The trip has come to an end, and I will be home in Billings in two days.  Last night the Villa prepared an amazing Thanksgiving meal for us.  They had a 33 pound turkey, cooked potatoes, pasta, appetizers, bread, eggplant, stuffing, green beans, jam instead of cranberries, wine, sangria, and chocolate pie for dessert.  It was an incredible meal.  We hung up art from printmaking and drawing, and Rossella invited several of her friends from the community to attend.  Roberto and his sister came also as well as Antonella, Catia our Italian teacher and her family, Marina, and others.  I sang while Ben accompanied me on guitar, and we gave gifts to the family and staff at the Villa for being so kind to us over the past several weeks.

Everyone seemed to be in an excellent mood, and it was a great way to close the trip.  Meg put together a slide show which included pictures from the entire trip.  It really hit me how much we have done and seen over the past few months, and I found myself remembering the highlights of the trip.  I particularly enjoyed the first two weeks of travel.  While they were exhausting, I felt I saw so many things I have wanted to see for years, and I consider myself very lucky that I was able to experience all that I did on this trip.  One of my favorite parts of each day at the Villa was the runs Maggie, Johan, and occasionally Ashley, Meg, and Melissa P. would take.  We would cross over into the town of Migiana and run up hill through town and down back around the Villa.  While most drivers seemed to think we were crazy, it was one of the only times I didn't feel like a tourist.  Running in Italy is one of the things I will miss the most.

While this trip is not at all what I expected, and not entirely wonderful, I am very happy I came.  I do not think I would want to live in Italy, but I respect what I experienced.  It is a great place with so much culture and history, and it made me think a lot about myself, my goals, and my place in the world.  The trip helped me remember to be thankful for all that I have and the many wonderful people in my life, and it also encouraged my love of travel.  While I do not think I will pursue Drawing, Art History, or Printmaking as professions, I loved learning about all of them.  I know this experience has made me wiser, more thoughtful, and more aware of myself in many ways.  With that, I know it was absolutely a worthwhile journey.

The most meaningful part of this entire trip has been working with Damiana Pinti, an Italian opera singer who is friends with Rossella.  She is absolutely incredible.  I have never had a teacher that is so effective.  She is quite demanding, but never mean and very patient with me.  We have primarily been working on my breathing, and she is teaching me how inefficiently I breathe.  Lessons with Damiana are incredibly mentally and physically exhausting, and I spend large parts of my two hour lessons lying on the floor in a yoga pose, standing against the wall with one leg in the air, or trying my best to sing in extremely awkward positions.  Her methods are a completely new to me, but I love them.  By the end of my lesson I am completely hoarse, but during my lesson I can always hear a difference in my sound.  

photo courtesy of Ashley Abraham

Damiana constantly tells me how poor her English is, although I think I communicate with her better than any other teacher I have had.  She has taught me so much in such a short amount of time, and I will miss her very much.  She picked out a piece for me by Bellini, from Romeo and Juliet.  She says my voice is perfect for the piece, as my it is very youthful like Juliet.  I am hoping I can sing the piece for my Senior recital.  Damiana has also helped me a great deal with my Italian.  Working with Damiana has made my trip to Italy so worthwhile, and I am so greatful for the experience.  

Completing my plate was quite a challenge, and my fingers and neck are killing me.  I am mostly satisfied with how it turned out, although I started carving out a section of my linoleum, originally thinking that I wanted it white.  I changed my mind, so I do have a "mistake" that I am going to try to fix by covering it with thick paper.  Eva has expressed her doubts, and I am hoping that if I cannot get a clean print here, I can take the plate home and find a way to fix the problem.

photo courtesy of Maggie Weber

Printing went alright.  As Eva anticipated, the white spot on my plate was not easy to cover up.  I tried several different methods of printing, and while I was able to fix some of it, the spot still showed up.  I am planning on a more permanent fix back in Billings.  The whole process is very interesting though, and I really enjoy the freedom I have with the finished product.  I have started making smaller prints and changing colors.  I especially enjoy my print in a dark red/brown, and I played around with some double prints too.

I was more than ready to return back to Villa life after our long break in Sardegna.  While it was beautiful, the weather was not, and we may have had just a little too much time on our hands.  The night before we left our power went out, which made attempting to pack and clean up very interesting.  I was eager to have great food, a comfortable bed, clean clothes, and meet the our final professor.

Eva is from Dillon, and she is teaching printmaking.  While I am excited to get started, I am also very nervous, as I have never carved into linoleum before.  Eva had us do some preliminary sketches and spoke to each one of us individually about our idea.  She was very pleased with mine, gave me some suggestions and told me to begin.

