Ju and Vic in Florence

First Vic and Ju did an 18 day tour around lovely bits of Italy and now they have come to stay with me in Florence for 12 days. We're having a lovely time shopping and oohing and aahing at the abounding splendors of the city, trudging home for a siesta when even the die hard shoppers can no longer push through the pain. We are staying together in a nice (but rather noisy) apartment near the Ponte Vecchio with a glorious outlook of the Arno. The heat is slowly building after a couple of weeks of cooler wet weather. In fact 2 weeks ago we had more rain in a few days than we've had since I've been here, including one spectacular storm complete with wind, driving rain, thunder, lightening and flash flooding in the street below me (see pics).

This apartment, while noisy, is certainly at the heart of Florentine action at the moment and there has been much happening here the past week. It seems that the Italians will take any opportunity to 1. make noise, 2. stay up late, 3. make noise while staying up late. We have bells ringing, cars and mopeds motoring, ambulances ambulating, fireworks, live street entertainment and people everywhere being people noisily. On the street below us we've had a city fun run, the celebration of San Giovanni (patron saint of Florence) and Oltrano Notte Bianca (White night in Oltrano) where all the shops stay open until the wee hours of the night and there is entertainment in the streets and squares, with restaurants spreading their tables out onto the road (see pics), streets blocked off from cars and everyone staying up all night. It's all go and I can only say hallelujah to the person who invented earplugs!

It's been so great to have mum and Vicki here and to see so many parts of Florence I haven't seen before and go everywhere on foot as opposed to whizzing past everything on my bike.

I have finished 2 trimesters at Angel Academy and have some more drawings to show for it including a charcoal cast drawing of an eye (I've forgotten to photograph it so will upload the photo next time) and a 5 week charcoal life drawing. The method is quite laborious - charcoal on a textured paper needs to be highly sharpened in order to fill in all the 'holes' in the paper - so I was pretty glad to be done by the end of 5 weeks but quite happy with the result. Next term I'm starting at the Russian Academy of Art instead, which is a 'structural' method of drawing and painting as opposed to the 'visual' method at Angel. It has been a big decision to change schools so hopefully I have made the right one.

I have 3 months off for the summer and need to work on a 10-point plan for surviving the heat which is purported to be intense. The Italian models at school call this 32 degree heat 'fresh' compared to the heat of summer. After mum and Vicki go I am heading for the UK for a week to see Philip, Jane, Livy and Robbie as well as a wee poke around London, then to Paris to visit Heidi and the Eifel Tower and the Louvre and then on to Amsterdam to visit my friends Marije and Sander for a week.

Then I will be back to battle the heat until some friends from my old church in Sydney come and we will stay in a villa in Umbria for a week. Then more heat in my little towering inferno until school goes back in September.

For latest pics go here.

Final Bargue & The Leaning Tower

Here is the final Bargue copy drawing finished. I took a photo every day (except when I forgot to) and made it into a time-lapse video which you can see here:



Now we have moved on to charcoal cast drawing. Roxanna and I are working on the same cast of an eye. Dianna has an ear. I'll take a photo of our set up and post it soon. Charcoal is very different to work with than graphite... messier and the dust gets into the nose and mouth and no doubt the lungs. (We invested in some face masks and started a bit of a trend with some of the other students. Really only needed when sharpening the charcoal as the dust goes everywhere. We look more like medical students than art students... anyone need a bandaid??). Charcoal has a far greater tonal range than graphite though (ie. you can make a very deep black which is not possible with graphite) and I'm seeing how it's a great foundation to understanding how to paint. We also started a new 5 weeks long life drawing this week which is also in charcoal. It's a lovely pose and I'm beginning to see some improvement in my ability to get the shapes more accurate, more quickly.

Last weekend Dianna and I decided we needed to broaden our horizons and headed for Pisa, primarily to see the Leaning Tower. There's not a lot else to Pisa. The Arno River runs through it on its way to the sea, which isn't very far away, so it has similarities to Florence with it's bridges... but completely lacks the charm of the historical centre of Florence. As Pisa was largely wiped out in WW2 it is architecturally newer and we all know that people lost the knack of making beautiful buildings and edifices somewhere along the line. What other bridge could possibly compete with the Ponte Vecchio let's face it.

