered under the mastery and guidance of artist/letterpress printer, Lucio Passerini, while at the Tipoteca Italiana Fondazione. At the end of the tour, when farewells were being said, Lucio invited me to collaborate with him on a printed project the next time I was in Milano… which is now.
Two days ago I wrote to him with that phrase and a loose list of words swirling in my head… and no solid concept of the form it would all take. Lucio wrote back and said it would be a “typographic jam session” on-press. I liked that. We’d “wing it” and see where the words took us.
Our collaboration started at 3:00 yesterday with the consideration of the words… weighing, comparing their meanings, similarities and differences. We honed, each adding to and deleting from the list. Then we started brainstorming about design, form and fonts, many times finding that our ideas were mirrored by the other. Those were fun moments.
Letterpress printing boils down to each individual letter being put into place one-at-a-time. We were working with woodtype from the early 1900s, from Lucio’s collection. We composed the words, fussed with the spacing, then surrounded everything by a hundred various, mathematically-calculated pieces of metal until the whole thing created an entire rectangle. It was all then clamped rigid onto the press base, ready to be inked and printed. Lucio’s been doing this for so many years and I enjoyed watching his process, seeing his thoughts made visible as he worked.
We printed for 5 hours, adjusting layout and color on-the-fly. “A touch of red” in the green. “A little taste” of white and blue in the dark gray, aiming for more sophisticated color admixtures. The spring green came off the press first, hung to begin drying, then we printed the word list in its dark gray.
Look at all of the individual pieces to create those three words. And many are so small you can’t see them here.
I hung up the printed proofs then we stood across the room to judge the letterspacing and then make adjustments by adding and removing pieces of wood and metal between each letter. (Our green ink started out much too “lime” for my taste so we made it more of my favorite spring, wasabi green.)
Forty printed sheets were hung from a rack suspended from the ceiling, waiting for the second impression.
Sometimes typos hide when reading things backwards. Do you see the error in the following photo?
We printed a tissue paper proof to determine the best position of the word list, overlaying the “affamata” phrase.
We both smiled when the first, final piece came off the press.
“Hungry to Know. Passion, curiosity, perseverance, vitality, appetite.”
When we finished, we joined Lucio’s dear wife at their home, for a celebratory toast, appetizers and a chat. It was a very good day. Grazie, Lucio!
Here are shots of part of Lucio’s studio/print shop. Note how the light changed between 3:00 and 8:00 p.m. (Click on each one to enlarge the photo.)
Visitors to the show were required to sign a release form. They might become quite disturbed (read: freak out!) when walking through the pitch-black tunnel titled “Dirty Corner”.
Milan is hosting the work of internationally-renowned artist, Anish Kapoor, at the city’s newly opened “La Fabbrica del Vapore”– The Steam Factory – and also at the Rotonda di Via Besana. (Click on “La Mostra”.)
From Wikipedia: “Anish Kapoor is a British sculptor of Indian birth. Born in Mumbai (Bombay), Kapoor has lived and worked in London since the early 1970s when he moved to study art, first at the Hornsey College of Art and later at the Chelsea School of Art and Design. He initially began exhibiting as part of New British Sculpture art scene. He went on to exhibit internationally at venues such as the Tate Gallery and Hayward Gallery in London, Kunsthalle Basel, Haus der Kunst Munich, Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin, Reina Sofia in Madrid, MAK Vienna, and the ICA Boston. He represented Britain in the XLIV Venice Biennale in 1990, when he was awarded the Premio Duemila Prize. In 1991 he received the Turner Prize. Notable public sculptures include Cloud Gate, Millennium Park, Chicago, and Sky Mirror at the Rockefeller Center, New York.”
