Hello all,
I haven't forgotten you. Sorry I haven't posted in a while. We've been very focused on our quarter project here at school for the past couple of weeks and we're entering into the home stretch. Between project work, fieldtrips and general work and life, we've been pretty busy. I hope to get some more postings up before I leave, but even if I have to post to get caught up once I'm home I certainly will.
Today starts my last week in Italy. I've had such a great time and it's been a wonderful experience, but I'm ready to come home.
Until the next post... whenever the hell that is! :)
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Monday, October 27, 2008
We Have Wonderful News to Share!
Hello everyone! We have wonderful news to share!
Jeff has come to visit me in Italy and we spent the week on the Amalfi coast where we visited many beautiful towns and saw many wonderful sites. However, we have news better than all of that. On the balcony of our hotel on the Amalfi coast, overlooking the beautiful sea, Jeff asked me to MARRY HIM! And of course, I said YES!
We normally wouldn’t share news this important via online methods, but because I’m going to be out of touch for another month, I couldn’t wait and thought this was the best way to share the news with all of our loved ones.
It was a truly romantic, beautiful, loving moment that I will treasure forever and Amalfi made for the perfect setting. Jeff had very thoughtfully planned the proposal and asked me in a perfect way. He gifted me with a beautiful platinum ring of simple yet elegant beveled design. We will wear these matching rings throughout our engagement and as our wedding rings.
We haven’t set a date yet and haven’t made any definite plans, but we will certainly keep you posted. It may be a long engagement as I get through school, but we couldn’t wait to share this incredible news with the people we hold dear.
So please celebrate with us as we celebrate with each other, in our commitment in love to one another.
We hope you’re all well and can’t wait to catch up with you and celebrate this news with you in person!
Jeff has come to visit me in Italy and we spent the week on the Amalfi coast where we visited many beautiful towns and saw many wonderful sites. However, we have news better than all of that. On the balcony of our hotel on the Amalfi coast, overlooking the beautiful sea, Jeff asked me to MARRY HIM! And of course, I said YES!
We normally wouldn’t share news this important via online methods, but because I’m going to be out of touch for another month, I couldn’t wait and thought this was the best way to share the news with all of our loved ones.
It was a truly romantic, beautiful, loving moment that I will treasure forever and Amalfi made for the perfect setting. Jeff had very thoughtfully planned the proposal and asked me in a perfect way. He gifted me with a beautiful platinum ring of simple yet elegant beveled design. We will wear these matching rings throughout our engagement and as our wedding rings.
We haven’t set a date yet and haven’t made any definite plans, but we will certainly keep you posted. It may be a long engagement as I get through school, but we couldn’t wait to share this incredible news with the people we hold dear.
So please celebrate with us as we celebrate with each other, in our commitment in love to one another.
We hope you’re all well and can’t wait to catch up with you and celebrate this news with you in person!
Love,
Jeff & Ieszic
Jeff & Ieszic
Friday, October 17, 2008
Castle Montecchio
Yeah, so the other I went for a walk through Tuscan fields to the medieval castle across the valley, no big deal. Crazy thought, huh? On a high hill across the valley from town sits a medieval castle. The existing building dates back to approximately the 1100’s, but the site also contains ruins of settlements that pre-date the Etruscans, making them over 3,000 years old.
The castle sits on the hill and makes for a very picturesque view, but I hadn’t yet made it up to it. Just the other day the Contessa (yes, there actually is a Contessa who lives in the castle!) invited the students of our school there for a tour, which is an unusual treat. The castle has been closed for several years for excavation and renovation. Most of the site is composed of architectural ruins, but two buildings have been restored. The Contessa lives in one of them and the other is a tower containing rooms for her guests and a place for the archeology students of the University of Rome to work. The students are currently undertaking the excavations.
Merilee and I opted to walk up to the castle because it was such a beautiful day. The walk is about 5 miles and took an hour and a half each way, but it was so beautiful. We wondered among carefully maintained agricultural fields and beautiful hillsides. The valley surrounding our city is really something.
Here are a couple of images of the fields and sights along our walk.
This picture shows the castle in the distance, about 2 miles away. The photo appears a bit hazy due to the farmers burning their excess cuttings in their fields. This is typical in the mornings this time of year around the harvests. It smells good, like a campfire, but makes for a hazy picture.
A little closer to the castle here…
We made it! This is the exterior of the castle. The tower section you can see on the right is the part that has been restored for guest quarters and student work.