Anyhow the leaning tower is gorgeous. I was expecting it to be bigger, but wasnt' disappointed with the lean. It really leans. To the point where one wonders if this might not be the moment when gravity wins and the whole thing flops to the side. It was recently restored and scrubbed clean so it's sparkling and very petite and ornate. We would have climbed to the top if it didn't cost an arm and a leg, so after oohing and aahing for a suitable duration, we gallantly worked out how to get the bus back to the station where we could get another bus to the coast. I did a bit of research before we left and discovered that Marino di Pisa is the closest coastal town, just 20 mins by bus from Pisa and not touristy as there are better beaches down the coast a bit. What more could a girl longing to sniff the sea air ask for? Again, a feat of charades and broken Italian and we found the bus and the ticket office and finally Marina di Pisa.

Well, the beaches down the coast must be good because here is a pristine stretch of coast with aqua waters and not a wave to be seen. That's if the beach was really a beach. I mean, is it really a beach if it doesn't even have sand? I don't think so. It had big pebbles actually but this didn't stop anyone sunning themselves as if they were at the beach. The surrounding rocks were also draped with people just like a colony of seals. Curious!




















We found a seaside restaurant with outdoor seating at which to share an enormous pizza with thin crispy crust... didn't feel so great afterwards but it was extremely GOOD! Especially with the sea breeze blowing fresh salty air through my whole being. Refreshing for the soul. It was like being in Manly without all the tourists (or the shops, or the beach... ok nothing like Manly except the coastal 'vibe').

You can see more pics here...

È tutto per oggi!

Buona Pasqua

Buona Pasqua means 'happy easter' and it's very much on everyone's lips here at the moment although in actuality it doesn't mean much more than "have a nice long-weekend". Even though this is a predominantly Catholic nation, it seems now that most Italians don't practice their religion and very few people have a personal relationship with Jesus. The easter celebrations in Florence have been passed down over the centuries and are an exciting event for Italians and tourists alike. My first thought was to avoid what would certainly be a moshpit around the Duomo for "Lo Scoppio del Carro" (The burning of the Cart), but at the last minute I decided that it was too much to know that this once a year event would be happening senza me, so off I went.

I parked my bike on my side of the river and walked across the empty Ponte Vecchio thinking to myself, maybe I have the wrong day, where is everyone? As I made my way through the empty streets I thought, ok weird, where's the parade? where's the streets lined with people? where am I? what day is it anyway? Finally reached the Duomo and behold, the moshpit. Every person in Florence was right there squeezed into the space surrounding the Duomo and over the tops of the heads I could make out some waving flags and hear the drums and the church bells, and feel the excitement in the air. Clearly I had to make my way closer to the action, which was a challenge, but I got a fair way in, finally laying eyes on the said 500 year old cart, lined with fireworks and surrounded by firemen and pyrotechs in all manner of safety gear. Alright, this might be the only time when I'll agree with you that it's nice to be tall. Add tippy toes to that, combined with intermittent leaps into the air and one can afford oneself some kind of view of the action (I find).

I heard that the cart was going to go off at 11am so I had 45 minutes to endure being squished on all sides and hoping to have no kind of urgent need of any sort for at least the next hour. The burning of the cart is supposed to represent Christ's ressurrection and new life. I really had no clue what to expect but there was a pulpable building of tension as the drums beat and the bells donged and a priest (or at least someone with a very tall hat on) paraded around a bit - couldn't see, there were probably other things going on... and then the moment arrived. Something came whizzing along a string coming out of the main door of the Duomo, hitting the cart and setting off the fireworks display. It was the most dramatic, exciting and altogether terrifying fireworks I've ever experienced. So loud one might even have thought world war 3 had broken out and we were being bombed. I decided that photos wouldn't do it justice so took some footage (see below). Obviously the footage does it no justice either, but if you put your volume on full you might get an idea. Note the little boy in the red jacket in front of me who keeps putting his hands over his ears. I felt like doing the same only I had my arm high above my head trying to capture it on camera (when in Florence do as the Florentines do). Unfortunately my battery ran out just at the crucial moment... at the end, the three little bits whirling around at the top each drop down a flag one by one, to everyone's delight. Sorry I missed that bit. Then of course I also missed documenting the ensuing parade of people dressed in medieval clothes, drummers, flag wavers etc. How excitement!



