Janet Strayer

Bee-ing in Italy

noreply@blogger.com (Janet Strayer) — Sat, 17 Dec 2022 10:47:00 +0000

Bees and Being in Umbria

I've come to appreciate the natural and animal life in Italy, as you can see from my related blog, Life with Animals in Rural Italy. I admit that I've never been very fond of insects: they bite, sting, and annoy. I don't like the sharing the house with wasps, spiders, beetles, and the occasional reptile that wanders in. And they are so are plentiful in rural areas. They fly and crawl in as unwelcome guests. (or perhaps think the house is theirs and I'm the intruder)! In any case, I'm not a bug-fancier. But I've also noticed how the are curiously fascinating to look at.

As a long-time city dweller myself, I'm grateful for the opportunity to live in and enjoy the countryside and rural areas wherever I now live. I intended this painting as a tribute to bees who do their bee-ing in settings that offer little and who struggle against circumstances set against them. I created Tenement Bees (below) as a tribute to bees from crowded urban areas, many of them blighted with neglect and decay.

I do like skimming through the National Geographic, and they are major bug-fanciers. I've also come to appreciate how important bees are to our eco-system. You probably know that, already, so no harping here. What's new for me here in Italy, is that I've notices some incredible bees living outdoors.

I've never seen bees like these before. I wasn't even sure they were bees until I looked it up. I thought they might be beetles because they are so big (easily 1"-2") and as shiny as a tiny new VW beetle car. They are identified as Carpenter Bees because they nest in burrows of dead wood. At the house we're renting, they congregate at the bushes near old wooden railings (perhaps nesting there).

I've learned from a local bee-keeper that these bees are good pollinators, and I've read that they lay the largest eggs of any insect! It's usual for bees live in crowded colonies, but these bees are solitary, especially the male Clint Eastwood types. You can sometimes find female carpenter bees housed alongside their sisters or daughters in small. clusters. I believe the bees living beside our house are of this coffee-klatch variety. Their buzz is evident as they swarm around flower bushes. They're big enough to watch as they extract nectar (photo from internet), and that is really a remarkable thing to see! They don't bother me so long as I'm respectful. You bet I am.

Bees Metaphorically and in Reality

This thinking about bees has led me think about being. An obvious segue, right? So what might bees mean to us beings and our life?

Oddly enough, I was familiar with the story that the fleur-de-lis, a French and European symbol of royalty, may be a stylized version of a bee (upside-down), with Napolean as Emperor turning it right-side-up as his insignia. Bees are part of

I hit the books to find out more and here are some bits of interest. Bees often appear in world mythologies as an archetype of internal order (rulers might like symbol). As well, they function as symbolic creatures connecting the natural world to the under-world or other-world, conveying themes of immortality, resurrection, and fertility. Such ideas occur in inscriptions and drawings of ancient near-east and ancient Aegean as well as Mayan cultures, among others.

More contemporary uses: bees are in official insignias conveying industriousness /hard-work (Manchester), and can signify working-class ethics and/or "peaceful until you mess with me" in the world of contemporary tattoos.

North American has certainly gotten stung into action, in cities as well as rural areas, to promote the welfare of bees (and human beings as their beneficiaries. In Margaret Atwood's jolting novel, After the Flood, bees are helpful creatures to nurture in a world gone ecologically and in other respects mad.

I now have a different attitude towards bees. I walk here in Umbria along a the path of a once active apiary near our house (now unattended but still with bees present). I no longer do I scurry along in trepidation but feel calm, with respectful admiration that they remain.. I wouldn't be so presumptuous as to call us friends, but I do my best not to bother them or make a fuss when they cross my path. It encourages me to hear them, knowing there will be more flowers and honey because of them.

Among our first house gifts, here in the Umbrian countryside, were a jar of honey made by bees on this land and a flask of olive oil from these trees. Talk about eating well Italy, indeed!

A Honeyed Recipe

Struffoli are Italian honey-ball fritters. They are golden balls of dough drizzed with honey and best served warm. Typically served at Christmas time in Italy, they're a treat whenever in need. Click here for recipe in English.