Look! I’m actually touching a real live ancient medieval castle! Probably shouldn’t be doing that but it was so cool!
Inside the castle most of the smaller walls have been destroyed over the years. The butts of walls you can see jutting out from the exterior wall with the turrets show where some of the homes, churches and official offices once were. Apparently, because of the ideal location of this castle it was under siege many times throughout history. Sometimes it’s not quite so advantageous to have the best view, huh?
An interesting shot showing the staircase that once lead to an upper floor.
The interior also once contained gardens and areas for livestock, likely in areas such as this where the trees are growing. The castle stood as a self sustaining city.
This is one of the active excavation sites. This area was once a small church. Do you see the ground level with the sparse weeds on the right hand side? That was the level of the soil of the entire area, all of which has been painstakingly removed by hand – tiny shovel by tiny shovel and brush. I wondered if the students who are working here are reconsidering majors.
The round stones inside this window are original ammunition for the castle’s catapult. Isn’t that crazy? It’s like walking through the movie Braveheart or something. There are many other artifacts lying around. We chatted briefly with a student who was sitting on the ground carefully washing and cataloging pottery shards that had been discovered. They have crates, and crates, and crates of ceramics.
It was a real treat seeing this place and getting a special tour from the Contessa. Another crazy adventure in Italy! And to make it even better, the walk home provided some beautiful views of our town from across the valley.
The castle sits on the hill and makes for a very picturesque view, but I hadn’t yet made it up to it. Just the other day the Contessa (yes, there actually is a Contessa who lives in the castle!) invited the students of our school there for a tour, which is an unusual treat. The castle has been closed for several years for excavation and renovation. Most of the site is composed of architectural ruins, but two buildings have been restored. The Contessa lives in one of them and the other is a tower containing rooms for her guests and a place for the archeology students of the University of Rome to work. The students are currently undertaking the excavations.
Merilee and I opted to walk up to the castle because it was such a beautiful day. The walk is about 5 miles and took an hour and a half each way, but it was so beautiful. We wondered among carefully maintained agricultural fields and beautiful hillsides. The valley surrounding our city is really something.
Here are a couple of images of the fields and sights along our walk.
This picture shows the castle in the distance, about 2 miles away. The photo appears a bit hazy due to the farmers burning their excess cuttings in their fields. This is typical in the mornings this time of year around the harvests. It smells good, like a campfire, but makes for a hazy picture.
A little closer to the castle here…
We made it! This is the exterior of the castle. The tower section you can see on the right is the part that has been restored for guest quarters and student work.
Look! I’m actually touching a real live ancient medieval castle! Probably shouldn’t be doing that but it was so cool!
Inside the castle most of the smaller walls have been destroyed over the years. The butts of walls you can see jutting out from the exterior wall with the turrets show where some of the homes, churches and official offices once were. Apparently, because of the ideal location of this castle it was under siege many times throughout history. Sometimes it’s not quite so advantageous to have the best view, huh?
An interesting shot showing the staircase that once lead to an upper floor.
The interior also once contained gardens and areas for livestock, likely in areas such as this where the trees are growing. The castle stood as a self sustaining city.
This is one of the active excavation sites. This area was once a small church. Do you see the ground level with the sparse weeds on the right hand side? That was the level of the soil of the entire area, all of which has been painstakingly removed by hand – tiny shovel by tiny shovel and brush. I wondered if the students who are working here are reconsidering majors.
The round stones inside this window are original ammunition for the castle’s catapult. Isn’t that crazy? It’s like walking through the movie Braveheart or something. There are many other artifacts lying around. We chatted briefly with a student who was sitting on the ground carefully washing and cataloging pottery shards that had been discovered. They have crates, and crates, and crates of ceramics.
It was a real treat seeing this place and getting a special tour from the Contessa. Another crazy adventure in Italy! And to make it even better, the walk home provided some beautiful views of our town from across the valley.
La Giostra del Saracino (The Joust of the Saracen)
We arrived in Tuscany just in time to witness the 108th Joust of the Saracen, a famous local jousting competition played in the city of Arezzo, which is the nearest “big town” to us. The joust is something of a reenactment of the battles of the Tuscan people against the Saracen invaders in the 14th century. These people take their jousting seriously! If I’d ever been to a Super Bowl game, I think it would be like that. OK, many fewer people, but I think they made up for it in vigor and excitement.
For weeks before the event the town is bustling in preparation for the big day. There are all-night parties, parades and decorations. This image shows some of the buildings decorated with colorful coats of arms for the joust.
