Turin !

Well, I made it back to Turin last weekend. It was amazing! I was still recovering from the late night painting at Dolce Zucchero, but byt he time I arrived in the Olympic village I had forgotten about being tired. There was so much going on around the city, and in the arenas and piazzas; and of course everything after the event ticket is free. I got to the stadium early where there was a big party going on before the hocket game. The live music was great and had everybody dancing. There were bands from all over. The Australian band was good and the guys were really nice.
The hockey was exciting. The fans are so wild ! haha. (compared to those at curling last week).
Pics: me and a Czech fan, the Aussie band, me with the Olympic mascots, snowball: Neve and ice cube Gliz, and the Russia vs. the Czech republic game.

Live Art Show

Dolce Zucchero (which translates roughly to "sweet sugar") was a great place for the exhibition. There was a live band and lots of people buzzing around us.
There were eight artists that all worked on one canvas as a big collaborative piece. We had a great time dancing and talking to viewers and working together.

Live Art Show

Live Art Show tonight, Friday 24th, at Dolce Zucchero.
10pm - 3am
(let the freak show begin! I've always felt like a bit of a goldfish having people watching me work, though unlike my art store demo job I won't be behind a glass window. Come and enjoy the free wine and cheese!).

For those in Toronto, "We Are Traffic" exhibition opening night, March 7th at 100 McCaul, 4 - 7pm.

The Winter Games

I had a Ball!
A few of us decided that we deserved a bit of a break after mid-terms, and so we planned a trip to Turin... and by 'we' I mean David.
We got onto a train at midnight via Pisa; I could have flown home in the amount of time I spent on this train, but we all curled up like a litter of pups in a small sleeper, and when we woke up an eternity later, we were in Turin.
I was impressed with how organized everything was (you know me well enough to know I would say that). Everything was seamless. There were no lines, and people everywhere to help you and tell you how to get to where you needed to go in fifty different languages.
We got to Pinerolo Palaghiaccio just after mid-day, and watched curling. Now, I have lived in Canada for the last five years and I have never been able to get into curling, but it was so exciting being there! It's a bit like cricket that way.
The USA vs. UK, and Italy vs. Germany games were particularly interesting to watch.
After curling, we hopped on a train and a couple of busses up to Sauze d'Oulx to see the freestyle skiing, stopping off at Prangelato for lunch where we saw a few athletes warming up. It was so beautiful in the mountains; it reminded me of Switzerland. There was a thick blanket of snow over everything. It had been snowing all day.
We reached the top of the mountain around seven to find out that the skiing had been cancelled. Admittedly, the snowfall was still heavy and visibility was low,.. okay we were in a full on blizzard. Also, the buses that had brought us up were now stuck in all the ice and snow, so our group: team OCAD, and the rest of the crowd there to see the event were stranded outside. It was actually quite funny, particularly because the snow just wouldn't let up.
After hanging around and having fun and being rowdy with a few American and Canadian tourists, I found some warmth in a ticket outlet nearby (frostbite a few Birthdays ago and fear of getting it again has haunted me for life).
An hour or so later, we decided join the crowds and make the treck down the mountain. By that time the snow had stopped and it ended up being a really pretty walk/slide down. We slept the rest of the night in a train station with at least sixty others to catch our 6am train back to Florence.
All in all it was quite an adventure.
I'm going back next weekend for sure !

Define Me

Critiques have rolled around again.
This Valentines day we gathered around my paintings and let things progress into a critique of my life.
It went well. I've gotten used to the "are you an artist or a pilot?" question.
I just can't be compartmentalized I'm afraid.

Studio Pics

La Verna

Our bus broke down while in Assisi, and so during the windy ride through the mountains to La Verna all I was wishing was for the bus to get us to the monastery -- because we were in the middle of nowhere.
La Verna is an isolated mountain situated in the Tuscan Alpines overlooking the valley Casentino. La Verna vas given to St. Francis in 1213 where a monastery was built for him and for his followers. Its name (Alverna in Latin) comes from the Italian verb 'vernare': to freeze (and that was no lie). St. Francis recieved stigmata here during meditation.
We had dinner at the monastery and headed home later that night.
Shown: picture form the bus, and a group of us step outside to check out where St. Francis slept.

