Recent printing

15 x 45 cm (?) Calligraph

35 x 50 cm Calligraph

50 x 70 cm Calligraph

Libro d'Artisti

Book arts has quickly become my favorite class at school. Above are examples presented to the intro class, which I am TAing for under a wonderful woman named Kathy. Being an American herself, who has lived in Italy for the past 30 plus years, she knows all the annoying habits that Italians have and has been quick to offer suggestions or help on how to stay afloat. She even brought me some pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving.

The school has gone book crazy as I am now working on 4 books for various classes. All of the assignments are extremely open ended, allowing me to mold the projects to my own design. Very nice.

I should have the first book done in 2 weeks I'll make sure to post it then.

Watercolors from model

Back on the bandwagon

Wow, this post is horribly overdue. Sorry ya'll, I'll try and sum up some of my adventures.

Finishing up the quarter in a flooding city was suprisingly easy, mostly because all of my work could be put off until after winter break. I did manage to pull some things together at the last moment and come out with a few nice pieces, most of which I have already posted.

This semester seems like it will be a free for all. With the large group of undergrads who arrived two weeks ago, I have been flat out told "do your own projects". I've had many conversations with the director about his seeming lack of interest in my progress towards completing my degree to which I am quickly dismissed. So pretty much it is now up to me to make sure this happens. By referencing other Master programs and contacting the accrediation firm who give the greenlight on the MA in the states, I have created a program for myself. I guess that is just italy- self starters are the only ones to get ahead.

As I said, there is a new group of undergrads here now living with me. It feels strange to have all of these memories and experiences in venice while the world is still fresh for them. Every day i get about half a dozen questions on how to get somewhere or how to do something. My answers to many of these questions must sound harsh to their new ears: "Everything is 20 mins away, if you want this done you'll have to make it happen, and I know it sucks, but that is italy."

With all of this I have been put in a strange position at school- long story short, the lab tech/translator/wood-cut teacher was let go because frankly the school didn't want to pay her anymore. A new tech was hired at 30% workload of the old tech and are just expecting me to "help-out" and do most of the work. Okay, not a problem- I am in there all the time anyways, knowing how to prep things isn't a bad thing. However I was quickly repremanded by the director for volunteering to help pick students at the airport. Something about my position needs to be made very clear- that I am a student not an employee. Okay.... so why am I now taking records for student expense accounts in the lab?

Really, I am complaining a lot only because it can be extremely frustrating to get contradicting information, but I have full access to one of the best print labs ever and full control over my future here. When I'm tired and don't want to go to class, I just leave, and everyone is fine by that.

But through all of this nonsense I did have one of the best birthdays of my life! Abel came to Venice for 5 days and we just went around using the city for what it trully is- a wonderful place for two. I rented us a flat in a quite part of town which was amazing- our own washer, a tv, nice new appliances, a real bed! It makes me remember that I trully live in a bomb shelter. Anyways, it was beyond words. I am so happy he came, and am already counting down the days until ireland!

from our apartment window

Okay, long and horrible, but that is the update. I'll be more on this- promise.

San Martin

Okay, so this is almost a week late, but with belated glee I present San Martin!

San Martin is a holiday here in Venice that celebrates gernerousity and giving. The story goes that the nobelman Martin was riding his horse one old day and came across a begger. The begger was cold and miserable, as well imagined, so Martin took his sword and cut his cloack in half to give to the begger. As this happened the sun came out and made a beautiful day.

In modern days it is a time to buy these wonderfully decorated cookies and give to your loved ones, while children go to stores and sing the San Martin song for treats while banging on pots and pans. Very loud. The song, which is in Venetian dialect- I tried very hard to learn the song, but only ever got the first line of "San Martin".

Taking the picture of these girls was a small victory for me; I was able to ask the mother in Italian if a could take a picture and she understood me! Awesome. I was also buying my own San Martin Cookie at the time.

We have another big festival in venice on friday. Something about building a floating bridge and eating meat.. oh, and the plague. I'll report back more later.

Artwork so far

Rome

Let me tell you about my adventure in Rome!

The trip to Roma was a 2 day event for us in art history. Thankfully we were told we won't have to take notes, good thing too, there was just far to much to take in. A cute story to help explain the mass amounts of stuff: In Rome there are only two Metro lines, both which close at 9 p.m. The reason being, according to the art history teacher, was that every night they do archeological studies in the subway. I'll let the pictures do the speaking for day one, but we were so lucky to have such beautiful dramatic light! It was awesome.

The art history class in full

This thing was huge. Think Mines of Moria.

Britt, both a scholar and a lady.

AJ and I feeling impressive.