The city is divided into four quarters named Porta Crucifera, Porta San Andrea, Porta San Spirito and Porta del Foro. Their names represent the city gate at the corner of town that they live in. Many medieval Italian cities are divided in quarters or districts like these, and the residents are extremely proud of the district they represent. It’s a very strong feature of their local culture. The way the tournament works is each quarter has two jousters on horses and they compete until a winning quarter is selected.
On the morning of the competition there is a big parade of hundreds of people in medieval period costumes, drummers, flags, and horses. Each quarter parades into the center of town from their gate through the city to the Piazza Grande, where the joust takes place. The streets were packed with people coming to see the parade!
The booming percussion of the drummers as they marched along the stone streets really got my heart beating. You could feel the beat of the drums as they passed!
The streets were lined with people in all kinds of wonderful costumes.
Each quarter has its own colors and flags, and the participants and observers are decked out in these colors as you can see in the crossbow-carrying paraders marching here.
And of course the jousters on their horses also parade through town.
At one point in the parade, in the middle of town, a town crier of sorts climbs above the crowd, decked out in costume, and calls out the challenge of the tournament to the four quarters.
In the competition the jousters will charge at a wooden statue figure called the “Saracen” (representing the ancient invaders) and will aim his joust at a target held in the statue’s left hand. There are elaborate rules for scoring, but basically it’s similar to darts in that you get a higher score for hitting the center and so on. But there’s a trick! Once the joust hits the target, the wooden Saracen spins around wielding 3 stone balls on ropes called “mazzafrusto” in its right hand, whipping toward the jouster. The jouster has to hit the target and get out of the way of the Saracen before it hits him in the back with the stone balls. It’s a vicious game! They even get extra points for breaking the target and win the joust outright if they break the Saracen statue.
This is the wooden Saracen statue. You can see the target in his left hand and, and if you look closely, the balls on ropes in his right.
Once the crowd was in place the festivities began with flag throwers and processions through the jousting field. Jenny, I thought of you when I saw the flag team! They were really amazing to watch!
Finally, before the jousting began, the horses marched in procession through the field, all dressed up in banners, flags and the colors of their quarters.
As the competition proceeded the observers from the four quarters in the crowd would jeer at and taunt each other with songs and chants. Each quarter had their own area around the field. Everyone was wearing their colors and flags for their quarters. As they would chant and sing they would raise their hands toward the quarter they were challenging.
And as you can see here the chanting and cheering wasn’t always friendly! In fact, they got down right nasty yelling chants at the other quarters saying something about the other quarters’ mothers. There are two quarters in particular who are at severe odds, and the other two quarters are pretty mellow. The rowdiest of the wild quarters is Porta Crucifera, who are just crazy. And yes, that’s the crowd I got to stand in. YIKES! They were wild and crazy!
I was so far back in the crowd that I couldn’t see much of the jousting, but I was able to raise my camera above my head and luckily snapped this picture of one of the jousters making an excellent strike on the target.
As it turned out, the quarter of Porta San Andrea were the winners, and also the arch nemesis of the wild quarter I was standing among. There were a lot of angry people in the crowd around me and one fight broke out but it was quickly stopped. I was actually delighted that Porta San Andrea won against the group I was standing in because I thought the group I was in was particularly nasty and poor sportsmen. Anywho, when the winner was announced the crowd went WILD and rushed into the center of the field to congratulate their jousters!
In summary, it was a great cultural experience and I’m glad I did it but I’d never do it again! Too wild and crowded for me! (My God, I’m getting old!) So, for those of you trying to think of Christmas gifts for me, you can probably scratch Super Bowl tickets off of your lists.
For weeks before the event the town is bustling in preparation for the big day. There are all-night parties, parades and decorations. This image shows some of the buildings decorated with colorful coats of arms for the joust.
The city is divided into four quarters named Porta Crucifera, Porta San Andrea, Porta San Spirito and Porta del Foro. Their names represent the city gate at the corner of town that they live in. Many medieval Italian cities are divided in quarters or districts like these, and the residents are extremely proud of the district they represent. It’s a very strong feature of their local culture. The way the tournament works is each quarter has two jousters on horses and they compete until a winning quarter is selected.
On the morning of the competition there is a big parade of hundreds of people in medieval period costumes, drummers, flags, and horses. Each quarter parades into the center of town from their gate through the city to the Piazza Grande, where the joust takes place. The streets were packed with people coming to see the parade!