I started by sketching my design on my linoleum, and began with the straight-edged tool.  My design was very detailed, but after about half an hour, I felt I had a working technique.  Today I worked on my piece for about four hours, and I managed to carve out about an inch of space.  I have a feeling I will be spending several hours in the studio over the weekend.

I was correct in that it is not any fun hiking three miles into town and back.  Gonessa does not have much to offer either.  We went to several different "gorcery stores" to find very limited supplies.  Fruit, potatoes, nutella, water, cereal, eggs, and candy for Halloween of course-that was our big buy.  Fortunately we had some left over food from our trip into Iglesias, and we were doing well with making meals with pasta, potatoes, and whatever else we could throw together.

The weather hasn't been great, while walking back from town we were rained on, and the gloominess has continued into the start of the week. We've heard things should clear up later in the week, and I am hopeful as I would like to get a little sun! We are also planning a Halloween celebration! Going into town for some more Halloween "supplies".

Halloween was a blast! We watched Halloween MTV all day in Italian, which is about all we can understand and had fun last night, finishing the evening with "Zombieland".  We did well to make it as American as possible.

Break in Sardegna!!!!!!!! Our beach house on Porto Paglia was amazing! We were about 150 yards from the beach.  Maggie, Meg, Marianne, Melissa P., Jase, Josh, Ben, Katie, Ashley, and I flew out of Perugia into Cagliari.  We then bused to the train station, took a train to Iglesias, and took a cab right up to our house.  It was an exhausting day of travel, but we made it!

It is wonderful to be in my bikini in late October.  The water is crystal clear, and while the weather is not exactly mid-summer hot, it is pleasant lounging around in a two-piece.  Ben, Katie, Ashley and I are in a house together.  Ashley and I are sharing the upstairs loft, which has a queen size bed and little else.  The houses are very nice, including a bathroom, fridge, stove, sink, TV, and small diswhasher.  We plan on walking into town to get groceries tomorrow.  I am not very excited for that, as it is a three mile walk to the nearest town of Gonessa.

Our time with Julia has come to an end, and tomorrow we will have the critique of our art.  I have spent quite a while on each piece, and for the most part I am happy with them.  My personal mythology and landscape are my most successful pieces, and I feel I actually grew in my abilities with water color.  The most successfu aspect of my landscape is the Italian-style roof.  While approximately two weeks is not much time to learn a lot about drawing or painting, I did take away some useful knowledge about using charcoal and eraser.  I am excited for critique tomorrow, and even more excited for BREAK!

We took a field trip into Assisi today-BEAUTIFUL! The weather could have been better, but for part of the day it created a nice fog, perfect for taking pictures.  We started out at a church that contained St. Francis's original  smaller church, including St. Claire's relic, which was a lock of her hair.  This is important becuase she cut her hair in order to stay away from her family and her arranged marriage; it symbolizes her devotion to God.  We then went into Assisi to see Giotto's frescos.  Rossella gave us a lecture, explaining the importance of these works, in that they are the first attempt at three-dimensional perspective.

While walking around the church, it was very interesting to think about being the first to do anything.  I don't believe I have invented anything, although after seeing these works, it makes me want to try.  Looking at them, they appear somewhat childish and amateur, so it is surprising that they were ever looked at as innovative.

The rest of the day, the weather was terribly rainy, so Ashley, Jase, Ben, and I caffe hopped.  I drank three cappuccino, which may have helped induce my motion sickness on the bus ride back.

We have started class at the Villa.  We have had Art History, Drawing, and Italian.  Mark and Jim have been lecturing and we started our drawing class in the studio.  The studio is wonderful; it is stone and wood, with tables all joined in the center of the room.  Julia Becker from the University of Great Falls is our drawing professor, and our three assignments are to create a landscape, a personal mythology, and a work of our choice.  We also have an Italian bowl at the end of this week, which is a culmination of our two weeks of travel and includes everything we saw while in Rome and Florence.

I am becoming very used to life at the Villa.  Rosa, Ivan, and Paola serve us our meals in the dining room, which is under a beautiful arch.  So far our meals have been excellent! We have had cheesy lasagna, beef and peas, noodles with beans, great bread and even better wine. Michele and Bebe are our gracious hosts, and they are always willing and eager to help with whatever we need.  Rossella, their daughter is an accomplished artist who is equally as nice.  Roberto and his intern Marina have also been very welcoming and accomodating of anything we need.  It is certainly a nice change from the hotels and risky meals we've had the last two weeks.