From the Exhibition Website:
The exhibition at the Steam Factory – La Fabbrica del Vapore – consists of the monumental site-specific installation titled “Dirty Corner”, specially made for the exhibition in Milan. Installation – achieved with the support of the Galleria Continua, the Lisson Gallery and Galleria Massimo Minini – consists of a large volume of steeldown about 60 meters long and 8 meters high, crossing the space of the “Cathedral” and within which visitors can enter. The work will be covered gradually by a mountain of earth about 160 cubic meters, carried by a system of conveyor belts.
For a more personal experience, site visitors wait at the entrance until the previous entrants are out of sight and ear-shot.
The piece, titled “Dirty Corner” is an engineering and metalwork marvel. The voluptuous curves are quite remarkable considering they’re made from 5/16″+ Corten steel sheets.
When it was my turn to enter, I looked up at this beautiful form against the roof of La Fabbrica.
Upon entering, I turned around for the view in the opposite direction.
Stepping into the black tunnel, I had no fear. It was a curious time for self-observation and sensing my body in space. (I thought of going through in bare feet.) Could I get turned around inside the tunnel? No. The pathway is flat, and where it begins to curve upward my feet clearly got the signal, so I easily kept walking in a straight line toward the end.
The tail end of the tunnel is finished with a hemisphere. The exit is off to one side, preventing the eyes from picking up light along the passage.
The structural and textural details make the exterior quite rich.
I wonder how many people have noticed that a strand of grass has sprouted in the dirt that has tumbled over the sculpture? The dirt was not falling during my visit, but I imagine it must add an element of sound when inside the tunnel.
FABBRICA DEL VAPORE – via Procaccini, 4 – Milano Italia
The show is open until January 8, 2012.
The scene: a building along the west of a busy mall parkway in south Seattle, with a drive through and plantings along the roadside. The headlights from westbound traffic in the right-hand turn lane across the street, are intercepted by this low, trimmed tree and then play across this wall as the cars turn to go northward.
As a designer and photographer, one of the most stimulating aspects of being in Italy was its visual lushness. Every surface and every structure caught my eye. (Hence, the 16,300 photos I shot in my almost-14-months there!) Before leaving Milano, I told a few friends back home that I was concerned I’d be visually bored once I returned to Seattle.
One friend, David, “The Computer Guy”, offered to take me on a tour of 100 quirky and wonderful things to see in Seattle. It would be a way of seeing Seattle, my birthplace, with fresh eyes. Now that I’m finally coming up for air from resettling, and blessed with blue sky Fall days here, we had our tour last Friday.
David and I met up at the International Fountain at the Seattle Center, ready to begin our 4-hour, fast-paced whirlwind through the city. (This is a tour he used to make with his son when he was little.)
After checking out the rainbow arching over the fountain, we walked through the Center House food court to the Monorail entrance. We bemoaned the absence of the old Bubbleator that used to rise through the middle of the Center House floor.
The Monorail’s elevated tracks snake the short distance from the Seattle Center in the lower Queen Anne neighborhood, into the city, past the “Darth Vader” building (on the right, below). (Seattle also has the “Norelco Shaver” and “Ban Roll-On” Buildings, named for their evocative shapes.)
After a short ride, we arrived at Westlake Center, a 4-story shopping hub just a few blocks from the Pike Place Market. We wound through the lunch crowd for a quick pit stop before we began at Westlake Station for our ride through the Seattle Transit Tunnel.
Every tourist and every local should take a free ride through this well-rendered tunnel.
From King County’s Web Site: “The tunnel has five stations. One of the first mysteries of station design was which came first, the art or the architecture? It’s difficult to separate the two. That’s because a lead artist worked with a lead architect to develop the distinctive art and architecture for each station.
“Metro eventually commissioned 25 artists to create more than 30 artworks for the tunnel, stations, surface streets, and sidewalks. The artists worked with Metro’s tunnel project consultant-Parson Brinckerhoff Quade and Douglas Inc. and architecture subconsultant TRA. Together they created the ‘art-itecture’.
“Each station is a representative slice of the neighborhood it serves. The architects and artists wanted people traveling through the tunnel to know where they were below the city by looking at the architecture and design features of the station they were in.