The booming percussion of the drummers as they marched along the stone streets really got my heart beating. You could feel the beat of the drums as they passed!
The streets were lined with people in all kinds of wonderful costumes.
Each quarter has its own colors and flags, and the participants and observers are decked out in these colors as you can see in the crossbow-carrying paraders marching here.
And of course the jousters on their horses also parade through town.
At one point in the parade, in the middle of town, a town crier of sorts climbs above the crowd, decked out in costume, and calls out the challenge of the tournament to the four quarters.
In the competition the jousters will charge at a wooden statue figure called the “Saracen” (representing the ancient invaders) and will aim his joust at a target held in the statue’s left hand. There are elaborate rules for scoring, but basically it’s similar to darts in that you get a higher score for hitting the center and so on. But there’s a trick! Once the joust hits the target, the wooden Saracen spins around wielding 3 stone balls on ropes called “mazzafrusto” in its right hand, whipping toward the jouster. The jouster has to hit the target and get out of the way of the Saracen before it hits him in the back with the stone balls. It’s a vicious game! They even get extra points for breaking the target and win the joust outright if they break the Saracen statue.
This is the wooden Saracen statue. You can see the target in his left hand and, and if you look closely, the balls on ropes in his right.
Once the crowd was in place the festivities began with flag throwers and processions through the jousting field. Jenny, I thought of you when I saw the flag team! They were really amazing to watch!
Finally, before the jousting began, the horses marched in procession through the field, all dressed up in banners, flags and the colors of their quarters.
As the competition proceeded the observers from the four quarters in the crowd would jeer at and taunt each other with songs and chants. Each quarter had their own area around the field. Everyone was wearing their colors and flags for their quarters. As they would chant and sing they would raise their hands toward the quarter they were challenging.
And as you can see here the chanting and cheering wasn’t always friendly! In fact, they got down right nasty yelling chants at the other quarters saying something about the other quarters’ mothers. There are two quarters in particular who are at severe odds, and the other two quarters are pretty mellow. The rowdiest of the wild quarters is Porta Crucifera, who are just crazy. And yes, that’s the crowd I got to stand in. YIKES! They were wild and crazy!
I was so far back in the crowd that I couldn’t see much of the jousting, but I was able to raise my camera above my head and luckily snapped this picture of one of the jousters making an excellent strike on the target.
As it turned out, the quarter of Porta San Andrea were the winners, and also the arch nemesis of the wild quarter I was standing among. There were a lot of angry people in the crowd around me and one fight broke out but it was quickly stopped. I was actually delighted that Porta San Andrea won against the group I was standing in because I thought the group I was in was particularly nasty and poor sportsmen. Anywho, when the winner was announced the crowd went WILD and rushed into the center of the field to congratulate their jousters!
In summary, it was a great cultural experience and I’m glad I did it but I’d never do it again! Too wild and crowded for me! (My God, I’m getting old!) So, for those of you trying to think of Christmas gifts for me, you can probably scratch Super Bowl tickets off of your lists.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Happy Birthday & Anniversary Cindy & Mike!
Happy Birthday/Anniversary to You!
Happy Birthday/Anniversary to You!
Happy Birthday/Anniversary Dear Cindy & Mike!
Happy Birthday/Anniversary to You!
Hey Grandma and Grandpa Carroll! I hope your big day is lots of fun and filled with love. That was so sweet of Rachel to give you a grandbaby for your birthday! Heh, heh. Enjoy your day and know that I love you guys.
Happy Birthday/Anniversary to You!
Happy Birthday/Anniversary Dear Cindy & Mike!
Happy Birthday/Anniversary to You!
Hey Grandma and Grandpa Carroll! I hope your big day is lots of fun and filled with love. That was so sweet of Rachel to give you a grandbaby for your birthday! Heh, heh. Enjoy your day and know that I love you guys.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Congratulations Rachel and Welcome to the World Penelope!!!
I just received word from GRANDMA Cindy that Penelope was born at 8:09 this morning! She is a perfect 7 lbs 9 oz and 19 in, and both baby and mommy are doing great. Congratulations Rachel and welcome to the world Penelope! I wish I could be there now. Please know that I love you both and am thinking of you and sending you much love! I can't wait to meet you Penelope! Love, your GREAT Uncle Ieszic.
Oh, the Labors of School in Italy
The school program here covers the classes I would be taking at home and also allows us to take unique art classes as well as several fieldtrips and tours.
