Travelan Italian

Lets get to it, Wednesday for our field trip we headed to Sangimiano.  

This little town was once again beautiful.  At one point in time the entire city had 90 different towers towering over it.  These towers were really interesting with the sense of scale that they gave the city. 

  

Fast forward to the interesting stuff, so over the entire trip people have been competing to see who can eat the most gelato in a day.  Just because its not as fattening as ice cream, and there is 1,000’s of flavors, and its delicious, we need more gelato shops in america.  Anyways my buddy Ryan had 20 flavors!  That’s like 30 dollars on ice cream.  It was kinda sickening to watch but he is now the reining champ, woot!  Then after the trip we got to go to a winery and taste four different wines for free.  It was too much fun, gotta love the Italians.

On the upcoming weekend I was not planning on traveling until Jonny Boy, Coral, and Ryan decided to surprise me with a trip to Milan, the Fashion capital of the world!  

  The Milan Train station was my favorite Train station thus far. SYNTAX!

First place we went to was a contemporary are Museum.  This Museum was very bizarre. Contemorary art is somewhat hit or miss.  What was interesting about this artist was that he was not limited by paint.  There were series of videos playing and weird creepy songs.  He made you question the roles between male and female with his own personal techno beats.  I enjoyed the fact that this guy worked with all types of art forms, dancing, music, singing, digital media, and painting.

Milan was a fun and lively place with many different styles of clothing, it had the biggest out door mall ever.  I went into the Mercedes Benz store to see if they had my car, but I guess they are over the year 2003.  Then we went into coach and Louie Vuitton, but we had been traveling all day so we kinda looked like homeless people, well at least my hair did by this point, while everyone else in there were wearing suits, giving us dirty looks. Below you see Coral stepping on some bull testicles.  I guess someone died when they were building this outdoor mall and in order to make sure you don't die, you must spin your heal on his balls.  Rough life for him.  

So then we decided to head to the Duomo.  This is one of the only Gothic Duomo’s in all of Italy so it was very different unique.  It had tall spires, and pointed arch ways.  It was really was spectacular.  It reminded me of a drip castle which might, no definitely is the reason why I like it.  It took them 500 years to build this thing though!  Can you imagine that?  The guy who designed it died like 440 years before it was completed!

This guy was creepy in this Gothic Church!  I immediately liked him, then when I got closer, I realized he was wearing someones skin as his robe…I liked him even more, bad to the bone in a church.

  

 Burn marks from bombs dropping just outside the Chapel in WWII.  That would have been horrible for a bomb to ruin 500 years of work, God Bless?

 Whats been bothering lately is the fact that Churches have stopped using candles in the church for you light and say a prayer.  Instead they are using little plastic candles with light bulbs that turn on when you put in money.  This church had class, another plus.

The Top of the Duomo was amazing.  We watched the sunset from up here and it was so relaxing.  Chillin on the roof of a church.

Caught Burrow taking a good picture of himself, I thought I'd take one too.

Past the Church in Milan was the Castle.  Tyler I know you asked me about it, I enjoyed it, I just wish Napoleon was not such a doucher and did not decide to drain the moat.  My whole life I have wanted to see a castle and a moat and the only one I have seen is at Disneyland.

Milan was an up beat exciting place.  I'm really glad and thankful my friends got me out of town for the weekend.  The streets were full of shopping and accented with some pretty amazing land art pieces.

  

Above is the train station in Florence, I loved all the colors in this scene.

On the way to our field trip we stopped at Temple el Bagio.  I loved all the shapes of this church, it was made up of circles, squares, and triangles but in a balanced manner.

This week for our field trip we went Pienza.  Man has the weather really dropped.  In the picture you can see my class shivering and zipping up their jackets.  This field trip was great but absolutely freezing. 

The Pope had this huge estate here and we got a tour, nothing to interesting except for this hidden room in the Library.  The lady said, “This closet room was used for reading and …. Other things”  Now everyone knows when you pause and say something that, it’s the boom boom room.  But I thought the Pope couldn’t get any so who was in this Boom Boom Room?

We had our final paid for lunch here and it was absolutely amazing.  One of the best meals ever.  Especially the lasagna, I asked the lady for a second helping after one bite into the first.  So I ate like 8 layers of lasagna stacked up on top of each other, mmm so good.

This old man was a crack up.  First I was talking about his get up and how I couldn't wait to have money and dress like a cool old man.  Then somehow he suckers my friend JR into a conversation about all the different family land owners you could see in this amazing view.  He just kept on talking and talking… In Italian, till he found out that JR did not understand one word he was saying, what a guy, so geeked on his town!