There are no people in Rome, only bodys with cameras.

After a full day of learning it is time for dinner- we go to a resturant, order our food from the menu which seems reasonable, but the prices of drnks was no where. The food was so-so, and some plates had to be sent back because they were cold. Bill time came and for some reason, the 10 of us had run up 220 euro. Per que?Well those drinks, the three litters of water, three pints of beer, and three glasses of wine cost over 100 euro. That's right, a bottel of water ended up being 15 euro. As in 45 euro for water, over 50 bucks US. Well, the solution we all found? Leave what we owed for the food, service, and what was a reasonable price for drinks, and ran like hell. Running by the Trevie Fountain to the Spanish Steps to escape the explotation of a group of American girls was the right thing to do. Ah, memories.

On the second day we got up early to go to the Vacitan Museum and St Peters Basilica.

I didn't even try to take pictures of everything there- it was impossible. There was just much to much. For three hours I wandered around the museum, getting lost in halls and seeing what is, as far as I can tell, everything in the universe. From Eygptian mummies to contemporary art, there is everything! The one thing I did find specail, was these nuns across the courtyard, also looking at all of the art. How wonderful, in the eyes of the lord and art, we are all equal to learn and understand.

St Peters was amazing, overwhelming, the true grandure of faith shown in bronzen and stone. The brocque statues of various saints which were 7 times life size was amazing. The open area is also marvelous. I took a few pictures of outside, but the rain was hampering the photo taking.

Looking out from St Peters

Statue of St Peter

I went with the Gemmer family (visiting my roomie Annie Gemmer) to have some true Roman pizza. So yummy! Everything was by the kilo, and tastey as all get out. Even with the rest of Rome trying to screw me over, the nice guys outside of the brick wall around the vatican were wonderful. We got free candy for Obama being the president elect. Woot!

This was all followed by shopping, Giovanna getting seperated from us on the train, her finding us again, getting slightly lost in the train station, and some wine with prof kristina on the train ride back to venice that night. Being a "grown-up" I got to have wine too!

Donkeys and Elephants

Katie ran in the apartment today: "Who won, who won?"
Val: "We're nine hours ahead, the polls haven't even opened."

The sweet old woman in Lithography asked me if I can vote this year. As was the norm, I had no idea what she was taking about, but was able to piece together when she said "Obama." The newspapers here (note: even though I can't read Italian I can tell are subpar, just garbage) have been covering the election too.

I'm hoping for good news when I wake up on the 5th.

Happy Voting!

Halloween... a budding holiday

Happy Halloween!

So Venice doesn't really do Halloween. With Carnival and Befana (where a female witch goes to little children and gives them candy) the concept of party/drink/candy/dress up is covered. Some families are starting to do trick-or-treating here, but they go to candy stores instead of houses.

Matilde, the grand matron of the Scuola, had her extremely cute 9 and 5 year old grandchildren from London at the school the past two days. For some reason, they loved me, the little girl going as far as to hug me whenever I walked by and the boy chattering on about his favorite TV shows. I ask them at about 6:00 pm on Friday, "Are you doing somethign tonight for halloween?"

Their poor little jaws hit the ground, "Today's Halloween!?!?!?" Oops, maybe I was suppose to keep that one under wraps.

But it being so wet and rainy, there were no festive attire on my part- instead I just went to the same bar as normal and had a nice relaxing evening.

We did, however, have a house underwear party for one of the roommates design project. I didn't think everyone would be willing to pose in underwear for a poster, but shows I was wrong once again.

So this is school eh...?

I'm nicely sandwiched between finishing a paper and having a midterm next week, so I thought it might be best to ignore studying for a bit more and update the old blog. It's been almost a week- wow.

The coolest Venice thing I did this week was go to get my numero di codice fiscale. It is my goverment issued ID code so that I can get paid to work at the school. I will be keeping the lab open 2 nights a week so students can stay late and work. Some nice easy work that will put a very small, but still nice piece of change in my pocket. Tomorrow will be my first day on the job.

Anyways, getting the code required me to go unattended to a governement building and wade through some paperwork. It was by far the easiest bit of paperwork I have done here hense far. Everyone was very kind and spoke slowly to me. What was crazy was that the building used to be a church (I think) and some of the tombs still remained on the walls (I'm sure about that). But I guess that is what happens when you can never build.

Besides that school has been pretty busy. I spend all day at the lab working my little figures off, making pretty pretty art. On Wednesday the fellow Kristin and I got the screen printing shop in order, so that is now good to go! Woot! I want to make a fashion illustration of the 11 american's as pigeons and silk screen that. It sounds fun to me!