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The Pasquarella: A Pilgrim's Hike

noreply@blogger.com (Janet Strayer) — Sat, 17 Dec 2022 08:51:00 +0000

May is Mary's Month in Italy

The month of May is special time for tributes to the Virgin Mary according to Catholic tradition in Italy. In Umbria, a festive religious hike into the high hills of Umbria, known as the Pasquarella, has become a springtime tradition. Similar pilgrimages take place in other parts of Italy, but this is the only one my feet have travelled (several years, in fact). The term Pasquarella relates to the Epiphany, the first feast celebrated in Catholicism after the new year.

painting by Janet Strayer:

The Pasquarella in Umbria

It's springtime in Umbria (photos were taken a few years before the pandemic). The sun is shining and the green land glows with new vegetation. We've driven out from our little village of Morruzze (central and east part of map) to a major road west in order to find a spot to park among the many cars already lining the narrow road. We're ready to join a procession of people who will walk down to and across the ravine, then up the mountain to the hermitage church. We'll spend some time there, then walk back again, having participated in the Pasquarella. The photo was taken at the outset, from the place we started and looking across the ravine.

Our destination is the sanctuary called Madonna della Pasquarella, located in the Forello gorge. We then joined others walking down the steep path down from the highway's verge. We continued on the path that winds its way up again, across the gorge, and up to the church that sits among rocks and vegetation across the highway.

Sanctuary of the Madonna della Pascuarella

The small church that is our destination dates from the early Middle Ages. It fell to ruins and became the residence of religious hermits, then was restored and re-instated as a parish church in the 19C. It comes alive during this festival.

A Family Affair

My photos show that his Pasquarella is a family affair (with baby strollers and grandparents), with stands along the way for treats and trinkets. The goal is to reach the shrine by walking a somewhat arduous path. But there are celebratory aspects to the trek as well. Traditional religious songs marking the occasion are often sung along the path, and we saw musicians performing at the given destination. I've learned that the songs are generally simple ones consisting of sacred praises along with inducements to charity. Not sure why, but often in they are embellished with profane bit. There are the usual wishes for happy holidays and requests for gifts and food. Popular food carts (now trucks) serve the traditional rich and flavourful porchetta (pork) sandwiches well known this region.

Food for Thought: Recipe for Porchetta

Traditionally, porchetta is a roasted pork shoulder flavoured with lots of herbs and spices. You can stuff the roast with roasted peppers, prosciutto, and variants.. While you’re at it, you can hire a truck, take along big white rolls stuffed with some of your great-tasting pochetta, and sell them. You’d be a hit! For more about food in Italy check out Elizabeth Minchilli's blog, which informs deliciously well about varieties of different local cuisine and restaurants.

The Destination

The church, itself, is a small one, simple as seems fitting in this setting, yet also cared for and inviting, with a worn fresco above the altar It held fewer than 50 people inside when I took this photo. We all sat on wooden benches in this rather lovely little nave.. Some people lit candles outside or inside the church and left; others sat resting or waiting for the mass to begin. We bought an illustrated book commemorating the history of this sanctuary, sat for a while more, then left to resume the down and up walk back to the car.

The tone of the whole event was pleasantly communal and memorable, even during the trek back across the gorge and to our cars, waiting on the highway.

Back home again in Morruzze, after the trek, I filled a jug with roses from the yard. For me, it doesn’t matter if you’re Christian, pagan, or whatever. Making a pilgrimage in honour of spring ,in celebration of life, in tribute to the land itself… seems worth it.

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You can read and see more about Italy at Creative Life News here . plus other travels and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at Creative Life News here
@ janetstrayer.com

MOVING DAY!

noreply@blogger.com (Janet Strayer) — Fri, 30 Jul 2021 23:48:00 +0000

This creative-living blog is moving. I've written about creative adventures in art, culture, and travel 

for years on blogspot. Now it's all being integrated in one online spot: on my website (click).

I'll keep this Blogspot location as an archive while posting new creative-life material on my website 

'news' section titled Creative Life. These new in-depth columns focus on creative living, travel, culture, art, and occasional tips and inspiration for creative living. Along with its well-designed blog section, my website contains art collections and a new art shop where you can purchase directly. 

Enjoy the Creative Life journey. I look forward to hearing from you. 

More Creative Life NewsYou can read and see more about creative life, travels, tips and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at Creative Life News at https://www.janetstrayer.com

Regards, Janet 

My Saturna Island Art Studio in Action

noreply@blogger.com (Janet Strayer) — Thu, 07 Nov 2019 02:47:00 +0000

Welcome to my art studio on Saturna Island in the Southern Gulf Islands of B.C. Canada.

That says it all, for now.

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You can read and see more about creative life, travels and tips rom this itinerant artist at Creative Life News click https://www.janetstrayer.com

Regards, Janet

Retro is Always in Style

noreply@blogger.com (Janet Strayer) — Mon, 04 Feb 2019 14:29:00 +0000

I've been thinking about time. It's tricky, as we know-- an elusive, immaterially real concept that entwines us as we live each moment, day, year of our lives. Time marks our memory, our mirrors, and leaves traces on everything in our world. Like the wind, we "see" time only in its effects, its collaterals.

