A strange thing happened this Thursday night when I was sleeping...I actually dreamt about my art project. I was really confused about what I was going to do for my midterm project which was assigned that afternoon, so I guess that is what was on my mind. The one thing I remembered from my dream, though, was a lot of buttons. I dreamt about doing something with buttons for some reason. Strangely enough, I went back to the Boboli Gardens on Friday with my boyfriend who came to visit for the weekend :), and as we exited the doors by the Costume Gallery, there was this book about buttons sitting right there on the shelf. I really just bought it on a whim because of that dream the night before, and I think it could be really useful in the future. But I also looked around through all the other books to see if anything else caught my eye. I ended up also buying a 50s fashion icon book of advertisements. I want to link my theme sequence ideas to my drawing project, and right now I think this book is key!
This huge sculpture of a face in the Boboli gardens really fascinated me too because it was cracked all over and had so much texture. The artist's hand was really present in the piece, and the sheer size of the sculpture itself was so impressive. After walking past a French choir on the terrace near the back of the gardens, I entered a room full of ceramics. I was attracted to the intricate patterns and classic colors of the dishes. I also found myself wondering how the dishes had been used and who used them before they ended up in these glass cases. An ironic sight on our way out of the gardens (we had just finished complaining about how thirsty we were) was a tree, hollowed out, and filled with full water bottles. Talk about trash turned into treasure. But alas...we decided it better not to drink from the strategically placed water bottles. As for my "trash vs/ treasure" theme that has been slowly developing, I have decided to experiment this week with pizza boxes. I saved one from this weekend and found 3 more in the San Lorenzo markets (a great place to find trash at night before the street cleaners come). This idea of an ordinary object having an unexpected beauty or value has led me to try and transform trash or use trash as my ground for producing something of beauty. I decided to spring from my video from last week and try to paint stills from the video. I added the same mirrored effect to the 2nd half of the video to abstract the images, and found some cool patterns within that. So far I have covered the inside of one box with aluminum foil and started laying some paint down. I want to go back in with an exacto and cut out some patterns into the box too. Right now I feel like I am really interested in playing with paint on different surfaces and creating colorful, intricate designs on mundane things. This process has also helped me to paint more abstractly, something I've always wanted to do, but never knew where to start.
I can't get over how fast this weekend went by!--My boyfriend arrived Thursday afternoon and leaves tomorrow morning, so I have been trying to balance work and play. I found that getting to show someone else around Florence really made me take a step back, slow down, and think about how incredible so many things are in this city. Although I've only been here for about a month, I felt like I had already forgotten my first reactions to my surroundings. Getting to experience this feeling again with someone made me realize both how much I have learned and how much I have already forgotten. I also ventured to Piazzale Michelangelo saturday night to see the bronze David, and the lit skyline of Florence at night. Today I also went to the Academia to see the David, which is mind-blowing. Trying to draw such a perfect sculpture was a little daunting to me, but I want to go back to practice.
Here are my pictures from this week!
Holly