We were also able to attend a chocolate festival!! Perugia is home to Perugina chocolate-I was overwhelmed by the amount of chocolate, and indulged in several chocolate treats!

We made it to the Villa! Villa Pieve is gorgeous. It’s set in a beautiful Italian countryside next to the small town of Corciano, and a short bus ride away from the larger city of Perugia.  Everything is green, and the air has a “mountain” sort of smell, very natural and very refreshing.  Jase, Maggie, Johan, and I ran up the hill to Corciano tonight.  The scenery was beautiful; we ran by vineyards, bamboo, apple trees and several Italian homes.  After the craziness of Rome and Florence, I am so excited to be in a much more natural, slower paced environment!

It feels wonderful to be settled and actually unpack our suitcases.  Ashley, Meg, and I are in room 302; we have three twin beds, a large bathroom, a T.V., and some small furniture in our room. My favorite part of the room is our ceiling- it is all dark wood, with large supports going across. The biggest difference from a room in America is probably the bathroom.  Attempting to figure out how to flush the toilet proved difficult, and apparently we were given the handicapped room because our bidet consists of a hose with handles coming out of the wall (we chose not to use ours). So far, the Internet works great, which is a nice change from our room in Florence. 

The Archeological Museum of Etruscan Art housed various styles, periods and mediums.  I particularly enjoyed the Chimera, and the pottery upstairs and on the ground floor.  I have found I am more drawn to art that is inspired by mythology.  The interpretation of the Chimera was very well done.  A three headed beast with the body and head of a lion, a head of goat growing out of the back, and a serpent head for a tail.  This piece had the serpent biting the goat’s horn.  The Chimera was wounded and bleeding, and the creature seemed desperate and defensive. 

In addition to loving the uncovered Egyptian mummies, I really loved the Etruscan pottery.  The shapes of the vases and bowls are probably the most beautiful I have seen.  My favorite attributes were firstly the intricate designs, but also the clover shaped openings to vases, long necks, oval handles, and the smoothness they were able to achieve in their pottery.  I spent an hour or two sketching designs I liked, falling in love with a tiny octopus on a small bowl.  I noticed reoccurring spirals, flowers, leaves, stripes, and various other patterns, all beautifully executed as if by machine.  I believe I found great inspiration for some artwork to come.

The Vatican was wonderful and very draining at the same time.  I was blown away by so much of what I saw. The art was incredible; I particularly enjoyed the statues of various animals, both actual and fictional. In my limited study of Art History, I have not seen many animals as the main subjects of sculpture, and I particularly liked the camel head and fictional fish/horse/human creature. I may have enjoyed the animal statues in particular because it was rather early on in the day, before the heat, size of the building, and mass number of pieces wore down my energy.

I did love the modern art exhibit, particularly the Dali and an artist named Mirko Basaldella (1910-1969).  His two pieces depicting the Crucifixion I found very interesting.  He used a lot of lines and almost cartoon-like figures, but the effect was very neat, and he used cooler colors.

The Sistine Chapel is probably the most famous ceiling in the world, and I find it interesting that the ceiling was such an important space to artists in the Roman era.  I wonder why this trend faded.  While the size, colors, precision, and subject matter of the Sistine ceiling were incredible, the atmosphere was not. The masses of people mixed with shouts of museum workers, poor lighting, and tired legs did not meet my preconceived expectations of the space.  I would love to spend a few hours alone with the ceiling, and wonder why the viewing system is so hectic; in my opinion the current system does the piece a great disservice.  My favorite part of the ceiling actually wasn’t the ceiling at all but the ‘Last Judgment’ including Michelangelo’s self-portrait in the face of the flayed skin of St. Bartholomew.  This was painted between 1535 and 1541, and was criticized by the church for the ‘shameless’ nudity.

Day Four

The trip to The Borghese House included a walk through a park, which was very pleasant.  No cameras were allowed which I actually appreciated; it allowed me to really experience the statues and artwork, rather than concern myself with getting a good photo.  The Bernini’s were amazing! In addition to breathtaking technique, each sculpture captured a moment that was active and very beautiful.  I admire Bernini’s creativity above all of his other talents.  I have seen so many pieces of art that have exceptional technique or color or scale, but I have seen none so creatively executed.  His pieces are active; you can sense the tension and motion. Like a good photograph, good writing, or good singing, I believe good art should posses something present-some sort of tension that implies where something has been and where it is going at the same time. They are by far, the most interesting and inspirational pieces I have seen so far.  My two favorite statues were Apollo and Daphne and the statue of David (in particular, Daphne’s fingers turning into tree branches).