Then there's the fairly uniform way we mark time by clocks and calendars. Civilization must agree on some things at least, though we take our liberties there too, like the idiosyncracies of local yes-or-no "daylight-savings time". And the wildly different personal timescapes of individuals. Some are highly compartmentalized, others not.

Me, for example, especially at this time of my life. I experience time as a rapidly moving conveyor that blends many elements backwards and forwards. Each minute is vast with so much flowing into it. Yet, I'm also acutely aware of the relentless ebb of minutes, the finality that will be reached... who knows when.

For most of us, looking back through time's traces in photo albums, old magazines, and even historical art work is often a moving experience. Given that time is nonstationary, looking "through time" necessarily moves us from now to then, wherever and whenever those places exist.

Art history has always seemed a treasure-chest to me. How it cycles back and forth between stylistic preferences and different "avant-gardes". How amazing break-throughs seem to occur alongside advancing tradition. How styles change, are assimilated or absorbed into new treatments. How old things come alive again in new contexts.

painting by Janet Strayer, 36"x36", acrylic on canvas

I'm pleased to have this work, Lady Cranach Likes Early Modern in an exhibit of Federation of Canadian Arists (click for Retro show). It's my take on a bust-portrait by Lucas Cranach that I've appreciated for its outrageous costume and stylistic slyness --re-envisioned in this painting with a different face, lower body, and setting.

painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder

The headress and upper clothing, especially the sleeves, identify her as a Northern Renaissance Cranach -- but the face, setting, and mixed stylistic devices used in my painting play anachronistically with art history. My intent is to convey, more generally, the convergence of many epochs in painting, which typically builds from the past, acts in the present, and thinks of the future. I really enjoy this spiraling of art-history and different styles.

Time moves on... in many directions.

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You can read and see more about creative life, travels, tips and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at Creative Life News at https://www.janetstrayer.com

Regards, Janet

A New Year and What Have You Got to Show for It?

noreply@blogger.com (Janet Strayer) — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 04:37:00 +0000

It's a new year and, as for every beginning, we wish it to be a good one. What's good, of course, is relative and subjective. So, with each of us wishing for a good year, there are bound to be conflicts among all those incompatible goods. Still, I like to think there might be some universal ones, like peace. I know: if wishes were horses, beggars could ride. It seems worth it to keep thinking beggars might ride. In any case, it seems impossible for some of us not to keep wishing.

New Year's brings out customary but odd habits. Not the staying up until midnight and drinking champagne (if you're lucky). That's dandy so far as I'm concerned. But the typical old year's reckoning and new-year's resolution-ing is not something I want to do. Not personally, and not more generally in terms of the society in which I live.

But it's unavoidable: the new year coundown of "best" (and of course it also brings to mind "worst". To me, there seems something so culturally sad and diminishing about going through "the 10 best hits of of the old year" and similar lists. We still like to do it, though my own lists hardly match up. The flip side to our customary backward-looking reckoning is all the forward-looking resolutions we project into the future for bettering ourselves or our world, There's something reassuring about that forward-looking, I suppose. A little optimism about our own decisiveness for future action. So I'm picturing a petty con-artist saying to him/her-self, "Yeah, tomorrow I'm gonna quit all this petty theft and get into some serious crime!" Well, we do what we can.

I was wondering when this habit of new-year-resolutions started. Seems it has ancient and religious origins. Thought the seasons differed, the ancient Babylonians made promises to their gods at the start of each year (Spring) that they would return borrowed objects and pay their debts. Whereas in the winter, the anciet Romans began each year by making promises to the god Janus (January).

We're hardly surprised when, yet again, our actions disappoint our resolutions. No one holds us accountable for them anyway. So what if, instead of momentous resolutions, we just decided, "keep being humane each day"? Does that sound too defeatist, not striving enough? How about just trying to be decent, as a good friend of mine once said? I'll try that.

Detail of painting in Flow series by Janet Strayer

So what have I got to show for the new year? Fortunately, since I set myself up for this one, I've got a new art show, with its opening reception next week: FLOW: Nature, Art, and Mind. Some of the paintings from my previous exhibition on the same theme are included, as well as many additional ones.
Here's the write-up:

FLOW: Nature, Art and Mind is a collection of abstract and expressively representational paintings that seek to capture the dynamic energies of land, sea and sky. Inspired by the natural world on Saturna Island, Strayer depicts the shifting currents amongst natural forms, which serve as a daily reminder of the delicate balance of geo-organic life. The seemingly solid Earth is alive with telluric energy and tectonic shifts, the Sea with oceanic flows, the Sky with atmospheric currents . . . each interacting to form and transform our world.

