December 30 2011

derp derp derp. Not doing a whole lot. Picked up some more watercolour paper and pens the other day and have spent the last few days sorting out my trip next week to England. So, now in the next few days before I leave (tuesday) I want to try and get some artsy stuff done. Lets see how realistic that goal is ha ha.

Been wandering around. There is a host of new tourists just milling about these days, so the streets are more cluttered. Good thing I've mastered my ability to sneak around pedestrian traffic from the days in Toronto. I went up the the Miniato al Monte the other night and captured some cool pictures of Florence at night.

December gets cold.

Well hey, it's gotten down to the frigid temperature of 11 degrees these days. Damned cold compared to how nice it's been not even a couple of weeks ago. Ah well, that cannot be helped. Myself and some friends decided the other day that a climb to the top of the dumo was in order.We started outside in the Piazza Duomo. There is a lovely christmas tree in sight of the entrance to the Duomo.



We had to buy tickets, which then were bitten by a machine to allow us entrance to the first of a series of narrow staircases. After a brief climb, we were vomited into a small room which contained a small number of caged statues.





I'm not entirely sure why the statues were caged, they must be something like the Weeping Angels from Doctor who. Anyway, after that it was for more climbing.



However arduous it was, we finally made it to the first level of catwalks which ran around the interior of the cathedral. The view was amazing and all the little people looked like ants.





This was followed by more climbing and another level of catwalks. Also, there was this sign all over the starwell and stuff. As you can obviously tell, it had absolutely no effect what so ever.



More climbing, more walking along narrow hallways. Through the windows we could get a better idea of how high up the dome we were.







More climbing.....




And then....!


Up top!







In the second picture there, you can see the tree I photographed in the first picture on this post. The view was breathtaking and well worth the climb and the 8 euros admission fee. I took a lot more pictures, like around a hundread more which you can check out on my google+ page here.

December 18

Things have been quiet these past days. School is out an I'm taking a much needed rest after the gong show leading up to critiques. Went out last night to celebrate one of my classmates (Melissa's) birthday. We ate some delicious nachos and then went to the Be Bop club, which is this awesome live music venue just north of the Duomo. They had a Rolling Stone tribute band playing and it was pretty damned awesome. Apparently, Tuesdays are beatles nights, so I'm going to check that out one day.

December 12

Things have begun to cool down since Critiques and our final show. Critiques, lasted two days (Monday and Tuesday) of last week, with the 22 of us split between the two days evenly. I presented first on the second day. We also had two guest critics (Artist Emmy Skensved and star of ArtStars, TV Nadja Sayej).

Our professor Sarah, Emmy and Nadja would critic our work in group critiques with our whole class. You stand up in front of the whole class and talk about your work and then people comment on it and give you suggestions and things. I was very worried about mine, but it went really well. Nadja and Emmy think I should keep going with a more abstract style of painting I developed a few days before the critiques, as they think that it's very strong. They also liked the contrast between my landscapes and monster paintings. Overall, the critic went rather well and the whole experience really boosted my confidence in my work. Especially after our mid-term critics where I didn't feel as strongly afterwards.

After the second day of Critics, we went to the American design and printing studio, called the Fuji Studio. Multiple American students have classes there and it's all about printing and fabric and jewelry design. They had an art show, so we went to see their work. I had a good long talk with Nadja, while we hovered over the buffet table. She gave me a lot of good advice on what I should do after Florence. Our guest critics were very approachable and they were all OCAD students at some point. The fact we could talk to them openly about issues and concerns was a boon, as they gave us an outside opinion on being artists and surviving in the art world.

Friday night, we had an art show with our work from the critiques. We cleaned the studio up, shoved all the furniture upstairs and bought a ton of food and wine. We didn't have a great showing of people. Most of the folks who showed up were really creepy. We even had one (obviously) drunk fellow arrive who immediately started trying to touch my female colleagues. The whole event ended up being more of a way for us to socialize with each other, now that the semester was over.

Thursday was our Art history exam. We had a review the day before, which essentially covered everything on the test. I didn't know slide dates very well, but I felt like I knew pretty much everything else. Dates was not a very large part of the test, so I feel strongly about my performance. We also handed in our art history essays the same day. I wrote my essay on the contrast between progressive and repressive painters in the early renaissance.

The weather has been warm, but also it's been raining pretty much every day for the last half a week. Not the best, but from what I gather the winter is a rather wet time of year. At least it still hasn’t dropped below 10 during the day and it actually feels like it’s getting warmer sometimes.

Saturday, I went to the Florence Biennale with a friend. The artwork in the exhibit was pretty lackluster at best. There was some fantastic works, but Sturgeons law seems to be holding true in the contemporary art world.

I have uploaded my artwork to my G+ account, so check it out here.

Final Critiques

We had our end of semester Critiques the other day. Today was a bit of a break while we got ready for our group show tomorrow night. I'll talk more about the critiques tomorrow when I have some more time. However, I have pictures of all my work uploaded (with better then normal photographs) on my google+ account to check out. Hit this link to check out what I've been up to.

All the work is on water colour and various sizes. The header picture for this post can help give an idea on scale for some of the works.

December 2nd

The other day, Peter took us to the Sagrestia Nuova inside the Basilica of San Lorenzo. Inside is where they buried all the dead Medici Family Members! Neat-o. They had a special place for the fellow who was the last male Medici (and thus the last Medici) and they have him buried in a special hidden door in the floor. While Peter was talking to us about this fellow (whose name I don't remember, but it was very Italian), the folks who work in the chapel-area decided to open to burial room for us. The floor numerically rose and then slid to the side, as a blue neon light shone out from the cavity below. It was the coolest thing ever. Inside the Sagrestia Nuova, they have some of the most beautiful Michelangelo's in the city (Day and Night and Dusk and Dawn), plus a room which contains all the sorts of marble in the world.

On a more personal note, I've been very very busy as Critiques are on Monday and Tuesday and our final exam for art history is on next Thursday. Test review is today and our essay for art history is also due on thursday as well. So much to do, so little time.

The city is getting more festive however. They have erected a giant christmas tree in the Piazza Duomo (right next to the baptistry). and more lights are being activated all over town.