We were also able to learn a little more about the Pantheon today.  It's giant monolithic columns were brought over from Egypt, and it was built by Hadrian in 118 in honor of Marcus Agrippa.  While I love the exterior's solid and sturdy look, the ceiling inside is incredibly beautiful.  The coffered ceiling is enormous; and the oculus in the middle adds to it's aesthetic appeal.  I found the architecture was the most interesting and appealing aspect of the Pantheon, not the statues inside.  

Day Three

The Villa Gulia was beautiful.  The manicured gardens were home to not only beautiful sculptures and fountains, but also to small lizards, giant slugs, and a friendly kitty. Outside was extremely peaceful, and I was able to get some sketching done.  My inspiration was the flora and fauna, and some of the patterns I saw on the Etruscan artifacts inside.  The garden was the closest thing to my stereotypical image of Italy I have seen thus far.

The first church we saw was quintessentially Baroque.  If the goal was to incite emotion, mission accomplished, although I’m not sure if I found it to be the most spiritually fulfilling.  While I can appreciate Bernini’s Saint Theresa and the vast number of paintings, sculptures, and metalwork, it does not incite a spirit of worship for me.

The second church seemed very mismatched. The gold mosaic semi-dome in the front of the church adorned with animals was stylistically very different than the paintings that lined the walls. The floors beneath the church were intense.  You could almost smell the age of the dimly lit rooms filled with ancient artifacts.  While it was hard to want to spend time in the dreary rooms, the tiled floors, beautiful arches, and elaborate sculpting were impressive.

Day Two

We walked to the Roman Forum this morning.  It is unbelievable to me that all of these amazing archaeological sites and ruins are in the middle of the city, not blocked off or protected from the polluted Roman air.  The Arch of Titus was our first stop.  As my Dad explained, it fused the “here and now” with mythology/fantasy. Again, the attention to detail is amazing.  Every space is filled with intricate patterns, inscriptions, and battle scenes or victories.  I find the art I enjoy the most involves some type of fantasy or story, so I preferred the scene where Titus is riding with Nike. 

Seeing the interior of ancient houses was very interesting; I was surprised to see the walls painted almost as if they were trying to create the illusion of space (something we may try to do today with mirrors).  Painted columns and mantles adorned the walls of the house. I also found their use of color interesting; today, such vibrant shades of red and green would perhaps be seen as harsh or unorthodox.

THE COLOSSEUM!

The Colosseum was everything I hoped it would be. It must be one of the most lucrative places in the world if you add up how much money has been spent on it and in it over the years. While I don’t think I would particularly enjoy seeing people getting killed, imagining the place filled with screaming fans is exciting.  The idea of killing another man for sport and entertainment goes well with the Roman’s extravagant architecture; it seems their culture pushed to the limit, and what is more thrilling or extreme than public execution? 

Roma

I made it to Rome! After a nine hour flight, I went through customs and picked up my baggage without any problems.  Ashley came in about an later and we made it on the bus to Termini station within minutes.  We were sitting on the bus talking about how how smoothly everything was going, so naturally everything needed to get much more complicated.

One bus, one cab ride, several blisters, and three hours later, two very sweaty girls collapsed in their beds at the Resedencia Zanardelli with two pairs of worn out flip flops still on. But we made it! 

Day Una

Today we went to the Capital Museum (Musei Capitolini). Incredible sculptures!! The number of pieces in this museum was overwhelming. 'Faces of Power' was the name of the exhibit. The busts were amazing; the attention to detail in the facial expression and musculature was unbelievable.  Even though it wasn't in the main exhibit, Bernini's Medusa was one of my favorite busts. I also loved the giant parts of Constantine.  

The busts depicting various hairstyle's I really connected with, as I spend a lot of time and money on my own hair and consider it a form of personal expression.  They must have had some type of hairspray or gel-something to research. I wonder how often the women styled their hair so ornately, as the numerous braids and curls would be extremely time consuming. I assume such extravagant styling was another way to show status and beauty.   

Our first meal <3

I was able to really stop and look at the city and some if it's architecture.  I am blown away by the scale and the detail.  Every space seemed to be viewed as an opportunity to showcase some sort of artwork.  I would love to be able to see it in its prime, and it's disappointing that their practices did not continue.  I wonder if any society will ever value the Roman's traditions in architecture enough to put it practice. 

Only ten days!!