My lovely friends Cristina and Colin (from Spain and England respectively - I met Cristina at Angel Academy), came around later for afternoon tea so they could admire my new place and go ooh aah at my wonderous view and then we popped over the road to the Boboli Gardens with our annual passes to soak up the greenery. Here's me and Cristina...



I'm very much enjoying school and should have some drawings to post soon.

È tutto per oggi!

See latest pics here.

Spring has sprung

Here is the view from my new apartment at sunrise the other morning. I've moved up in the world! Spring has sprung and the people of Florence have thawed out. There is a cheeriness around town, more smiling, more people striking up random conversations with me. This is a different Florence to the one when I arrived, and now that I'm in an apartment on the 4th floor, flooded with light, I have to say, I'm also feeling lighter of heart.

There are 80 narrow stairs to climb to reach my new abode but the mantra "it's worth it, it's worth it" is all the impetus required to get me up them because there's a stunning view to the south and to the north I can see the Palazzo Vecchio tower in the distance... the trees of the Boboli Garden to the east and the sunset to the west, (slightly leaning out the window). With north and south windows open there's a lovely cross breeze which will be handy for enduring the summer heat up here which may climb to extreme levels but lets not think on that right now. Right now, I'm thrilled with it all... somewhere to hang clothes in the sun, a fridge with a freezer, a bed without a footboard (not what one wants when one is long) and much less noisy at night. It's also rather amusing to greet sweating, red-faced visitors, gasping for air by the time they've made it up the stairs... with a good 5 minutes before they can utter a coherant word. Depending on the person's level of fitness I also have a good amount of time to put everything in place if anyone decides to drop in without warning.

It was an interesting process dealing with an Italian realestate agent and signing a lease (which I didn't have to do at the other apartment). Actually the agent was extremely helpful and obliging and I was very blessed to have my friend Becky come and translate for me. She studied at Angel Academy for 4 years and has decided to stay on with a Christian ministy at the local universities working with Sarah and Andrew from Australia. Needless to say her Italian is excellent. Everything is more challenging when one doesn't speak the language. My new landlords are 2 brothers in their 40s who have also been very welcoming and have gone out of their way to give me all the things I've asked for in regards to the apartment (it didn't have towels/bedding etc like my other place did - but it does now).

I'm in the second week of our school break too so it's been good timing for moving and settling in. Apart from moving, I've been taking some private Italian classes which if anything have exposed the great distance I still have to go with the language, but I suppose progress is slowly being made. On Tuesday I spent the day in Siena with Roxanna which was my first time out of Florence since I arrived. The overall impression of Siena after being in Florence for 3 months is how quiet, orderly, clean and well maintained it is. It was a breath of fresh air, but perhaps it doesn't have the same pulsing energy as Florence... there is certainly a lot more going on here. The rolling green hills of the Tuscan countryside are as lovely as they look in the movies and we passed many small towns that I'm sure would be worth stopping off at some time. Roxanna brought along her little dog Preenie and we enjoyed a spectacular spring day exploring the ancient town and enjoying the amazing views of the whole countryside from a lookout near the Duomo.



Last night I had dinner at Sarah and Andrew's place with their four gorgeous kids Ezekiel, Jemima, Oscar and Matilda. It's so nice to hear the ozzie accent, to talk about familiar places and be able to whip out out some of my favourite lines from The Castle... "this is going straight to the pool room!" (Ezekiel's drawing he did at school), and to drop all the endings off words like arvo, mozzies etc. Yep, we sure know how to talk proppa. Ezekiel and Jemima have been going to the local school for a number of years and their Italian is amazing... no problems with pronunciation or pesky things like that. Jealous! Oscar has just started this year and finding it very difficult. I'm sure his young brain will pick it up in no time. It's the perfect age to learn a second language.

È tutto per oggi!

To see the latest pics click here.