The next weekend I went to dream land, AKA the Chocolate Festival in Perugia.  I was walking down the street drinking the richest dark hot chocolate, eating chocolate covered oranges, and I honestly thought I had found heaven on earth.  Until an hour later when the sugar buzz wore off and I was over Chocolate.  They had this chocolate card that got you discounts on chocolate and led you on a scavenger hunt throughout the city for free items.  The chocolate card items consisted of a chocolate hammer, chocolate vitamins(that I take daily), vino, chocolate alcohol, and even discounts on our lunch.  The chocolate card might have been the best investment this trip.  

 My friend Christie on a horses ass.

I walked around the city of Perugia for a while by myself on a mission to find spray paint cans.  I'll explain why later, anyways I go up to this 14 year old Italian with some graffiti on his back pack.  I try asking him where to buy spray cans and after a lot of hand gestures and pointing he eventually figures out what I'm looking for, I'm basically fluent in hand gestures now.  So he tells me to follow him, he takes me to his school where all of his friends are hanging out.  So there I am wondering into a junior high with my camera out probably looking like a creeper.  Two of his friends come up to me and tell me to follow them.  They lead me through all these windy streets for like 15 minutes and the whole time they are trying to communicate with me.  At this point I'm pretty stoked because I think I'm on my way to get some spray paint.  After a fun journey through Perugia with some teenage Italians we end up at the store.  I walk in expecting to see art supplies, spray cans, and what do I see?  Little John t-shirts and Nike's in all colors.  I couldn't believe it, they took me to a tacky American store, but thats what happens when you have a language barrier.  As soon as the kids got me to the store they said something about their "Mama", and took off running.

 

The trip to Perugia was great, the chocolate, the friends, and not to mention a private back alley tour by two teenagers.  

Since I was unable to find spray paint cans in Perugia I decided to go to Florence the next day where I knew I could find some.  I didn't want to take a trip to Florence for only cans so I decided to see if there was anything going on in Florence.  I couldn't believe it when I stumbled on a "Cities of the Future and Creativity festival", destiny? I think yes.  Everything about the festival interested me; Photography, Music, Skate boarding, Graffiti, food, Architecture, and Land Art.  I started talking to this lady at a photo booth and after talking to her she gave me a card that would let me take pictures of the entire event as long as I came back and uploaded my pictures.  It just amazes me how easy it is to be an artist in Europe, I would never get an opportunity to display my photos on a website randomly like that in the states.  Point Europe.

After hanging at the festival for a couple hours we went to go buy spray cans, Finally success!  My friend Caleb has been to Florence a lot lately and was a pretty popular guy at this one hotel.  The hotel let us drop all our bags and spray paint off at the hotel and gave us some free beer while we headed back to the Cities of the Future and Creativity Festival for the concert.  I'm seeing a more hospitable side to Italians, there are just some instances where I think to myself, "Wow I can't believe this stranger is doing this for me."  While in America the nicest thing done on a daily basis is someone holding the door open for you.  Europe was racking up the points this weekend.

The reason I have been running around looking for spray paint was so I could participate in the Urban Artistry class.  I'm glad I decided to participate in my friend, FosL's, Urban Artistry class.  It led me on two adventures that have been such great experiences in Europe.  FosL wants to show people that Graffiti art is more than tagging on a wall, more than a tool that gangsters use.  Its a really great, FREE, class.  He devotes all day Sunday teaching spray painting techniques to whoever want to participate.

I really had a blast working at Urban Artistry.  It was so much fun to do a piece of art work that was so large.  Spray paint is also such a unique medium, the way you can blend colors is very unique. I have to thank my Grandma Joyce for this experience because she gave me money that I could only use for art supplies, these were my supplies. I know your stoked Carly, I'll teach you when I get home.

This is the last Tuscan Sunset I will see for two weeks until I return from my adventure.

There Are No Foreigners in Art

Back again at school in Castiglion Fiorentino, we decided to take a break from school and go wine picking for the day.  Wine picking is no joke.  I thought it was going to be like that one I love Lucy episode where Lucy gets to crush grapes with her toes, but no, it was not.  Instead you had to hunch your back over in the heat cut grapes off the vine and stack them in buckets.  The benefits of Grape picking: 1) Eating grapes off the vine is delicious. 2) You were able to drink Vino while working. 3) Miss class, we did get in trouble for it though... 4) We got a free dinner from the same winery where I posted the seven course meal, two post back, so delicious.