“The designers achieved that goal by studying surrounding businesses, buildings and uses, then creating designs reflecting those elements. Some features are subtle, and others much more noticeable.”
Design and aesthetic details found in the Transit Tunnel are too numerous to list. The roster of artists and architects, and their contributions, is lengthy. There is both “Art with a capital A”, as well as visuals inconsequential to most but artful to me.
(Click through the left-hand side navigation on this Station Art page to read discussions about the art and treatments of each transit station.)
At the University Street Station, beneath Benaroya Hall, is “Saccodoscopoeia” by Bill Bell, perhaps the most intriguing thing I saw all afternoon. Easily dismissed as just a granite wall with vertical rows of LED lights, with a little further exploration, this piece surprises the mind and eye with imagery and words revealing themselves through a “persistence of vision” trick. Move your head back and forth quickly and Seattle-specific icons appear, hovering in front of the wall. David’s trick is to stand 20 or 30 feet away from the wall and twirl on your toes a couple of times. The resulting dizziness causes the eyes to flicker and the images appear readily! (I was amused to think of the security cameras capturing our spinning in circles.)
Here’s the wall, at a glance. When I stood close to the lights and held my camera up, the images flashed quickly in my screen several times, but I wasn’t successful at getting a shot.
We saw big clocks, distinct at each station and all set to high noon. I appreciated the stenciled compass roses painted on the roadway. How appropriate and helpful for knowing “which end is up”.
Benches, of course, are all “sit but don’t lie” in their design, discouraging naps and nighttime lodging by those without a better place to sleep.
Though each station features distinctly different artwork, one element that unites all stations is the sandblasted braid created by artist, Norie Sato. It’s meant to be part of the cueing system for the visually-impaired, but I found it so subtly low-relief that I question its effectiveness for that purpose. I loved it’s visual addition to the tunnel stations, though. And the varied, patterned stone paving reminded me of what I’ve seen in Italy, France, China and Nicaragua. I’m all for visually-rich floors, sidewalks and roadways instead of monotonous gray concrete expanses.
We rode Metro through the tunnel from Westlake Station to the International District, popping up at the other stations along the way. Rising up out of the tunnel at “Chinatown“, poetry was sandblasted into the stair risers. This word “venture” seemed appropriate for our day’s tour.
Immediately out of the station, we were greeted into Chinatown by the 45 foot high Chinese Gate, completed in December of 2007, and adorned with the characters saying “Zhong Hua Men”, meaning “Chinese Nationality”. It is typical of the traditional city gates of China and reminded me of a gate I photographed in Xi’an, China, years ago.
We were on a mission, heading to one of David’s favorite spots in Seattle, Liem’s Pet Shopin the Maynard Alley. Unfortunately, they were closed, so there was no visiting with the diverse menagerie.
We wandered around, smelling good food, but not stopping to eat. (Why?) We passed the relic of an old dim sum shop and stepped into an art studio and gallery on Jackson Street. The painter’s calligraphy had a sort of Parkinsonian jitter to it, which made it quite distinct.
Though contemporary, this poster harkens WAY back.
We returned to the station, reboarded Metro, and headed north back through town. Intending to get off at University Street, we overshot our stop and so, got off back at Westlake Center. We arose to street level and walked over to the Rainier Tower, designed by Minoru Yamasaki. It was completed in 1977, and I remember that people were freaked out because it appears to be like a pencil standing on its point; all were convinced it would fall over.
There is a long tunnel under the Tower, filled with historic photos of Seattle, Boeing and the local neighborhoods. After coming up from under the Rainier Tower, we started walking toward the waterfront along Union Street. One of the most ridiculous things I saw on our tour was a pair of pants displayed in the window at Brooks Brothers. They were embroidered with silly little doggies from top to bottom! Tell me, WHO would buy such pants? (Who would conceive of them and put them into production?!) Seeing these pants in the window stopped me in my tracks and had me laughing. Looks like this dog has his leash and is ready for a walk.