Okay, okay, I'll give this whole learning thing a shot- FINE!!!

oh, and I miss you all terribbly.

MTV is everywhere

Before I came to Italy, there had only been one popstar I had heard of: Tiziano. While it is a much smaller country than our good old USA, I never thought I would get to see him.

Well, turns out I did! While on a feild trip in Milan our class just so happened to met outside of where Italian MTV filmed and I just so happen to show up 30 mins early from lunch when I just so happen to see Tiziano be the guest that day. The crowd was able to watch him from a Megatron outside.


And what a crowd.

Most were pre-teens armed with signs.
And the man of the hour himself (in black).

See a famous Italian popstar- check!

118

Well I got to have a little adventure today. Kaite, the diabetic, has three times before gotten so low on her sugar levels that she slips in to a mini coma and won't wake up. I'm usually called in to shake her awake, make loud noises, and have her get up. She will be pissy, but after a few glasses of OJ her sugar levels are back up and she is good to go.

Well today, after 25 mins of yelling and shaking, she still wouldn't respond. I sat her up and proped her against my knees so she was sitting. After another 20 mins, 2 glucose pills, and me acting like Mama Bear by putting honey in her mouth, we finally called the ambulance. Turns out the number is 118.

Really, I called the woman who is our Venice laison here and she called the ambulance- I had to make sure to preface the conversation with, "Now we're not panicing yet, but Katie is having a moment." But werid thing, turns out that the emergency people will take a cell number and call you as they are coming. I kept getting these calls from the EMT's asking what was happening and where we were. Of course, I have no idea how to say any of this in Italian.

The other girls got a little jumpy, this possibly being the first time they have dealt with a none responsive person. It was really similar to dealing with a passed out drunk- lots of dead weight and no response. Anyways, she finally wakes up about 5 mins before the EMT's show up. For the next hour they use her as a human pin cushion trying to find a vein to give her glucose. It took a while, but everything ended up okay. Tonight we all treated ourselves to Chinese Buffet on the mainland.

Only bummer (which Katie now jokes about) was we didn't get all the way to the hospital, which would have been awesome! The ambulances here are boats- how cool would that be? Also, the hospital is an old confertteli building, which looks like a gaint fancy church. Seeing inside would have been sweet.

Meandering in the Fish Tail

Castello is the district in the south -east of Venice and host an amazing amount of both historic and religious attractions. I went in search of one of the churches I need to write a paper on, but instead enjoyed the day and wandered around the residencal area.

Note: It is said that Venice looks like a fish jumping over a log, so Castello would be the fish's tail.

I'll upload more pictures when the internet wants to play more nice.

SuperGarden

Seeing as today Venice was having some marvelous weather, I went for an explore (note above post). While on that explore I came across the SuperGarden show which was highly enjoyable. You can read the whole statement below, but the whole idea is that designers from different genres were able to come together and explore the developing design language focusing on the expanding enviroment in Singapore. Fancy, eh?

To work with the idea of a "super garden" there was a great strip of astro-turf that ran the length of the exhibit. There was a fun little wall too that the local children loved to climb up.

The astro-turf had a nice affect of being one solid unit that ran from the outside to inside where it acted as the table for the exhibit pieces.

The interior. The plastic half-domes had an audio track playing with the artist explaining their projects. I liked how when the noise combined it seemed like you were in an active studio with ideas being tossed around.

The dome from below.

So here is my developing thought on design- possibly even a teaching philosophy? It seems like the practice of learning design is currently presented in two phases: General Basics and Focused Genre. At first you are shown everything; here is graphics, here is fashion, here is interiors, here is furniture, here is history, here is theory. Then it seems that everyone spilt off in to groups- the graphics kids go and make posters, fashion designers all read Vogue and make fluffy shirts, interiors drool over Ikea, etc. etc.

At this point, I feel traditionally, this would have been the end of formal design education, as well as most designers desire to really learn the other mediums. Sure, we can all appreciate each other, but how often has a graphic designer sat down and said, "I think I need to learn AutoCAT". Not so often.

I feel that it would be extremely helpful that if after designers have learned the needed skills and developed their talent in their chosen area, that they must approach far larger topics and use all areas to help resolve the design problem. Danh's final graphics course at UC Davis was a good first step towards that- but people from all areas should be put in the same class again, to help bounce ideas off one another.

Really, this isn't such a monumental idea on my part- just look at Charles and Ray Eames. They could approach any idea and use an entire arsenal of abilities to draw on. I think a lot of young designers forget that they do as well.

OKay, big long rant, not much stated or accomplished- but this is my blog so i'll say all the none sense I want.