My core class is called “Methods and Applications” which is a study of the primary methodologies behind landscape architecture and tasks us to apply them to a particular real world project. In the graduate student group from Cal Poly Pomona we have 11 landscape architecture graduate students (including myself) plus one architecture graduate student. Of that we have formed two groups to work on two different projects. The project I’m working on is based on a site on the western coast of Rome in a city named Ostia Antica. In a nutshell, we’re working to find a way to reconnect several various land use areas that have become separated over a course of many years into one interconnected community and space. The other group is working on a site on the island of Sardinia where they’re charged with addressing environmental issues in the city of Sorso.
I’m also taking a landscape history class, a painting class, a class on “survival Italian,” and a class in stone carving! Nice classes, huh?
Part of our program includes many tours of historic and landscape/architectural importance. The tours are given by our professors Phil and Ken as well as by members of the Santa Chiara program and occasionally by hired professional tour guides. Each week we take a chartered bus or the local train to a new city or site for a day trip and tour. Part of our assignments for these fieldtrips is that we produce at least one sketch and one poem from each site. It’s a neat way to make you think creatively about the site and see it in a unique way.
The man in the red shirt is Paolo, the founder of the program here at Santa Chiara, and the man in the background is our professor Phil. Phil and Paolo are both great tour guides and are an incredible wealth of knowledge on the historic, political, artistic and landscape happenings of the sites we visit. It’s wonderful to listen to them as they guide us through sites because you can see the fire in their eyes as they talk. It’s great to watch people doing what they love. And this only adds to the quality and enjoyment of the tours.
Here’s our group heading up a steep street here in Castiglion Fiorentino for one of our first tours of our new home town.
On this tour with Paolo and Phil we were able to visit the interior of the church next to our school, Chiesa San Giuliano. The interior was beautifully decorated and contains some spectacular paintings as well as stone and tile work.
This painting of the Virgin Mary with child Jesus dates back to the 1200’s. The colors and gold leafing on the painting are still so vibrant and beautiful.
Paolo was able to get us a special tour into the local museum and library. This guy has some clout around here as we always seem to get special treatment when he’s around. Here, in this library, the curator let us into a special room of ancient books. These books date back to the 1100’s! Can you imagine? They were just incredible and the shelves on the walls were lined with them! What a wealth of collection. In this picture the curator and her little girl (I assumed) are taking out one of the impressive pieces of the collection for us to take a close look at it.
This book is a bible from the 1200’s that includes Gregorian chants. The leather cover and bindings are all original. It was about 2 ½ feet long and 1 ½ feet wide.
Inside the book Paolo showed us the beautiful hand painted lettering and music. The pages are all made of sheepskin.
The colors were so vivid and beautiful! We were all just in awe. Such exquisite work and from 800 years ago. It’s hard for me to get my mind around that. The time and effort that went into making this one-of-a-kind work of art is unbelievable.
Paolo also showed us a medieval journal of legal events taking place here in Castiglion Fiorentino. This book documents legal proceedings, property information and also the not-so-pleasant demise of several people. The hand painted icons on the left of the page show hanging people indicating that the person was, well, hanged. The icons of the boats indicate that they were exiled. It was really fascinating!
After visiting the library we walked around town and stopped at several important locations where Paolo would captivate us all with wonderful stories and history. This picture shows the original “measures” of Castiglion Fiorentino. Back in medieval times each city displayed their standards of measurement near the city center. These standards would tell everyone exactly how long a particular metric was by having a unit of the measurements cut in metal and built into a wall to be displayed. This way everyone was measuring things to the same standards in that town. Most towns of the region had the same measurement standards but they did occasionally vary as these remote little towns were often forgotten (out of sight) by the aristocracy and were ruled by a local elected government.
After that we visited the Etruscan museum here in town which had a very nice collection and exhibit. Castiglion Fiorentino has several sites of Etruscan settlements and some are very well preserved. This image shows one of the excavations discovered underneath the building that is now the museum.
This image is of Etruscan pottery found at the site.
Back inside the school, we have two studios that are dedicated to the Cal Poly Pomona students. We use these studios for painting, computer work, classes and project work. Unfortunately, many of the undergrads also use the studios for ping pong, games and hanging out which doesn’t make for a productive, creative working environment for anyone else. Geez, I sound like and old man! The studios are great spaces, just not usually a good place for quite work.