Heidi comes to Florence

My first term at Angel Academy has come to its end and this last week has also been such a treat with cousin Heidi here from Paris working on one of her projects. We ate and talked and then talked some more about how well we were eating, went out for pre-dinner drinks and ate some more. I feel inspired now to enjoy being a foreigner and (gasp) a tourist in Florence, so that I might experience more that life has to offer here (which is largely about food)… and especially to let myself make linguistical bloopers for the sake of connecting with the locals in my ‘hood’. I have to confess to avoiding many of the small interesting food shops because of my lack of Italian and my VANITY – not wanting to be another stupid tourist – but after enjoying the fruits of Heidi’s shopping and zest for discovery I see the necessity for courage to venture into unknown territory. Pickled lettuce, huge green olives (incredible), tender veal from the local butcher, cheeses, ETC.

My own greatest discovery of late is rabbit. I tried my famous lemon chicken, except with rabbit, for dinner one night and we both declared it most excellent and worthy to be the focal point of many future eat-fests. It’s readily available in butchers, supermarkets and restaurants at no great expense, is similar chicken only more tender and less fatty, and works very nicely with lemon, potatoes, tzaziki and salad (write to me for the recipe).

Last night Heidi and I walked around the streets of Santo Spirito and I took her to see where my new apartment will be, in a little ‘tower’ in Via Santa Maria. Then we strolled along the quiet late night streets, admiring the Florentine architecture, the grandeur of the Pitti Palace, little ornamented door handles, ancient torch holders along the sides of buildings, the juxtaposition of a quaint stone church hundreds of years old beside a brightly lit hotel with art deco interior, the Ponte Vecchio lined with jewellery shops closed for the night, looking like a scene from a movie set in the 1500s. If only I could have a glimpse of what those old stones have seen!





















The first term of school has flown by… above is my final life drawing. I have 2 weeks off which I’m very pleased about and which will involve sleeping in, discovering uncharted galleries and museums, perhaps a day trip here or there, some private Italian lessons, meals and cuppas with friends (those that haven’t gone home for the holidays!) and of course moving house (which is the greatest pre-occupation this week). I miss Heidi already, can’t wait to visit her in Paris in summer. Thanks for a great time Heidi!

È tutto per oggi!

(For latest pics click here)

Sun

Today is the 150th anniversary of the ‘Unity of Italy’, a bit like Australia Day, and thus a public holiday. I planned to go and see a bit of whatever is going on in town but I haven’t gotten further than the living room as I’m enjoying catching up with my domestic life and blog and things.

Above is my second Bargue drawing completed after 5 weeks of dedicated labour. I’m into the 3rd and last Bargue now which won’t be finished until well into next term. We work on our Bargues in the morning and in the afternoon we do life drawing, usually a new pose every day as we learn the technique.






















Here is my first complete life drawing in graphite which was a 2 week pose. We are currently in the middle of a seated pose for 2 weeks which will take us up to the end of term.

The weekend before last I had a free Sunday afternoon so I hopped on my bike and headed South to explore the nearby hills. (I live on the southmost part of Central Florence so the hills behind me aren’t very far). I pushed myself and bike up the hilly road to Bellosguardo (literally ‘beautiful outlook’), which was soon surrounded by Tuscan countryside and little ‘farms’ (only 15 minutes from my house). The sun and exercise warmed me so much I had to shed my winter coat, hat, gloves, scarf, all squished into my bike basket… and for the first time in a while I was enjoying the Out of Doors without feeling like the Michelin Man, with the suns rays warming my skin through my clothes. With the growing inclination the view also increased in splendor until I reached the topmost point and looked back down on the city. It was hard to imagine all the people in Florence moving around in the shade of the city buildings when it looked so sunny from above.

Joy of joys was the discovery of a little park in Bellosguardo with lovely patches of sunfilled grass which I ran towards with abandon and hurled myself down upon my coat (said grass being a touch wet) to let the sun soak into bared skin of legs, arms, stomach (everywhere possible while still remaining descent!). Heavenly, heavenly, heavenly… I dozed off during my vitamin D treatment and upon waking finally resolved that I must find a new apartment with more light if not direct rays of sun. Which is actually what I’ve done in the meanwhile and I’ll be moving, all going to plan, in 2 weeks time. My new place is a little (very little) apartment on the 4th floor in a street only a few blocks from here, closer to the Boboli Gardens of the Pitti Palace. It is “molto luminoso” (very luminous) with north and south facing windows and a rather wonderful view. I’m REALLY looking forward to having that view. It also has a fridge with a freezer which now seems like a wonderful luxury.