The exhibition is at Place des Arts in Vancovuver, a large and friendly setting that will be showing three separate art exhibits simultaneously: mine, those of another painter who uses alcohol inks in lovely abstract compositions, and a photograhic work that is quite dream-like. You can read more about it all here.

The exhibitions run until Feb. 6, ... enough time to set your resolution? Happy New Year.

Your comments are always welcome: click below this post where "no comments/comments" is noted.

More Creative Life News

You can read and see more about creative life, travels, tips and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at Creative Life News at https://www.janetstrayer.com

Regards, Janet

Scrooge and the Gift of Giving

noreply@blogger.com (Janet Strayer) — Mon, 17 Dec 2018 02:21:00 +0000

The air now is cold but not crisp. It's wet and grey-toned here.There must be at least 50 shades of it. Hardly a cause for celebration. The sky is mostly overcast, giving a dull and laden feeling to most everything under it. Certainly including me.

No birds sing. Exception: the crows and ravens still quarrel, sounding a bit impatient with the state of things. Strong winds sometimes break through this diminished daylight, with occasional gusts blowing away the endless clouds and fog to show a moment of sparkle upon the waters or a glimmer of distant snow-covered mountain.

Winter-solstice is approaching. I feel like a bear., Truly. I should be hibernating, but there's just too much to do. Although I do want to do much of it, a seasonal lethargy has gotten into my bones and makes me cringe at taking action. Instead, it directs me to the couch. Where I have been sick with a cold-flu-(whatever) just to justify it.

Not the right attitude for Christmas, Chanuka, and winter holiday season. Humbug! I feel like Scrooge, without his ill intent. I'm just morose and lethargic. Hardly a time to join in on the generic la la la la lah. More in tune with some old blues music, which is exactly what I have playing. Oh, Bessie.

Nothing like the blues to get a gal out of this sorry state. Which brings me to the good news in all this glum . It's a genuine gift of giving in the form of an art donation to the VGH-UBC Art Foundation. For many years this foundation has collected a rather remarkable art collection, with works adorning Vancouver's main hospital locations. Art acts as a form of connection, healing, joy, contemplation, enrichment, and all the many varieties of experience it offers.

I am very pleased and grateful to know that three of my works have just this month been selected for the Art Foundation collection. I have donated the paintings, and am told they have a new setting in mind for them, which I will be most interested to see. Even on less than happy occasions visiting the hospital, I have been so very impressed by the art that greets me in all sections of it. How much of a difference art makes. Perhaps this is especially so when it is seen in unlikely moments and settings.
I'm so thankful to be a part of this.

All Things Bright, Greeting, and Praise: 3 paintings by Janet Strayer, VGH-UBC Art Foundation

And so, I will end on this up-note and wish you well this season of gifts and giving.

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You can read and see more about creative life, travels, tips and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at Creative Life News at https://www.janetstrayer.com

Regards, Janet

Island-Hopping Art

noreply@blogger.com (Janet Strayer) — Mon, 06 Aug 2018 21:03:00 +0000

Saturna Island, a little-known wonder of the world, is home ot many creative people... as you might imagine it to be.

Yesterday, for example, I went to a book-launching for the first novel published by a friend and neighbour, Lyne Gareau. Her book, La librarie des Insomniacs, written (and currently available) in French, will no doubt soon be available in English as well. The launching was held at a gorgeous and locally well-known spot at Saturna's east-most point, the FAB building, a Saturna Heritage Site.

photo by:http://saturnaheritage.ca/node/10

Another creative event is coming soon. In this one, Saturna Island shares a bit of the spotlight with its neighbour, another of the very special southern Gulf Islands (an archipelago west of Victoria, the capital of British Columbia,

A group of artists from Saturna has been invited to show their artwork at the Sea Star Vineyards on Pender. Island This vineyard has been making a good name for its wine ... and for its art exhibitions.

I'll be showing a few paintings with the other Saturna Island artists mentioned in the poster (original painters, photographers, textile artists) from Saturna. We're a bunch of interesting individuals. You can find out for yourself at the opening celebration.

If you have the opportunity to visit during our art exhibition, please raise a toast with us... to ever-inspiring art and creative life!

More Creative Life News

You can read and see more about creative life, travels, tips and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at Creative Life News at https://www.janetstrayer.com

Regards, Janet

Saturna Island Studio Tour 2018

noreply@blogger.com (Janet Strayer) — Thu, 02 Aug 2018 16:09:00 +0000

Saturna Island is magical place to visit... and this tour is a very congenial way to meet the creators and see their work in their own studios. You can see original paintings, fabric art, photography, and ceramics, and woodworking.