Whenever the weather is good we have our painting class in the late afternoon outside in the school courtyard. We started with watercolor and some pencil figure drawing and are just now moving to oil paints. It’s been a lot of fun and also very frustrating for me. Inside I feel like I have a lot of creative talent just waiting to burst out but then when I see what I turn out I’m often disappointed. I guess it’s a matter of practice. At any rate, the classes have been great.
Here my friends and classmates Jason and April are analyzing the sky as we were working on an assignment to paint the clouds.
And here’s Merilee and company hard at work with watercolors.
Speaking of being hard at work, in this picture you can see some of my watercolor tools. One of these cups is for cleaning my brushes and one is not. Can you guess what’s in the dark glass? I love Italy!
And here’s a common character who visits us during watercolor class. This is Henry, who I mentioned earlier. He’s our resident crow who lives here and is completely comfortable with the people. In this shot he’s fresh from fluffing himself up after a bath. You have to keep your eyes on this guy or you might lose your breakfast and/or paint brushes!
In addition to the classes offered by the school, we were able to register for art classes offered by local artisans. I chose to sign up for a stone carving class taught by a local artist named Alberto Bruni, whom we call Maestro Bruni. He’s a wonderful character and a very talented artist. He’s quite famous in this region and even has work shown in famous New York galleries. Currently he is in his late 70’s and is both a stone sculptor and a painter. His introduction to art is a rather sad story though. Earlier in his life he was a mason and a home builder. However, 20 years ago his wife passed away and so he began to dabble in painting and stone carving to “fill the void in his life” as he describes it. He’s had no formal training as an artist, and is completely self-taught. In 20 years he has disciplined himself to be a very talented artist. He said the stone carving all began when he realized that he needed a new mantle for his fireplace and decided to carve it himself from stone!
He doesn’t speak any English, so all of this is understood through the occasional translator, gestures, and the little bit of Italian that I understand. We seem to have developed a good relationship though, and he is very kind to me. As we work (our group of about 6 people) he walks from person to person and helps us with our carvings. He shows us how to hold the mallet and chisel (which he made for each of us!) and guides us with how to accomplish our designs. He’ll walk by, laugh, put his hand on the back of my neck and give me a shake saying, “Bene, bene!” I’m only hoping he’s not making fun of me!
Here’s the man himself, Maestro Bruni!
His work is just amazing. This is a bicycle, with spinning wheels, a chain with moving links, and a horn that actually whistles, all carved from stone!
This dresser he carved from stone has working drawers that easily slide in and out just like a wooden dresser. It’s just beautiful!
The picture here doesn’t do this piece justice, but this is a completely functional hope chest that opens and even locks with a key and a locking mechanism all carved from stone!
Maestro Bruni’s style is beautifully naïve. His sculptures of people and his paintings are almost cartoon like and have wonderful expressions. This sculpture of a woman with a pack on her back makes me envision an older lady coming home from a long day working in the fields. The smile on her face makes me imagine that she’s happy to be going home to a nice hot pot of soup and someone she loves.
A REALLY quirky thing about Maestro Bruni is his interest with people pooping. Yes, pooping! He paints and sculpts things from everyday life – from the life he knows as having grown up with few resources and working hard on the farm. And, well, people poop. So, he paints and sculpts this too. Kind of odd, but a fact of life, and I appreciate that he’s not afraid to express that. What a character! Here is one of his pooping paintings…
This man is also in the Guinness Book of World Records for carving the longest piece of chain from a single block of stone. Yes, CHAIN! With moving, individual links. It’s incredible! The chains are kind of his specialty and they’re really quite beautiful. This is the piece that made the world’s record. Imagine, a single block of stone!
We work in his studio with him which is on his property just behind his home.
He has set each of us up with our own mallet and chisel (which I mentioned he made for us!) and a tile of stone to “practice” on (picture below). However, I’m still “practicing” in my first tile so I don’t know if I’m going to make it to a “real” piece, but I’m having a great time learning, I’m enjoying the experience of working with Maestro Bruni, and I’m having fun.
So see? I am working hard, I am! Art and landscape architecture school in Italy is tough work. It’s not for everyone. It requires intense training and much preparation. Umm, yeah. Anybody buying this? Hell, I’m the luckiest guy in the world!
In all honesty though, this truly is a wonderful learning environment and opportunity. We are reading, studying, writing reports and working on projects. But, at the same time we’re touring incredible places, eating more than is humanly possible, and drinking wonderful wine and cappuccino. Jeff, honey, I think WD-40 might need a logistics office here!