Here’s a job for the not-s0-faint-of-heart… We looked up and saw window washers on a beautiful afternoon.
At the west end of Union Street is one of hilly Seattle’s many stairways, this one leading down toward Western Avenue and the waterfront. We climbed down, arriving at the Seattle City Light power station with its metal, floral-reminiscent barrier (instead of razor wire), and then stepped into the south end of Post Alley.
Arrive at… The Bubble Gum Wall! David had told me about it months before leaving Milano, so I was looking forward to seeing it, to which he responded: “You have blown it up beyond all expectations. It is only a 20 foot section of a brick wall between two doors on a brick roadway, with 30,000?? bubblegum wads up to thirty feet from the ground, in every color imaginable, with sculptures of gum and inserted objects. That’s all.”
The Bubble Gum Wall is at the south end of Post Alley at the Pike Place Market, accessed through a short “tunnel” roughly under The Pig by the flying fish stall.
It’s grown since David last saw it, and far outmeasures his 20 foot estimate. It’s a draw for tourists and locals alike. One girl was taking a picture of her friend who wanted to LOOK like she was licking the wall, but was terrified of accidentally touching her tongue to the wall in the process. This is THE place for portraits, cell phone cameras always at the ready.
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What is any city without it’s share of graffiti? Love it or hate it, there are times when it’s just plain gorgeous. This is rich like fabric, with its step-and-repeat stencil.
Of course, after covering Seattle, end-to-end, on foot, it was time for another pit stop and the Market was a perfect spot. There are several public restrooms hidden in the rabbit warren maze that is the Market. We went to the two that are just down the stairs from the flying fish. Black and white tile male and female figures stand outside the doors. Inside the doorway, the icons become more scientific: “XX” and “XY” figures indicate gender. (I wonder what percentage of the population knows the significance of those letter combinations.)
And it wasn’t until I was leaving that I realized that the wall tiles inside the bathrooms form Morse Code! Too bad I didn’t photograph the whole message.
(Update, December 21, 2010. The last time I was at the Pike Place Market (a couple weeks ago) I went back into the restroom and wrote down the full morse code message. I had only photographed the first portion of it before, which was enough to guess the meaning, but my second visit confirmed it: “Meet the producer.”Ahhh. That’s what it says over one of the fruit stands, regarding meeting and buying directly from the growers. How many people have 1) ever noticed that it’s Morse Code, and 2) if they’ve noticed, have decoded the message?)
Time for a mid-afternoon bite to eat while we strolled: a half-dozen deep-fried morsels from the Daily Dozen Doughnut Company (right across from DeLaurenti’s). They tumble directly out of the hot oil, and into bowls of powdered or cinnamon sugar.
Gobbling piping hot doughnuts, we wandered to Tenzing Momo… a neighboring toy store… the belly dancers’ clothing store… and the Magic Shop. I’d been wanting to buy one of those trick balls that won’t roll in a straight line but rather wobbles aimlessly. (It’s a physical representation of how I’m feeling these days, still needing to re-establish my direction.)
As a teenager I used to go to the Pike Place Market and wander its historic “bowels”… the many unlevel walks, ramps and stairs leading to tucked-away shops selling oddities. I still have the long strand of glass African trading beads that I bought for a quarter each. They’re worth a fortune now.
The Giant Shoe Museum is marked by a great example of the classic circus-style bills.
I’m amused by the visual treats that we encountered from one end of our Seattle tour to the other. Look at this light fixture near one of the Market stairways. These touches add humor and visual flavor to a city.
After our doughnuts had settled and we had walked past the endless food, craft and flower vendors, it was time for a real lunch. David took me to the Piroshky Russian Bakery, where we bought smoked salmon piroshky.
We walked to the wall-mounted tractor seats and perched there to eat and chat.