Check out the artsaturna.blogspot.ca for full into.

This showcase of the fine creative artists and their work in their studios on Saturna Island has been a an event for some years. Very different from the mostly crammed studio spaces in city-tours, the studios here are in wonderfully unique rural settings. You can also see a group show to give you an overall view of what's in store.

It's a fine time to visit if you can make it! I'll be partiipating and we can meet at the PRISM Gallery near the ferry dock.

Your comments are always welcome: click below this post where "no comments/comments" is noted.

Happy summering.

Regards, Janet @ https://www.janetstrayer.com

PRISM Art Gallery Opens for the Season

noreply@blogger.com (Janet Strayer) — Sat, 26 May 2018 23:39:00 +0000

June inaugurates my second Spring-Summer season at the PRISM Gallery on beautiful Saturna Island (open weekends and holiday Mondays 11am-5pm).The PRISM is located at a fine little spot near the ferry dock and pub, so you can drop in and browse when coming, going, or lingering.

The new show features my paintings of fabulous faces.I love faces. They are like windows from which we look at others and others look inward into us. Faces fascinate if you just look. But we're not supposed to look, and certainly not to let our gaze linger. Perhaps that's why I especially love to paint faces-- real and imagined.You get to look and linger and see inside as well as out.

These imagined faces I've painted come from fables (hence they are fabulous), dreams, reveries, and idiosyncratic amalgams of people known or created. Mostly female because I am.

I've used a range of styles for different purposes:Sometimes the idea (or abstract concept) of a face is what I'm seeking, so I've painted in an abstract style.Other times it's the emotive quality of faces, so I've painted expressively to catch this aspect.Yet other times it's the narrative quality of faces, the stories they hold within them, so I've painted what I think and feel the narrative might be. Themes expressed in these works include the links between human and animal, child and doll/puppet, and the beyond.

Saturna Island is filled with a variety of wonderful artists and crafts-people. Each has his or own studio, which I'm happy to help you locate. My own working studio seems a bit hard for many people to reach, so I've opened this new spot to welcome you to my artwork.

The B&Bs and camping spots on Saturna are well recommended and range across preferences and budgets. Plan a get-away here if you can. And include a visit to the PRISM.

More Creative Life News

You can read and see more about creative life, travels, tips and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at Creative Life News at https://www.janetstrayer.com

Regards, Janet

Sorrento and Naples

noreply@blogger.com (Janet Strayer) — Sun, 01 Apr 2018 09:43:00 +0000

Sorrento is a Treat

Living anywhere can be an adventure. But living away from home is one, for sure.

In Italy. Today was another reminder of the dramatic contrasts of Italy. Sorrento was our reward after our grueling stay in Matera during an unexpected snowfall (see blogpost). Nothing could be more of a contrast than our experience of this morning in Matera and this evening in Sorrento.

We continue to think of Sorrento as a "reward" city when we want a respite from more challenging travels. What a lovely and welcome site it is, even in winter, to come from harsher weather to this sunny seaside town filled with orange trees.

A bit broken by our recent adventures in Matera, we decided to rest in the luxury of La Minervetta a little boutique hotel in Sorrento. Here's looking out our huge window at Vesuvius.

Vesuvius through hotel window (Janet Strayer photo)

View of Vesuvius, Naples and Seagull over bay (from our window)

The Minervetta is a small and beautifully architected modern white house standing several stories along the slope lining the sea. The interior and all rooms are individually decorated with professional but also delightfully eclectic care, with wonderful art pieces and good books and magazines in all private rooms and in the hugely comfortable lounge and corridors. It's a feast for eyes and senses.

Unruly Naples: I Like It!

We stayed in Sorrento but took the train daily into Naples --a city that eats cars, among other things. Every guide-book screams NOT to take your car into Naples if you expect to get it back intact. Driving in the city is lawless. Every guide-book, as well as some city notices, also warns of pickpockets. We know: we'd been hacked by nimble fingers on previous trips.

But I like Naples. It's an overwhelmingly noisy and grungy city that has too much of everything unrefined. Since reading Elena Ferrante's books, starting with My Brilliant Friend, which conveys the often brutal but very human life there, I felt a bit more of a personal connection to Naples . Not that I'd take anything for granted as a visitor here.

Touring the Sights in Naples

It was just going to be a "look-around and make it easy" kind of day. We ended up just strolling busy old streets, with construction repairs going on all over the city center. It was fun window-shopping along the main streets from the train station, no visible signs to guide us.

