Alexandria

This past week it was nice to have an assignment to put all of the preliminary exercises into. I really felt like through the past two classes my ideas and concepts have progressed and there is some process or order of events that has led up to now. So, for the project due this week, i was just looking at all of my sketches and photos taped to the wall and the next step that my mind took was the direction I wanted to go. My original concepts were dolls and leaving, and now also attachments (all kinds, physical, psychological, relationships, emoitonal) because its always more difficult to leave something that you have some kind of attachment to from a doll to a person or home. I have also noticed that a lot of my work and these concepts have a very personal side to them for me and I think i have finally found a way to embrace the personal and more fully incorporate it into my work. Even though the visual mining was difficult, I hope I'm in the process of better understanding how to make use of it. 

I don't have too many new pictures from out and around Florence (not that there wasn't anything to see, probably too much) but I couldn't take pictures in the Palazzo Pitti, which now is one of my favorite places. The paintings are amazing and so are the furnished rooms, they are just so embellished and lavish! I also saw the tapestry and costume exhibit which was also very intriguing. Even though I am unfortunately  fatally attracted to fashion, I love it when the clothes become more than just material that's worn, but has character and unique qualities. 

Also, just before I left, my grandmother gave me a book called Dark Water - Flood and Redemption in the city of Masterpieces by Robert Clark. I think the best way to categorize this is a non-fiction book with small narratives thrown in about important figures. It is about the 1966 flood in Florence and the aftermath. It brings up very interesting questions about restoration and all the controversy of that practice as well as how the people of Florence were affected and the conflict between saving art and helping the citizens. I just finished it and my thoughts went back to my concepts of attachment and how much emphasis is placed on the restoration of artworks and their "original" status, and the methods of getting there, but in reality we don't truly know what that was. Its also about what gets left behind and how we interpret it because it is attached to something from history and other people and beliefs. These are some new thoughts so I'm not quite sure where they're going, but it reminded me of a picture from santa croce where a piece of a fresco is just missing. Here is just a little quote from the book:

"You will never love art well till you love what she mirrors better. You should look, but you should also see. You should pay attention, render creation its due. So there is the city and the river, what people make and lose and what survives; and then there is the beauty of it. Here is where we begin."