My core class is called “Methods and Applications” which is a study of the primary methodologies behind landscape architecture and tasks us to apply them to a particular real world project. In the graduate student group from Cal Poly Pomona we have 11 landscape architecture graduate students (including myself) plus one architecture graduate student. Of that we have formed two groups to work on two different projects. The project I’m working on is based on a site on the western coast of Rome in a city named Ostia Antica. In a nutshell, we’re working to find a way to reconnect several various land use areas that have become separated over a course of many years into one interconnected community and space. The other group is working on a site on the island of Sardinia where they’re charged with addressing environmental issues in the city of Sorso.
I’m also taking a landscape history class, a painting class, a class on “survival Italian,” and a class in stone carving! Nice classes, huh?
Part of our program includes many tours of historic and landscape/architectural importance. The tours are given by our professors Phil and Ken as well as by members of the Santa Chiara program and occasionally by hired professional tour guides. Each week we take a chartered bus or the local train to a new city or site for a day trip and tour. Part of our assignments for these fieldtrips is that we produce at least one sketch and one poem from each site. It’s a neat way to make you think creatively about the site and see it in a unique way.
The man in the red shirt is Paolo, the founder of the program here at Santa Chiara, and the man in the background is our professor Phil. Phil and Paolo are both great tour guides and are an incredible wealth of knowledge on the historic, political, artistic and landscape happenings of the sites we visit. It’s wonderful to listen to them as they guide us through sites because you can see the fire in their eyes as they talk. It’s great to watch people doing what they love. And this only adds to the quality and enjoyment of the tours.
Here’s our group heading up a steep street here in Castiglion Fiorentino for one of our first tours of our new home town.
On this tour with Paolo and Phil we were able to visit the interior of the church next to our school, Chiesa San Giuliano. The interior was beautifully decorated and contains some spectacular paintings as well as stone and tile work.
This painting of the Virgin Mary with child Jesus dates back to the 1200’s. The colors and gold leafing on the painting are still so vibrant and beautiful.
Paolo was able to get us a special tour into the local museum and library. This guy has some clout around here as we always seem to get special treatment when he’s around. Here, in this library, the curator let us into a special room of ancient books. These books date back to the 1100’s! Can you imagine? They were just incredible and the shelves on the walls were lined with them! What a wealth of collection. In this picture the curator and her little girl (I assumed) are taking out one of the impressive pieces of the collection for us to take a close look at it.
This book is a bible from the 1200’s that includes Gregorian chants. The leather cover and bindings are all original. It was about 2 ½ feet long and 1 ½ feet wide.
Inside the book Paolo showed us the beautiful hand painted lettering and music. The pages are all made of sheepskin.
The colors were so vivid and beautiful! We were all just in awe. Such exquisite work and from 800 years ago. It’s hard for me to get my mind around that. The time and effort that went into making this one-of-a-kind work of art is unbelievable.
Paolo also showed us a medieval journal of legal events taking place here in Castiglion Fiorentino. This book documents legal proceedings, property information and also the not-so-pleasant demise of several people. The hand painted icons on the left of the page show hanging people indicating that the person was, well, hanged. The icons of the boats indicate that they were exiled. It was really fascinating!
After visiting the library we walked around town and stopped at several important locations where Paolo would captivate us all with wonderful stories and history. This picture shows the original “measures” of Castiglion Fiorentino. Back in medieval times each city displayed their standards of measurement near the city center. These standards would tell everyone exactly how long a particular metric was by having a unit of the measurements cut in metal and built into a wall to be displayed. This way everyone was measuring things to the same standards in that town. Most towns of the region had the same measurement standards but they did occasionally vary as these remote little towns were often forgotten (out of sight) by the aristocracy and were ruled by a local elected government.
After that we visited the Etruscan museum here in town which had a very nice collection and exhibit. Castiglion Fiorentino has several sites of Etruscan settlements and some are very well preserved. This image shows one of the excavations discovered underneath the building that is now the museum.
This image is of Etruscan pottery found at the site.
Back inside the school, we have two studios that are dedicated to the Cal Poly Pomona students. We use these studios for painting, computer work, classes and project work. Unfortunately, many of the undergrads also use the studios for ping pong, games and hanging out which doesn’t make for a productive, creative working environment for anyone else. Geez, I sound like and old man! The studios are great spaces, just not usually a good place for quite work.
