It’s been raining today so we are taking some time to do “inside” tasks such as blogging, documenting Tom’s impressive collection of Italian and Islamic tiles, and designing the logo and web look for the art center. We also did our first loads of laundry and hung them out to dry…right before it started to rain. My left thumb is appreciating the time off since I smashed it pretty well yesterday digging holes for pylons that will support the studio storage shed.
Yesterday we walked to Chiusdino to take pictures of the property from town and got to visit their weekly market, which was charming. We tasted several types of salami and Tom bought us one made with fennel, or finoccio as it is called here. Brian got some basil to plant in the garden. The market was the most people we have ever seen at once in Chiusdino.
It has been exciting exchanging ideas with Tom for what the art center can be. I look forward to sharing the name we have come up with once it has been finalized. There is actually a group here now taking lessons in painting from a Korean woman. The first real workshop hosted here! Tonight we will attend the biweekly live music and pizza event in Chiusdino (see the poster below). Hopefully we will remember to take some pictures.
I would also like to give a shout-out to Roberto Raucci, an artist working with post-consumer glass bottles. He had his work for sale at an outdoor market in Campella and speaking with him made me want to get back in the studio, or get enough completed here to make some new work. Google has translated this inspirational quote from his website.
REFUSE is the rejection of everything now that characterizes the post-modern society to retrieve the value and pleasure of waiting time. REFUSE is creative recycling-functional waste of the consumer society to give them a new life, a re-use and a new meaning. REFUSE is a story that does not end, a continuum of matter-life-history.
Photo Credit: Brian Davis