Each of the main streets branched into many little side-streets, each devoted to different products. One was filled with presepi, originally Christmas manger scenes in miniature, now extended to include whole village populations, political commentary, and activities involving moving parts. The sculptural quality of some of the work depicted was really quite good. Another little street was fitted with lovely old chocolate shops, another with embroidery and sewing shops. Outside stalls sold varieties of small items from keys to candy. Probably anything could be found, if you knew where to look. Except maybe your car.

Santa Chiara

Cloister, Sta. Chiara, Naples (photos Janet Strayer)

We ended up at the massive complex of Santa Chiara (monastery, church, tombs, archaeological museum, cloisters), built in early 1300's by the Queen of Majorca and her husband, King Robert of Naples. Too much, too big, and the architecture, well, just too heavy .... so we settled for a visit only to its famed cloisters.

The cloister, transformed in 18th C. grand Rococo style, has a brashly colourful floral decor. The huge frescoes that remain visible (damaged by time and war) are religious in theme , but the tiles decorating the perimeter foundations of the pillared cloisters show bucolic scenes of country life beside the sea (see above). You'd think the nuns who strolled there might have come from the Follies Bergère. The decorations seem so gay and frivolous. Every inch of unplanted area is filled with decorated majolica tiles. What kinds of contemplative thoughts did this lavish decor inspire in cloistered nuns?

photos Janet Strayer

Pizza Napolitana

Walking down from Santa Chiara we came to our final destination of the day in Naples: one of six top-rated pizzerias (by Michelin) in a city famous for its great pies. We ate in the last room of the plain, white-tiled L'Antica Pizzeria da Michele. This place serves just two types of wood-fired pizza (red sauce, white sauce), but there's no need for more. We had one of each.

We walked back to the train station, having walked about 6 miles in Naples that day. It was winter but the orange trees bloomed. The train was packed with commuters. It was dark outside by now, with the train travelling through tunnels and above ground. Every now and then the train doors opened and, though you could not see them, you could smell the scent of oranges in winter.

It was a good trip. Car and wallets intact, and so much more to adventure to bring home with us.

More Creative Life News

You can read and see more recent posts about Italy, plus other travels and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at my Creative Life News site here.

The Oldest Inhabited Cave-City in Europe: Matera, Italy

noreply@blogger.com (Janet Strayer) — Sat, 31 Mar 2018 12:24:00 +0000

Modern Life in a Cave: The Sassi of Matera

We are now visiting a very unusual place, located on the instep of Italy's boot.

Matera is the name of this very unusual city in Basilicata (Lucania), Italy. It is thought to be the oldest continuously-inhabited settlement in Europe (over 9,000 years). It also had the distinction of being one of the most deprived and impoverished areas in Italy until the latter part of the 20th century.

looking across gorge from Sassi, Matera (Janet Strayer close-up photo zoom)

The oldest, perhaps most interesting part of Matera contains the Sassi (the Rocks), two areas along a precipice deposited on either side of a deep gorge. This area of highly porous limestone resulted in many caves and houses dug into the precipices. It is the ancient and continuous habitation of these caves and dwellings in the Sassi that finally put Matera on the modern map. It is now a designated UNESCO site (click link for what we missed).

Bad Weather

We picked a bad time to go to Matera. But it was the time we had free, and we'd made reservations online (non-refundable). The weather wasn't too bad when we left our comfy place in Lecce: just overcast and drizzling. Basilicata province borders Lecce in Puglia, so how much worse could it get? No big deal. But the drizzling rain turned to big, wet smudges of snow on the windshield as we neared Matera. In fact, we'd picked one of the worst times to travel. Today's headline (Feb. 26 as I write in Matera) from The Guardian International Edition reads:"Beast from the east' brings snow and frosty weather across Europe: Schools closed and transport disrupted as temperatures plunge across continent"

The Travelling Attitude: Weather the Storm!

The worst time ever to travel! As seasoned travellers, though, we thought we could weather the storm. Part of the art of travelling is an optimistic, exploratory mindset without too many expectations. I think this is because you have to keep going, in any case; so you lower the bar of your expectations or you reframe them. That meant we were NOT ging to take the tour we'd wanted up and down and in and out of the many caves in what's known as the Sassi districts, and we were not going to see the famed Byzantine-frescoed cave sites scattered throughout the precipices forming the Sassi. But at least we were going to see a possibly more "genuine" Matera in all its cold and wet and grey reality. We would experience a very small bit of what the winter (one day of it, anyway) was like for those who had lived here year round ... and under much worse conditions than a pre-heated hotel room! So, with our re-booted expectations held firmly much lower than we'd originally hoped, we travelled onward.

