Italy... Residency

The Venetian light was slow in appearing. Rain soaked bags up and down campos, after a ferry ride to Rialto, lugging heavy luggage up and down stairs, nearly into a canal, up narrow dead-ends and back over cobbled streets, finding 'Planet Bar', a rendezvous for the landlord... finally.


The 10 hours of travel from Casole d'Elsa

with 3 transfers prior to setting foot in this watery city proved to be eventful.

Trains changed platforms of departure continuously - while waiting for one train at #5 - it was changed to #3 and #1 within 15 minutes. One station - Pisa - had elevators. Florence, and the station on the mainland before Venice did not. Kind strangers felt inclined to assist with hoisting the heavy suitcases with me some of the time - up & down stairs, and onto and off trains, sometimes. Being a working artist, and carrying garments for 2-3 season and tools is a daunting journey, especially when there is any distance to be made en route to the destination.


The crisp autumnal air pervades, and sitting with an espresso dopio and vino rosso, there is some solace knowing where my designation is. After a 3 hr. search or the address, I found the gallery/residency/workspace, SPIAZZI.





Situated near Campo San Martino, at the end of a bridge on an estuary of a canal, it is an inauspicious doorway, signified by a fading print of its name on the side of the ancient door. The door number refers to a whole area of the Arsenale district.

Large felt curtains greet the visitor before entering the gallery.
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Sitting in a plaza opposite a naval museum, one cannot help wondering if the patio this cafe is situated on was reclaimed from the canal. Porticoes seem eroded by the former waterways. A water taxi passes under a re-articulated bridge made of wood and metal steps, easing to the plaza with rounded stone steps. Cafe dwellers shoe away the birds, which seem to b uninhibited enough to light on tables and would perch on glasses, if allowed. Vegetation is scarce in Venice. A sad tree, some pots of flowers is all that is seen of any natural foliage, and habitation for the flying creatures.

Corroded and encrusted doorways, the smell of stagnation, giant lions and shlepers of boxes, creates, pictures and bags jostle between tourists hoisting cameras and knapsacks.

A parade of people looking upward - onward, staring unabashedly, drinking in history - the marvel that this place exists at all - and I am one of these.

Listless

When I returned to Vancouver, just 6 weeks ago, sitting on this waterway seemed an appropriate reacquainting act. The restlessness of hands occupied with the tasks of everyday living are not yet finding materials that make this artist functional.

A studio is secured, and is currently housing remnants of other's lives; sorting, discarding and repacking are the daily activities. I can see the floor, now, and am hopeful that by months' end I shall resume my work.

Beginnings and endings. Begin again.

End with a new beginning.

Mediteranian Musings

This is a picture of a rumsteak dinner with truffles that I had in the neighbourhood restaurant a few days ago. I thought my
computer 'ate' the photo.


I have a few snaps of scenic jaunts around where my residency takes place I thought I would share.





To the left is a close-up of a cork tree. As I have been consuming wine with the stoppers primarily made from this tree, it seems appropriate to include this picture, taken en route to a quest for sculpture materials and tools. The harvesting of the cork bark may or may not be bad for the tree. I broke off a piece, as a memento - I doubt the tree will miss the bit I would like to bring back with me. Maybe customs will prevent that?


Departing from the harbour at Cannes...




A passenger on the boat to the L'isle de Lerins...



















On the edge of the Mediterranean Sea... off the L'isle de Lerins



A few picture of the Fort Royal - Saint Marguerite...

















En route to the rampart...

A view of Cannes from the gun-hold...



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Deception's Wake

Le songe d'un promeneur (The dream of a wanderer).

Awakening to the dream
Of convolution,
Responding
The wanderer in me sings.

An aria?
It’s not revelry
Or recitative.
My song stills.

Where is time thwarted?
On my journey
Wandering resolute
To candour’s concord.

Captivated by presumption
By reverie
I form a vast rapport
Of deception’s wake.

Simply wandering
Between forms
Between terrain’s contour and firmament
I dream of impossibilities.

Neither up nor down
Junctures of meanderings
Create new beginnings.
Simply, there is a caress.

Villa Sarabhai

http://www.kalleswork.net/projects/building/build_corb.html

http://www.interiordesign.net/article/CA278486.html

These sites refer to the house that I visited in 1997.

What I remember first is the sultry garden where I sat drinking thick, cool cane drinks under the canopy of nim trees, enveloped by the jasmine scented air on the 3rd level of grassed plateau intregal to the Villa Sarabhai.

The coveted invitation to dine came by submitting my portfolio to the biochemist, Anand Sarabhai. I had asked for an interview through the head of the architecture school in Ahmadabad.

Listening to monkeys cajoling each other in the invisible branches above the gravel drive to the house as the conveyance called a 'three wheeler' brought me to the sanctified entrance; I was encapsulated with the mystery and heightened awareness of this gift of opportunity. Admittance through armed guarded barbed gates beyond the stoned fortress surrounding the enclave began an enchantment, an evening of promise and beguile.

Cobusier had planted part of his soul here. I was entering a timeless homage to an exclusive lifestyle and home to 50's and 60's art.

My sculpture had let me enter. My writing about cultural phenomena in the west of India gave me the means to experience this Corbusier architecture and the owner's passion for modernism.

I am writing about this now, 6 and a half years later, because, although my thoughts were documented in a full-page article I wrote in the Times of India, I have no insight into how this momentous and other extraordinary Indian based experiences relate to my present life, and I need to find a means of finding the magic, regenerating the immediacy and discovery, the beauty and depth that occured at that time in my life.

I was blessed by many eminent events while in India. My work was accepted, and honoured. Since I returned to Canada, life has not been kind. I have been stripped of art and I struggle to remain free from resentment. Caring for loved ones during their crises was needed. Developing a rewarding relationship is decisive, but not enough to fulfill. I need self-fulfillment.

More later.