Assisi

After visiting Porziuncola we drove up the mountain to Assisi. There we visited the church of Santa Chiara, who was St. Francis' former lover and the founder of the female Francescan order. We walked downstairs into her crypt where she rests under a few layers of wax (this is where painting in encaustic started) and also saw a few relics of St. Francis.
We then hiked to the other side of the little town to the Bascilica of St. Francis where he is buried.
Assisi was gorgeous, and it was just such a nice day. The town was surrounded by olive trees and farms; we could see for miles from the courtyards infront the churches and steep cobblestone paths up the mountain. The architecture and colours were so different from other places we have visited. The stone and marble they used to build their houses were white (in Venice stone was stained with red pigment, in Sienna stone is more yellow, and here in Florence buildings are a warm ochre colour).

Porziuncola

Friday was one of those days where at no point did it feel like it wasn't part of the background of a French romantic painting (in Italy of course).
We woke up early to meet our bus at 7. For two hours we drove through the purple mist and frosted Tuscan countryside and watched the sun rise.
Porziuncola is a little town in Umbria. We visited the Bascilica Santa Maria degli Angeli Assisi built on the site where the Franciscans first settled. This church could be considered the Kennedy Airport of Umbria (according to our prof) --it was huge. Built in the late 1500's around tiny a medieval chapel, it also contains sites specific to St. Francis, such as the rose garden where he asked for the indulgence of forgiveness, and the infirmary where he died.

Exhibition In Toronto

There is a juried exhibition in Toronto held by the City Council for Bike Week. Stay tuned for info on venu and dates.

The Transfiguration of Death -- The Medici Chapel

Today we visited the Medici chapel, just behind San Lorenzo church. It was freezing as we went into the marble crypt for our lecture, but it was beautiful and worth staying for as long as we did.
Michelangelo's reclining figures "Dawn and Twilight" are placed on top of the sarcophagus of Lorenzo dei Medici. Allegory was very much part of the Renaissance intellectual enterprise;these figures are no exception and are symbolic of life and death.
Opposite "Dawn and Twilight" are "Day and Night" on the sarcophagus of Giuliano dei Medici. These figures represent the human soul.
shown: "Day and Night"

Galleria dell'Accademia

Good ol' David. 500 years old and with 1.2 million visitors a year, he's still standing, pensive waiting for Golliath. The cleaning he had last year has left him a bit pale (with the removal of a bit too much of his original bees wax applied to buff the marble in 1504), and despite the corrosion through the microscopic holes in the marble, he's not looking too bad.
He has weak ankles now, and has a computer attached to him to measure movement in the horizontal and vertical threshold of his base.
David was one of 12 statues commissioned by the Operai to be placed in the buttress of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. Michelangelo received this commission in 1501. He was given a piece of marble that had already been worked on by two other artists (Agostino di Duccio and Antonio Rossellino), and was under contract to finish the work they had started. He was 26 years old at the time.
In January of 1504 a committee of Florentine artists (including Leonardo daVinci and Sandro Botticelli) decided that Michelangelos sculpture was so impressive that it should be displayed in the public square instead; and so in September 1504, with 40 men, and taking 5 days, David was placed infront of Plazzo Vecchio in Piazza della Signoria, replacing Donatellos Judith and Holofernes bronze cast.
In 1527 his arm was broken in three places during an uprising against the Medici family. It was Vasario, at 15, that saved the pieces of marble that are now re-attached (he would later become Michelangelos biographer).
1843 -he recieved his forst major cleaning (causing damage).
1873 -he was moved to the Accademia for protection from the elements.
1991 -a vandal attacked the statue with a hammer damaging the toes on his left foot.

David was created based on the artistic discipline of Disegno, which is built on the "knowledge of the male human form, mimicing divine creation."

Height- 17' / 5.17m
Carrara marble