Whenever the weather is good we have our painting class in the late afternoon outside in the school courtyard. We started with watercolor and some pencil figure drawing and are just now moving to oil paints. It’s been a lot of fun and also very frustrating for me. Inside I feel like I have a lot of creative talent just waiting to burst out but then when I see what I turn out I’m often disappointed. I guess it’s a matter of practice. At any rate, the classes have been great.
Here my friends and classmates Jason and April are analyzing the sky as we were working on an assignment to paint the clouds.
And here’s Merilee and company hard at work with watercolors.
Speaking of being hard at work, in this picture you can see some of my watercolor tools. One of these cups is for cleaning my brushes and one is not. Can you guess what’s in the dark glass? I love Italy!
And here’s a common character who visits us during watercolor class. This is Henry, who I mentioned earlier. He’s our resident crow who lives here and is completely comfortable with the people. In this shot he’s fresh from fluffing himself up after a bath. You have to keep your eyes on this guy or you might lose your breakfast and/or paint brushes!
In addition to the classes offered by the school, we were able to register for art classes offered by local artisans. I chose to sign up for a stone carving class taught by a local artist named Alberto Bruni, whom we call Maestro Bruni. He’s a wonderful character and a very talented artist. He’s quite famous in this region and even has work shown in famous New York galleries. Currently he is in his late 70’s and is both a stone sculptor and a painter. His introduction to art is a rather sad story though. Earlier in his life he was a mason and a home builder. However, 20 years ago his wife passed away and so he began to dabble in painting and stone carving to “fill the void in his life” as he describes it. He’s had no formal training as an artist, and is completely self-taught. In 20 years he has disciplined himself to be a very talented artist. He said the stone carving all began when he realized that he needed a new mantle for his fireplace and decided to carve it himself from stone!
He doesn’t speak any English, so all of this is understood through the occasional translator, gestures, and the little bit of Italian that I understand. We seem to have developed a good relationship though, and he is very kind to me. As we work (our group of about 6 people) he walks from person to person and helps us with our carvings. He shows us how to hold the mallet and chisel (which he made for each of us!) and guides us with how to accomplish our designs. He’ll walk by, laugh, put his hand on the back of my neck and give me a shake saying, “Bene, bene!” I’m only hoping he’s not making fun of me!
Here’s the man himself, Maestro Bruni!
His work is just amazing. This is a bicycle, with spinning wheels, a chain with moving links, and a horn that actually whistles, all carved from stone!
This dresser he carved from stone has working drawers that easily slide in and out just like a wooden dresser. It’s just beautiful!
The picture here doesn’t do this piece justice, but this is a completely functional hope chest that opens and even locks with a key and a locking mechanism all carved from stone!
Maestro Bruni’s style is beautifully naïve. His sculptures of people and his paintings are almost cartoon like and have wonderful expressions. This sculpture of a woman with a pack on her back makes me envision an older lady coming home from a long day working in the fields. The smile on her face makes me imagine that she’s happy to be going home to a nice hot pot of soup and someone she loves.
A REALLY quirky thing about Maestro Bruni is his interest with people pooping. Yes, pooping! He paints and sculpts things from everyday life – from the life he knows as having grown up with few resources and working hard on the farm. And, well, people poop. So, he paints and sculpts this too. Kind of odd, but a fact of life, and I appreciate that he’s not afraid to express that. What a character! Here is one of his pooping paintings…
This man is also in the Guinness Book of World Records for carving the longest piece of chain from a single block of stone. Yes, CHAIN! With moving, individual links. It’s incredible! The chains are kind of his specialty and they’re really quite beautiful. This is the piece that made the world’s record. Imagine, a single block of stone!
We work in his studio with him which is on his property just behind his home.
He has set each of us up with our own mallet and chisel (which I mentioned he made for us!) and a tile of stone to “practice” on (picture below). However, I’m still “practicing” in my first tile so I don’t know if I’m going to make it to a “real” piece, but I’m having a great time learning, I’m enjoying the experience of working with Maestro Bruni, and I’m having fun.
So see? I am working hard, I am! Art and landscape architecture school in Italy is tough work. It’s not for everyone. It requires intense training and much preparation. Umm, yeah. Anybody buying this? Hell, I’m the luckiest guy in the world!
In all honesty though, this truly is a wonderful learning environment and opportunity. We are reading, studying, writing reports and working on projects. But, at the same time we’re touring incredible places, eating more than is humanly possible, and drinking wonderful wine and cappuccino. Jeff, honey, I think WD-40 might need a logistics office here!
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