The tour was winding down, and we walked back over to Westlake Center where there was a giant chess game in progress. The fountain (to the left, below) was now flowing, so we both splashed through the tunnel of water. It’s a good thing I had put my camera away beforehand! It was much wetter than David had remembered, and I was drenched afterward.
We had lucked out with a sunny, fresh Autumn day in Seattle. David and I stood on the south balcony of Westlake Center’s food court and watched the people go by.
The paving pattern is derived from a Northwest Coast Salish basket from the collection of Dr. Allan Lobb, first executive director of Swedish Medical Center (now deceased). He was the one that let me walk out of his condo 20 years ago with 4 of his 100-year-old baskets to use as photographic references for my paper models. I am thrilled every time I see this broad and beautiful paving that enlivens this plaza and roadway. (It reminds me, again, of the foreign pavers I’ve loved.)
OK. Tell me. WHY would a woman be walking through the middle of downtown Seattle carrying a lifering?
Seattle cops have two types of saddles to choose from.
We rode the Monorail back through town, hovering over the city streets, and emerged again through EMP. The afternoon light bounced off the deep violet tiles of the museum, and colored the structures across the way. The tour was finished with a slow amble around the Seattle Center, viewing the scattered artwork in the shadow of the Space Needle.
I was leaving town on a Friday evening at 5:00, getting onto the Viaduct with the rest of traffic. It reminded me of why I’m glad I no longer commute, but also pleased me with the waterside view, looking up from the roadway.
And my impression of Seattle after the day’s tour? There’s ART everywhere! “Art-with-a-capital-A”, and art in small, informal, spontaneous ways. With Seattle’s awareness of and commitment to Public Art, the city has created a visually rich flavor. Go for a walk with eyes wide open.
– – –
For those of you needing computer disaster prevention or rescue, get in touch with David. He’s saved me and my friends countless times over the years!
David Anders – The Computer Guy, Seattle
TEL: 206-286-8438 • davidanders@gmail.com • webpresenceseattle@gmail.com
It all started with hat forms on Milan’s Grand Canal.
Five weeks ago I went to the Mercatone Antiquariato – Antique Market – along the Naviglio Grande and saw hat bases made of coarse fabric. They are from the Bovone sisters that were making hats in the 1930s. The hats have asymetrical, sumptuous curves and show the “hand” of their makers through stitches and markings.
The hat bases harkened to the beautifully-sculpted wooden hat forms I did NOT buy in Florence in March but still thought about. I bought 3, chatted a bit with the woman selling them and asked for her business card.
A week ago, back at the antique market, the woman was there again and she had wooden forms this time! I considered them all and picked one to bring home. The seller, Marina Pavina, and I introduced ourselves and talked some more. She was insistent: “you should come to Genova!” I had already planned to go through Genova, her home town, on my way to San Remo a week later, so we agreed to meet there.
At the end of the train ride from Milano, I stepped out of the station into a 90-degree day and was met by Marina and her husband, Claudio. They took me on a city overview driving tour of Genova, port city and home of Cristoforo Colombo. There was much that reminded me of Seattle: the waterside location, the surrounding ring of hills, the elevated viaduct, the busy international port. Yet it is all tighter and closer in.
Claudio stopped long enough for Marina and me to get out and see the front of Cristorforo’s house, as well as the adjacent towered city entry.
Two towers create an arched entry gate into Genova’s Molo neighborhood.
This madonna and two plaques are mounted underneath the arch. The top plaque is from 1865. (I’ve recently brushed up on reading roman numerals. It comes in handy here in Italy.) Madonnas and other religious niches like this are found all over Italy, reflecting the high number of Catholics in the country.
I’ve never seen such a concentration of scooters than in Genova, although I was told later that San Remo has more scooters per capita. In some places in the city, there are so many scooters parked along both sides of the street that there is just enough space for one car to pass between them, lane lines having no meaning.
