I'm sitting in Bar Sport. It's become perhaps my favorite spot in Cortona over my time here. It's a 2 story of sorts - a cafe for lunch when I'm in town, an ice cream stop before Peter, Mei Lin and Rach and I all went to the villa pool with Spivey's family, a study spot with richard preparing for vegie papyrus and an art history midterm, a internet hub for Croatia weekend plans that fell through and now it's where I sit and reflect on the trip, the people I've met, the things I've learned, the growth, the cultural experience, and prepare to write my last art history paper.
The semester is drawing to a close. It's about time for final crits and packing up. We have to have all art shipped out by next week. I'm leaving just in time to skip studio clean-up and Venice. We're in that week of haul-ass where everyone busts butt to catch up and ball out on their finals. Anyone that says study abroad programs are a joke, hasn't been to Cortona. We ate lunch at Nessun Dorma by the theatre with our graphic design class for a crit today. Joining us was a 2008 g.d. grad who lives in new york with 7 of her other coho members. She talked to us a lot about the importance of networking over just about anything else, and we discussed resume redesign, portfolios and killing your senior exit show. We're gong to start a g.d. alum facebook group and have a nice network for all of us that are in the same cities. The only question I had for her, was looking back, did school seem easy? Yes, so easy. I know now, looking back at high school, I'm glad I enjoyed it but laugh at the times I was stressed. And now as I stress through college, and have lots of fun, I realize it's so important to work hard but to realize that this is the last portion of my life before "real life" and adulthood set in. She said to expect to make half as much as you expect now when you're starting out in graphics and not to be an "in house" because you'll get bored doing the same things all the time but to work for a big company or firm and do lots of things. Not to get rusty in the semester I have off and to realize how great letterpress is. I already do.
I was marveling as I zoned out at how therapeutic art can be. Hours in the dark room, or pulling paper, painting, or messing around in indesign experimentation, and I imagine, the same will come in the letterpress studio. I really hope I can get into that class in the spring.
If I had to choose a profession at this very moment in time, contrary to my classmates, I wouldn't choose to work for Pentagram or a big firm (unless google hired me up), but rather I'd love to work in a print shop and do lots of precious handmade paper and letter pressing and design. I figure weddings would be just about perfect. It's the one time in a girl's life where the tiny details really do matter and the little things are so precious so a medium like paper/book making and letter-pressed signage, save-the-dates and place cards would be appreciated and doted on. Plus love and learning people's stories, working with people on their fairy-tales, and getting to experience weddings would just be pure bliss to me. I'd probably get consumed in wedding photography and cake baking, and of course makeup/hair, which I already do. I'd definitely dabble in the video-making too. I want to take a class for that.
Most of all, I've realized I'm not ready to be done learning. I know life is a process of learning, but I'm not ready to be finished with school. Grad school would be an unwise option for me and I'm not ready to dole out exuberant amounts of money for it, so I think staying a full extra-year is the answer to all my questions of involvement, internships, working in athens (red and black) and other publications, giving time to photojournalism and my degrees, and getting to take a few fun classes that I'm very interested in: i.e. jewelry-making, advanced book arts, book design with Moon, package design, letterpress.
Plus I want to love and explore athens and the more time the better. But as far as networking goes, helloooo AIGA and helloooo book making conferences. I want to bind a book a month, at least, over the next year. I'm loving all the odds and ends projects that have popped up in my mind, inspired by my time here. A hodge podge of many art disciplines and mediums would make my life a happy, happy place.
I want to expand my vocabulary and get better at writing. Writing reminds me of Steven, and Steven reminds me of the lake for Labor Day and our last convo about Harry Potter 7, which I saw in Florence, which I have yet to tell y'all about!
So backing up to Florence...