A few kilometers before we reached Matera, we saw some strange out-croppings of eroded rocks and barren land that could be imagined as moonscapes. It had a very harsh attraction, even (or especially) on this overcast day that blocked out sky and sun. But, like other travellers, we were intent upon having our modern troglodyte experience.

Many years ago, we'd been to Cappadocia in Turkey, a similarly eroded landscape that also had archaeological traces of Neolithic cave settlement (but were no longer lived-in). It also contained interesting frescoes tucked into oddly shaped caves in the rocks. But that was in the light of the sun. We'd even bathed our feet in thermal springs there.

Sassi, Matera (Janet Strayer photo, Feb 26, 2018)

No such luck here and now. It was bleak when we got to Matera.The temperature was about -5 C. It felt even colder walking around the Sassi. The wind blew smacks of wet snow at us. All around us was cold stone and highly porous rock. There was nowhere to go. Nearly everything was sensibly closed. Only a handful of bundled-up people were visible, all of us taking photos with gloves on. This could get claustrophobic, I thought, as I had to watch my steps along the very slippery stone pavements and steps along the rockface. Everything in stone and everything leading to more stone strata , now with houses (once caves) tucked into the porous rocks. Looking down, more stone precipice.

This worn and harsh terrain is the landscape used for biblical dramas like Pasolini's The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964) and Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (2004), as well as the Amazon's city in Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman (2017). There is something other-worldly in its severity and lack of softness. Many have taken what shelter they could in its many caves. And some have been exiled here.

Carlo Levi, self portrait (part of painting)

This area became home to Carlo Levi, the Italian doctor, painter, writer (Christ Stopped At Eboli), and activist who was exiled near here as a Jewish and anti-Fascist political prisoner. Levi's penetrating description of the daily hardships and deplorable conditions experienced by the often starving, malaria-infested, and stalwart people who endured in this region helped to propel the inequities of Italy's southern regions to national and international attention after WW II. He likened the rock-faced, funnel-like Sassi of Matera to the imagined landscape of Dante's hell.

the day before the snow hit hard: a piazza in the Sassi, photo by Janet Strayer

Matera now is nothing like the rawness of Levi's description. But neither is it a gentrified place.

night in the Sassi before the snowfall, from screened window in our room, Janet Strayer photo

It seems still to be evolving, with greater cross-Italian and international interest, re-settlement, improved housing conditions and hotels, as well as re-vitalized communities. The once disgraceful state of living conditions here have now been converted into a unique heritage site for the world to see. The New Yorker published an interesting article in 2015 about Matera from the perspective of its locals past and present. As it always does, progress has come at the price of loss.

A national embarrassment, the Italian government in the 1950's forcibly relocated Matera's cave inhabitants to more modern quarters, a move that lacerated their local culture while aimed at improving conditions.

Cathedral atop Sassi precipice in Matera (Janet Strayer photo)

Subsequently, people, including those with means, started moving back into the Sassi, renovating it, and now the European Union supports it with investment and tourism. This remains a site that, in the midst of improvements, well remembers its recent past, visible in historical records and videos, and always in the landscape itself. It is a place worth knowing, but it is not a pleasant place in my regard. You'll read why as events continue.

ceiling of our room in Sassi of Matera, Janet Strayer photo

We'll remember our visit for several reasons.The night we slept in the Sassi, we felt the coldness of the place, its unforgiving harshness, its stories, its ghosts. The wet snow that greeted our arrival turned overnight into a steady accumulated snowfall. The power went out in our room (we were the only guests). The caretaker served breakfast the next morning and told us to get on the move pronto, before they closed the roads. Trouble was, I felt awful. I'd hit my head at night, without remembering it, and the pillow was bleeding. I'd probably had a concussion and my head ached fiercely. No vehicles could come get us here. We'd have to walk in the snow to a main piazza, and maybe there we could find a cab to take us to the covered lot where we'd left our car before entering the Stassi. Not on our life. And that's what seemed at stake. Forget about the famed cave-religious paintings which we never got to see.

Backback and bag in tow, we did our best. Me, with toilet tissue inside my hat that padded my bloody head, and with a stick (a mop handle) I'd taken from the courtyard to help me balance. My partner carried most of our load in his backback. I could barely walk but was highly motivated to get the hell out!

We couldn't find the piazza, having taken one of the many possible wrong turns in the Sassi. We slipped and fell on the slick and slanted stone walks, snow falling in our eyes. We knew we couldn't be far from the piazza, but we also knew by now that there would be no cabs. They were suddenly part of another world. There was nothing I wanted more right then than to get out of this god-forsaken stone maze. Dante's hell came to my mind... just as it had to Carlo Levi.