After our driving tour, we parked the car and took a stroll along the beautiful and historic Via Garibaldi. Genova has elaborately frescoed and decorated buildings like I’ve never seen (nor will) in Seattle. Just envision this building without its fresco painting!
Our next stop was Marina’s antique shop, “Marina Pavani Particolaritá D’Epoca”, just off Via Garibaldi near the museums.
Marina offers art pieces, furnishings and decorative objets d’art covering a broad time period. Whether a person is looking for a large, prominent piece, or a small, visual detail, Marina’s collection piques the curiosity. She also does custom searches and display work.
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Here’s a sampling of some of the hat forms that caught my eye in the first place.
The hat forms are constructed of 5 wooden pieces joined with large dovetail joints, then sculpted and painted. Damp hat fabric, likely felt, is draped over the form, pressed and pinned into the depressions and left to dry. When removed, the fabric will have taken the shape of the hat form.
I bought this second one while in Marina’s shop in Genova. I like all the patina and pin holes as much as the lovely curves of the forms themselves.
While looking at the underside, the dovetail joints and form numbers are visible.
After browsing the antique shop, Marina and Claudio treated me to lunch at a cafe nearby.
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We rushed through our lunch and finished just in time for them to drop me off at the station and give each other quick goodbyes. I then waited on the platform for a half-hour-late train on a sweating-hot day.
What’s most remarkable to me, again, is the kindness of strangers that I have been encountering. I don’t know Marina and Claudio, and yet they hosted me warmly in their home town, and we chatted like long-time friends.
If you find yourself in Genova, step into Marina’s shop. See what catches your eye and enjoy a pleasant conversation.
Marina Pavani Particolaritá D’Epoca
Via Ai 4 Canti di San Francesco, 50 R. 16124 Genova, Italia
(Angolo Via Garibaldi)
Tel: 339-7461952
Sally flew over from Seattle a week ago to share the sights of Milano, the wonderful food treats available and the simple efficiency of my apartment. She came off the plane and out of customs beaming.
We took the Malpensa Express train from the airport into town, and got out at the Cadorna station. We walked out in front so she could see the “Needle, Thread and Knot” sculpture by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. The knot is across the street, as if the needle had taken a stitch under the roadway.
Our first breakfast was a caprese salad with mozzarella from the farm, lovely ripe tomatos, just-picked basil, served on a bed of songino – watercress – and some freshly sliced proscuitto. Not a bad welcome to Milano!
On Sally’s first day in Milano, we walked over to the Saturday street market where the vendors were selling fruit, vegetables, cheese, meat, fish, clothes and a few household goods. We stocked our kitchen with fresh basil, red pepper, asparagus, spicy salame with fennel, fresh eggs, cherry tomatoes, blood oranges, pickled onions, both “sweet” and spicy olives, burratina cheese, smoked mozzarella, dried figs from Calabria, prosciutto and bresaola.
With hot weather, we opened the french doors and sat on my “shelf”, as Sally called it. Not quite big enough to be called a deck, or veranda, or lanai, it held our two chairs while we put our feet up on the railing. We chatted in the sun and greeted neighbors as they walked past to go dump their garbage in the room below us.
No trip to Milano would be complete without going out for aperitivi. We walked along the Naviglio Pavese Canal and stopped into one of the many restaurants that were hopping and lively on the hot, muggy night. We selected from their buffet of pasta, cheese, meats, pizza squares… and ribs (of all things). Sally’s martini was oddly sweet and not at all martini-like.
Sally enjoyed online communications, keeping in touch with family through Skype and e-mail.
There’s a wonderful graffiti wall outside of a garden center between Corso Como and the Monumental Cemetery. What a great backdrop! This is one of my favorite photos of Sally in Milano.
We just had to take a stroll through 10 Corso Como, the city’s legendary fashion, accessories, art and design boutique. This is NOT the place to pull out your credit card, but rather just harvest ideas for garment design and construction.