A group of 8 of us set off together as hostel-mates for the weekend. We left Friday, on the train (which was delightful and had its own compartments like the Hogwarts Express). It gave us time to sleep and we took our favorite (cheapest and easiest) Italian snack: toasties and peanut butter. Once we arrived we had to meet up with the others in our group and we got lost finding the hostel and ended up in an antique furniture store. The owners were very welcoming and offered us to stay at their "large home" but eventually pointed us in the right direction explaining that "Italians are a little crazy and our black numbres in Florence are for houses while the red are for stores." Once we found the right number 14 on Via di Fossi (The Afossi Hostel), we found Marta - our hostel mom and settled in for the weekend. Our ongoing celebration of Peter's 21st birthday began with a Mexican dinner. We met up with Brooke Arata at the Duomo and then ran into many other UGA cortonese students along with some other random UGA friends who happened to be vacationing, studying abroad in Florence or on the Insbrook Trip. I saw a fellow coho mate, and spotted my friend Janie and 3 other Thetas who joined us for our first dinner. I got a peach daiquiri which would have been the freshest, most delicious drink ever, if only I liked alcohol a little more. (This reminds me of last night when dru, vas, rachel, kel and I got into a convo at La Posta about which we'd give up if we had to: water, soda, alcohol or coffee). We all kept water first, and coffee would def. be my second -- so funny since a year ago I wouldn't even take a sip of it!) But back to our mexican fiesta... we walked around the city at night and it was the most magical moment of my entire trip. I fell in love in an instant and saw the romance, beauty and life in all the ancient architecture, the night lights, the reflecting river, the little stands, live music and history that's wrapped up in the little artsy town of Florence. It's the perfect size and has everything you'd need. It's quaint and old but also updated (unlike Cortona haha). We went to Twice and a few other spots but realized Jeresey shore is no longer here and went home around 2am. We met up with the rest of the UGA crew the next morning at Santa Croce and took a walking tour of the city. We saw Orsen michele, the Academia (the David!), the Ufitzi gallery with just about every piece of famous art ever in it, the duomo, Santa Maria Novella, etc. etc. We had coffee and breakfast at the fanciest little cafe with small aisles of croissants, pasteries and italian sweets in their coffee bar. It's so interesting how a bar can stand for such a different thing in Europe than in America where we sit around but prefer tables and here they only stand and all gather there as to go quick and not pay a sitting fee. (I'm SO going to miss not tipping - but sooo going to enjoy ice, free water, refills, big glasses, dr. pepper, and starbucks). This little bar cafe had yellow awnings and nice little tables, a polished brass bar and expensive coffee machines. We all got lost in the Ufitzi and I ended up with Devonian, Dru and Vas to go leather shopping at the markets and then to a lunch surrounded by greenery. I got to pick out a little leather backpack in a storeroom that reminded me of going off the streets in NYC but since I paid cash and bought it from a leather distributer, I got it for 25 euros off! It was my "me" purchase - the big one, probably from gma and gpa :)
After lunch we ran to the academia and then across town to the antique theater where we got in line at 16:00 for Harry Potter!! We were SO stoked and needed a little time on our feet. While we were in line, a few of us dipped out to go to Gossi or something like that??? - a 5 star sweet shop and I bought 9 chocolates for 9 euroes (my splurge) which were to DIE for. I got white chocolate, cafe, chocolate with nuts, chocolate with violette, caramel, orange dipped, etc. etc. Each one was a surprise and it was perfect and well-suited to the beautiful interior of the theater where we watched the movie. I cried from about 40 minutes in until the end. There were so many themes and reasons for crying, including the sad culmination of my childhood... kidding... maybe not. Afterward I could barely speak and stayed introverted until we got ready to go out and I did some people's makeup which livened me back up. This was practically the perfect end to the perfect day as Peter had chosen an exquisite restaurant for dinner for 19. A perfect birthday dinner of 4 courses, we got assorted salads (greek, chicken, caprese and one with corn and pomodori), different pastas which we passed around and all sampled (like a more authentic olive garden commercial), Peter got the famous blueberry steak, and we got the assorted desserts (a tort, tiramisu, strawberry cheesecake and a chocolate cake) with assorted wines and prosecco. It was expensive but well-worth it. The restaurant was owned by a family that owns a few in America, and had plates signed by guests over the years adorning all the walls. We ran into Alli Tren, which was a very small world, and set off for a night on the town. The entire UGA crew got the memo to gather at Fish Pub for 5 shots/5 euros and we had dance parties/patio time in celebration of Peter's 21st. Which reminds me now that on Friday night we went to a worthy named bar called the Lions something. We met a UGA grad and Chuck Bass -look alike there. After galavanting all over town we headed in at 3 and in the morning packed up and joined a second unspoken memo of UGA crewness to eat at "The Diner" a British owned "American Grille" with hand burgers, omlettes, french toast, and my order of chocolate chip pancakes. We shopped around at Chanel, Louis Vuitton, D&G, miu miu, etc. and then H&M -- classy Europe. We were drained so we took a train back mid-afternoon and I sewed a delicious flax archival long stitch on our journey home. The big Florence family of 8 met back up for dinner at Flux Fluns and Rachel and I tried to watch the women's world cup at lion's well but they didn't have it :( We lost anyway...
Other than Florence love and excitement, I've been pulling abaca non stop for my never-ending book on "materality" and working on a little graphic book of the steps. I just finished shopping around town and found t-shirts for handmade necklaces at the thrift store in town, twine at the hardware store (which is hardly a hardware store at all) and burlap which is called sacco di uta here, which I bought from the always helpful Ivan. I can't wait to share all of my art with y'all but I don't even have time to upload pictures and honestly just blogged to clear my head so I could write my essay!
ciao y'all!
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