To see photos of Bellosguardo click here.

È tutto per oggi!

Senza Parole

Winter is holding on with all it has knowing full well it will soon have to give way to Spring. Today is cold and wet and there is little incentive for me to wander the streets like a vagabond set on knowing this ancient city which I’m growing to feel rather affectionate towards. I have just finished reading a book called The City of Florence by RWB Lewis. He writes that Henry James, in reflecting on Florence, said he was struck by “a sense of history that took his breath away”. And: “Time has devoured the doers and their doings, but there still hangs about some effect of their passage”. He has really found the right words I thought to myself as I put the book down and reflected on my visit to the Palazzo Pitti last week. In Italian one might say it left me senza parole (literally ‘without words’, but in effect ‘speechless’). I’m still not sure quite how to describe this excessive palace or indeed the effect it had upon my person. Enormous, for a start, perhaps ridiculously so – I mean who needs a pad that’s that spaciously endless, or endlessly spacious? Clearly the Medici had a point to make about the superabundance of their wealth when they felt the need to make three times bigger the already huge palace built by the Pitti. One only needs to reflect on the man hours and sweat that have been poured into the creation of room after room of ornately molded and frescoed ceilings, marble statues, vast carpets, bathrooms bigger than my entire apartment, never-ending walls lined with silk and/or precious renaissance paintings with chunky gold frames... My overall impression was that it was too big for comfort and for the current sake of preservation (presumably) too dark. Admittedly, for me, the highlight was the westerly view (glimpsed through curtains adrift) from the top floor overlooking the red roofs of Oltrarno (the area to the south of the Arno River, where I live, which basically means ‘other side of the Arno’). What I wouldn’t do for such an outlook! I like to imagine that the Pittis and Medicis, and Lorraines after them, flung wide the curtains and spent many a reflective moment enjoying the sunset of an afternoon over a glass of chianti whilst discussing the next artistic commission of genius. The top floor of the palace is now a gallery of ‘modern’ art (the most modern being early 1900s), which is so unending I didn’t make it half way around. That shall require another visit or so. There is only so much I can appreciate at a time.

On the subject of breaths being taken away, yesterday Dianna, Roxanna and I decided it was time to ‘do’ the Duomo. After zipping past the cathedral countless times by now, I wasn’t really sure what to expect of its innards although I did a quick read up online so I might have things to look out for. There are a lot of facts and figures but the basics are that it took around 120 years to build, with some delays here and there… the collective design of one Arnolfo di Cambio (started in 1296), and Fillipo Brunelleschi who was the brilliance behind the dome (1420). The said dome (duomo) is 91m high, spans 41m and is the treasury of a fresco of The Last Judgment that is said to cover a surface of 6000m square. The peak of the dome is reached by nearly 500 steps which, as it turns out, is rather a lot and not for the weak-of-knee. Our perfectly timed visit saw us plodding up the ancient narrow staircases on a crisp, perfectly clear day with relatively few tourists to contend with. (It really pays to arrive early). The first note of curiosity as we set out was a sign which read ‘Please don’t write on the walls’. What a strange thing to feel the need to say, I thought to myself, until I passed a single line of graffiti (Fabio + Maria forever, or something like that) and imagined this one transgression was the impetus for the signage. But unfortunately and quite horrifyingly this was not the case and indeed as the walls became thick with ugly scrawls I felt an indignant outrage rising up in my ‘world-heritage-listed’ culturally and aesthetically protective self. What possesses so many people to think of packing a permanent marker along with camera, water and guidebook as they set out for a morning of sightseeing is what I’m really wondering. Why people, why!?? So, that off my chest… I tried to imagine the ancients carrying their fiery torches up the steep, dark, twisting and graffiti-less passages, going about their duties or perhaps a morning jaunty to admire the view? The view… again… senza parole. Unfortunately the photos will do it no justice and neither will any words. You will simply have to come and see if for yourself. Three hundred and sixty degrees of Florentine splendor to expand the mind, the heart, the emotions and the vision of what is possible for creative beings to achieve, with the magnificence of God’s creation enveloping it all.

More on daily life in Florence next time…

For photos click here.

È tutto per oggi!