We made reservations for dinner on Saturday at Malavoglia where you ring the doorbell to get in and are greeted by bow-tie-adorned owner, Aldo, and a complementary glass of bubbly prosecco. We shared a primo of fresh pasta with black squid ink sauce. It was delicious.
One of the highlights of Sally’s time in Milano was her visit to the Duomo. We spent time in the piazza, “the living room of the city”. We walked its circumference marveling at the variation in details and gloried at the cathedral’s interior. We topped off the tour with time on the rooftop, getting up close to the sculptures, finials and gargoyles, and looking out over the city.
Another day at the Antiques Market along the Naviglio Grande. Summer is in full swing and tourists have found this hot spot. It’s “the” place to be on the last Sunday of the month for anyone wanting a very diverse selection of some pretty choice items. “Antique” in Italy covers a broader range than “antique” in the U.S.!
The sellers know full well what they’ve got and the high demand for what they’re offering and they’re not giving any of it away for cheap! Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing there. I have no budget for this stuff! But I remind myself that there’s value in simply SEEING it. Tools and instruments. A world atlas from the 1700s. Household goods and fixtures. Old nuns’ handwritten devotional cards in hand-stitched envelopes. Embroidered linens. Letterpress printed prayerbooks of handmade paper bound in hide. Maps and etchings of former cityscapes. The historical reference alone makes it worth spending a day gently handling 300-year-old book pages.
I find the very old and the very curious. (A Lamborghini wooden rowing machine?!) I look around for hours until I’m mentally saturated and physically hungry, unable to really appreciate any more. By then I’m going home with a few little trinkets that are affordable and packable, and a mind full of imagery I hope to never forget.
It was another sunny afternoon and a good time to go to the Piazza del Duomo to wander around. I hadn’t known that there was a sidewalk art sale going on. Much of the work was very mediocre, as if the artists were uncertain. I saw the work of a few painters that showed surety, fresh thinking, sophistication and a developed style. And then I saw Nino’s work, and it stopped me.
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In the last year I have seen so much art of the old masters in the great museums and galleries of Italy and France. Portraits, landscapes, abstracts… and still lifes. When I saw the small oil paintings of Nino L’Annunziata, I could have been in the Uffizi or the Louvre. He has a finezza, a fineness, an eye and hand, a sense of color and detail that I don’t often come across in contemporary painters, especially in a casual sidewalk display. Nino has skill, control and certainty that elevate him to “contemporary master”.
We talked for about 45 minutes in an engaged, pleasant chat. We gave each other the classic two-cheek kiss, said goodbye and I walked away with two of his small paintings. When I take them back to Seattle, they will bring to mind a pleasant connection with a fine artist on a sunny, early summer day in Italy. And I will smile.
What to do when the temperature is in the 80s on a Saturday afternoon, post jet-lag? Go for a bike ride with a cyclist friend, start along the canal, ride through the farmland to a little lake, get and fix a flat tire and make like a sculpture.
Cyclist Emilio and I rode out west of Assago (south of Milano) to the Villaggio Santa Maria. They have a man-made lake, a pool, a path around the lake shore, and grass to lounge on. It was a nice afternoon of chatting on winding farm roads, climbing overpasses, and seeing new bike routes.
Grazie, Emilio.
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Sometimes when I meet people here, I tell them my name is “Maria”. They can handle that. Or I do tell them my name is Maureen, and that “Maureen” is like “Maria” in that they both mean “Mary”.
There is a long tunnel under the Tower, filled with historic photos of Seattle, Boeing and the local neighborhoods. After coming up from under the Rainier Tower, we started walking toward the waterfront along Union Street. One of the most ridiculous things I saw on our tour was a pair of pants displayed in the window at Brooks Brothers. They were embroidered with silly little doggies from top to bottom! Tell me, WHO would buy such pants? (Who would conceive of them and put them into production?!) Seeing these pants in the window stopped me in my tracks and had me laughing. Looks like this dog has his leash and is ready for a walk.
