Archive | September, 2011

Today we make our preparations for leaving Italy, heading south and making a slow passage back to Paros.  We will be in Rome for a couple of days, then Athens until next Saturday and then back on the island.  Personally I cannot wait. I have a lot of work to do that I have not been able to accomplish here.  This is the longest I have gone without access to a dark room, so I am looking forward to getting in there and developing film, making contact sheets and printing.

It has been an interesting experience living with 24 other people.  I have not been in this dynamic for many years, perhaps as far back as then end of boarding school (1984).  The constant compromises and diplomacies involved can be exhausting and I have been thankful for my single room at the top of the stairs.  Some of  the younger students have never experienced this and in fact have never experienced many issues revolving around living on their own.  Doing Laundry, cleaning up after themselves, sharing bathrooms and dividing up kitchen duties are all new to many and there has been a steep learning curve.  Some have not risen easily to the occasion, but risen they have and mostly due to necessity rather than any skill or learning.  This is also how I learn, usually.  When the need becomes too great, change will occur.    Some of the teachers have had to act as parents in small roles and I too have had to assume a more adult role, but not always.  I am still a student here and I must remember that.

We have seen so much in our three weeks here.  Museums, churches and architectural sites in Florence, Siena, Venice, Lucca and soon Rome.  The Athens leg will be mostly a repeat for me, having been there many times myself.  I will probably use that time to connect with friends in the city and decompress from the fast paced travel schedule.  The news from Greece is troublesome and makes me a bit nervous regarding our upcoming arrival.  The economic emergency is escalating and there are more transit strike planned for next week, including a 48-hour mass transit strike on Tuesday and Wednesday.  What this means is unclear, but the option of hiring a small bus to transport us en masse from the airport to the hotel in mid-town Athens is now on the list.

Today I’ll head into Pistoia and go to the ATM for travel cash, the farmacia for some odds and ends and then come back and pack my bags.  I have already mailed a box to Paros from here and hope for the best.  My bags should be more manageable, not they weren’t before, but I have accumulated a few things along the way.

Time to head into town.  I’ll post again from Rome with updates on the transit strikes.  For now the sun is shiny and a fresh day awaits.

JDCM

As I wrote earlier we were planning to travel to Pisa and see the basilica, the campanile (the Leaning Tower), the baptistry and the Campo Santo.  We did all of these things and more.  One reason I am learning so much this session is the way that the teachers have mapped out our travels.  Yes, it would be easy to take the train to Pisa, then a bus directly to the site, but instead we took the train to the station and then walked through Pisa.  On the way we looked at and analyzed the architecture of this old city, architecture that tourists rarely see or if they do have no knowledge that they are looking at, let us say, a 13th century palazzo or church.  We stopped at a fantastic cafe and had a snack before heading off into the blazing sun and the historical sites.

That was last week and as of an hour ago we have just returned from a three-day tour of Venice.  Amazing, really.  Bellini, Titian, Donatello, Piazza San Marco, San Giorgio di Maggiore, and on and on…What has impressed me the most in the wider scope of this experience is the understanding that between the 13th and 19th centuries (we concern ourselves with just the 13th, 14th and 15th) those we now consider ‘artists’ did not think of themselves as that at all. They were craftsmen, constructionists, designers and builders.  ‘Skilled labor’ is a better definition.  They did no work of their own and did not express themselves in the selfish fashion that many so-called ‘artists’ do today, myself included, by the way.  It was all under contract and they were all competing in a business.    This is a mind-altering thought for me and what its ramifications are I do not know yet.

As to the benefits of guided tours by knowledgable and interested guides and mentors…Most, if not all the tours one sees in these towns and cities are not run or organized by people that really care.  they are only in it for the money and ramble off spurious facts dragging their charges through crowds and making sure they all get a gelato break.  Our guide, Jeffrey Carson, is knowledgable and fun, gearing his lectures for his group of 20 or so students.   His facts are accurate and reasoned and he tells us important aspects, allowing us all to come to our own conclusions through research and enquiry.  I could easily look at al of these things myself, but the confusion has been cut away like so much brush and bramble, revealing the heart of the matter.

How lucky and I to be living this life!

JDCM

I have had a wonderful time so far during this component of the Aegean Center.  Traveling with this small group through Florence and Pistoia has been an eye-opening experience.  It is one thing to conduct the readings, research and so forth on my own and take the trip solo or with another person, but to be guided around by a very knowledgeable mentor is another.  The day-trips are not so much tours as peripatetics, designed to make us all think about the times we are studying and the people who lived and worked during those times. I have been seeing enormous gaps in my own education filling in.

As I mentioned we have been to Florence once and Pistoia twice.  Today we take the train to Pisa for a longer day trip.  Tomorrow we go back to Florence and then on MOnday we take a three-day trip to Venice.  On the days we are not touring we have classes here at the villa.  There is singing in the music room as Orfeas guides his vocalists; watercolor classes and drawing classes in the gardens; photography classes in the gardens as well.  Art History lectures are conducted before dinner in the upstairs chapel, which we have converted in to a small lecture hall.  Throughout the day there are students, young and not as young, reading, writing, drawing and using their cameras all around me.  I am engaging in these activities as well.  I am enjoying the watercolor classes as, like the figure drawing last spring, it alters the way I perceive the world and relate to it as someone within its context.

The other students are, on the whole, very enthusiastic about this experience also.  There are grumblings from some quarters but I feel these are the necessary grumblings of growth, coming mostly from students who have preconceived notions of what ‘art school’ is, what it has been for them and how the Aegean Center program differs from the myriad programs in existence.  It is wonderful watching eyes and minds open, my own included.

JDCM