Ciao tutti,
Ok, time for my latest update. Time is flying by so fast. It’s strange though… every day we seem to make good use of every waking minute and enjoy them all. It feels like we just got here, but the studio classes were already talking about the steps for organizing the end of session gallery show the week of the 8th!
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| Santa Margarita |
The weekend of the 8th was amazing. It kicked off with a bang (well actually a flame) on Friday night. The sculpture class did a bronze firing in the terraced hillside on the grounds, "old-school style". It was like watching something from another world. With the fall smells and the cool air this big beautiful green flame was billowing from the ground in the hillside and you could here it roaring from all the way down in town. It looked like a porthole to another dimension (you know what I mean if you've ever seen the movie Poltergeist). There were ten or fifteen students helping, carrying the giant crucible of molten bronze, scraping the impurities off the top, the then finally pouring it into the large molds, that were awaiting their fill, buried in the ground. Just as they started to pour the first mold, the bells of Santa Margarita, the covent on the hill above the school which houses the body of it's name sake, began to chime. It was as if it was a sign of her blessing the pour. It was very labor intensive and required a lot of for planning and coordination, but it went beautifully and was an incredible experience for the students!
The following day was our first Saturday in Cortona. In the morning, the school organized a "caccia al tesoro" or treasure hunt. I stayed home a get ready for Emily (my roommate from my first year living in Florence) and Niko to come visit. Chris set out early in the morning with a team of three other professors and they called themselves the "Quattro Formaggi" or the four cheeses. They had far too much fun deciphering the difficult clues which lead them all over the town. While they were doing all of that, I wandered around in the open air market in the central piazzas and bought some fresh veggies from a little old woman and some other essentials (i.e.: a nice block of "pecornio al tartufo", sheep cheese with black truffle).
After Emily arrived with Niko (her husband) we took a stroll around the town and through the market, met up with Chris to have an amazing lunch and then headed up to the school for the "vendemmia" (wine making). The school has grapevines on the terraced hillside and the school's caretaker tends them. Every year they hold a vendemmia where the students, staff, faculty get to crush the grapes "Lucile Ball style"... in a big bucket with your bare feet! We hesitated, thinking ok, it can't be so great that we to want to get our feet all sticky and covered in grape mush... Well, we finally caved and it was amazing! We even got Emily to get in. It was like an getting incredible massage on your feet and it was a lot of fun too.
That evening Emily and Niko had to head back into Florence before dinner to take care of their new little kitten and we went to the printmaking professor's apartment for a potluck dinner. Her apartment is attached to a beautiful little private garden that her landlord lovingly tends to every day and it is truly gorgeous! They set up the grill and we barbecued. Everything was so delicious and the weather was perfect in the crisp October air.
The next morning Chris and I got up and set out for an exercise walk and it was magnificent! We followed the edge to the city walls, out of city, to this little tiny town on the other side of the mountain called Torreone where we linked up with a path that follows an old Roman road over to other side of the mountain. And, I have to tell you Dad, you're right... it looked just like home. We followed the path to the point at the very inner corner of the valley where the two mountains meet and I got such a strong flash of childhood memories of walking on the stone paths on the mountain heading to Forest City where we would fill water jugs at the mountain spring for drinking water. It gave me this incredible sense of home, not a sad one of missing home, but one where I had a strong sense that this was in a way home too. It is hard to describe. I'm not sure how far it was, but we were gone for a good 2 and half hours at a blistering walking pace. It felt amazing!
I will send a few pictures in a little while, as soon as I download them from my camera.
Baci a tutti!
Marissa