This Wednesday for our field trip we went to Asisi.  For some reason, Assisi sounded strangely like home to me and I didn't know why.  Then I realized it was because my Saint, Saint Frances, resides in this town.  It definitely brought me back to my good Ole' CCD days of being a good catholic boy.  I remember I choose Assisi because he was the saint of water and animals, he was a good dude. 

   

After visiting the church we were free to roam the town.  There is one of the best preserved castles in Asissi so that is where I decided to go so i could interact with the coolest ghost, Robin of Lauchli.  It was pretty awesome to see a building designed for killing people.

 Now I don't know if I was just too Geeked out to walk around a castle or what, but I fell down these little slippery spiral stairs... 3 times!  I had bruises all over the place the next day.  The castle did me in.

  Sniper Slits.

 Doin' Damage!

That weekend we went on a field trip to a Land Art park.  This is the area of Landscape Architecture I want to get involved with, so this was my favorite trip we have been on yet.

I liked this piece of art because it looked like a reptile scales.  Created by Fabrizio Corneli

I enjoyed this art piece, not because of what the artist wanted to accomplish, but because of what was subconsciously repeated in the background. The connection between the rows of copper caskets and the rows of olive groves interplay with each other.  Two different structures and entities connecting together.  Created by Magdalena Abakanowicz

This was a very fun exhibit.  It reminded me of a clown house with distorted mirrors.  Instead it was mirrors connected in an artistic way, to make you question what was going on.  This structure basically looked invisible from the outside, and once you walked inside you were confused by bright colors and mirror images.  Loved this work of art

This structure was like a sky space, but instead more like a tree canopy space.  I love tree canopies and breaking them down into dark and light, they create very interesting patterns.  Created by Susana Solano.

This was a small passageway through a dense forest.  On the right side people walked on all natural materials like stone and wood.  On the left side people walked on all man made materials like steel and copper.  These two pathways were no more than 6 inches wide at all times.  It was a fun little journey through the forest.  Created by George Trakas

  This Mushroom was like 3 feet wide!  I went to touch it and this Italian guy started yelling at me with some serious concern in his voice, so I decided not to touch it.  Created by Mother Nature herself.

This work was created by a husband and wife.  They usually do indoor installation and this was their first outdoor installation.  What I like about this piece of art is the fact that it is meant to be dynamic with weather.  These huge pieces of metal and stone are meant to be viewed when it is raining and the waterfall is full.  They basically created rapids in a stream, I mean who thinks of that?  Land art is sick.  Created by Anne and Patrick Poirier, how cute.

Above our two buoys that can float around this river throughout the day.  The goal of the artist was to not draw more attention to the object then the reflection that it lay on.  I enjoyed the fact that these two objects can interplay with each other.  Created by Marta Pan 

 

 

This was another amazing exhibit.  The artist used light to paint a picture.  In order to view his work you had to walk down a long corridor that led under ground.  The only light was let in from the sky glass box above.  It created this very filtered light down in the underground area making the user see everything in this black and white image.  Above is the sexy Coral Withsosky posing in the spot light.  Created by Bukichi Inoue

Above is a very long sloped triangular piece of concrete.  The goal of the art work is to draw the viewers eye up into the canopy of the trees in order to appreciate the effects of tree canopy and light.  I love how the artist can go in with an intent to make you see his vision, and accomplish those goals.

Here is my lovely classmates hanging out in a musical courtyard.  The artist took advantage of the natural slope and made steps of the amphitheater form into a point.  I would love to watch some B Spears performing here.  Created by Beverly Pepper

This was another fun interactive piece of art.  In the reflection on the left side of the photo you can see my class mates entering the Labyrinth.  After walking in a weird maze with angled floors and walls you come to a dead end!  I thought it was funny to make people walk through a maze to enter a place that you could not escape.  Created by Robert Morris.

Above was probably my favorite piece of Land art.  The simplicity of a natural material in a geometric shape, really makes me absorb the entire landscape as a whole.  Instead of focusing on the art of the object you focus on the surrounding environment, nature.  Created by Ulrich Ruckriem.

I loved this field trip.  It was not the best examples of Land Art I have seen, but I have never seen a collection like this in one place.  There is definitely not enough Land Art in America.  Parks need to be something more than a bench, they need to be playful, interactive, intriguing, and colorful.  Remember art can be expressed in all forms, you just have to try.  Point Italy.

P.s.  Dj T.P. Loved hearing your comments on Rome.  I loved that place, I can't believe you were hanging out in Rome for 3 months.  What an amazing town, I understand why you love L.A. so much now.  We will definitely converse on the European experience when I get home.  And to everyone else, express yourself through art!