We trod down another dispirited route, weary and sore, as a truck was inching its way down the road. Angels picked us up. They were stone-masons who'd been working inside the Cathedral and were going home to their nearby town before the roads officially closed. They didn't know Matera, but did their best to drive us to the parking lot where our car might be. Mercy.

It was the wrong parking lot. And it took us even further away from where we'd parked. We discovered this as we wandered around looking for our car. A woman noticed we'd been circling the lot on foot several times. We'd thought this was the only covered parking lot in Matera, but she told us there was another. It was much too far to walk, especially under present conditions. She resolutely escorted us to the police, located on an upper floor of the parking lot, telling us, in as much Italian dialect as we could understand, that this was absolutely what must be done to get us out of here.

So there we sat in the police station hallway for several hours. At least we were out of the snow and could drink some water. A female officer told me I should go to the hospital, seeing my blood-matted hair (I'd tried to clean it, but the wound kept opening and hurt to touch). Nope, all I wanted was get out of Madera, thanks. No police cars available. All roads were a mess. We waited, limp in the corridor, deciding that our fate was sealed: we'd have to spend a wretched night in any place that would give us a room, even in the pokey. Several hours later, one very, very kind and competent officer told us he'd managed to order a police car from somewhere. He and his partner drove us through chaotic streets to our car. Mercy again.

We made it out, slowly inching our way among the other cars to the highway. We followed a van of prison-inmates. It was a rough drive out, but here we are. And now it has become our own true story of a winter night in Matera. How happy and grateful to have survived this particular adventure.

Your comments are always welcome: click below this post where "no comments/comments" is noted.

Regards, Janet @ https://www.janetstrayer.com

Unknown Masters in Galatina

noreply@blogger.com (Janet Strayer) — Tue, 20 Mar 2018 13:22:00 +0000

Finding the Unexpected

A TV show brought us to Galatina in Puglia, Italy. We were home in Canada watching a show hosted by Anthony Bourdain on his travels in southern Italy. It featured a small bit of an old documentary that filmed incidents of tarantism, a peculiar and local form of psychosocial malady affecting some women of the countryside. You can click here to see the original Italian documentary, La Taranta,

La Taranta shows women seized by an apparently uncontrollable urge to move and keep moving. Witnessed by others in their community, they typically may end up at the local church, where a religious rit may relieve them of their spasms of movement. The dance, the Tarantella, reportedly derives from this malady. Quite different from the rawness of the movements shown in the documentary, the Tarantella dance is a festive celebration. You can read more the fascinating history of this dance in my related column on Taranto.

Galatina

spider/Taranta motif at restaurant in Galatina

My focus now on Galatina will show you why this city needs special mention. The cult of the Tarante, with its spider-dance, is only one reason -- though it is a prevalent one, as you can see by its motif adorning a local restaurant.

Galatina has been a focal spot for the preservation and reinvention of the Taranta cult. In late August, tourists may join The Night of the Tarantula (La Nottte della Taranta), an all-night music festival marking the importance of the Tarantella to this area.

More traditionally in Galatina and surrounding villages, St Paul, patron saint of the tarantate, is celebrated to this day in an all-night event on June 28. It starts with a procession from Piazza San Pietro to the chapel of St Paul, followed by performances by drummers and other musicians lasting until dawn the following day, June 29 – the feast day of saints Peter and Paul. At early dawn the musicians, dancers, tarante and visitors gather at St Paul’s chapel to pay their respects before the crowds arrive for the official early morning Mass.

This Site Came as a Total Surprise: Church of Santa Catherina

There is another, and for me, even more impressive reason to visit Galatina. And it came as a surprise.

After a brief but rather dull drive from Lecce, Galatina surprises you as a pretty city. We looked into its large and expectably-decorated Cathedral of Peter and Paul (featured in the La Taranta documentary mentioned). It was impressive outside, but rather grim inside. The real treasure was to come.

We took a moment to peek into the city's perhaps less-known church of Sta. Caterina. I was absolutely blown away by the stunning art I saw, and that I'd never previously known even existed. It was way beyond any expectations I had ... and that's a real joy when travelling and just exploring for its own sake.

Unfortunately, the outside of the church was wrapped up for renovation, and you could see nothing of its features. Nevertheless, we walked through the wooden scaffold to find that the interior was open. WOW!

part of ceiling (Janet Strayer photo)

frescoes in Sta. Catarina/Galentina (photos by Janet Strayer)

nave (natural light, Janet Strayer photo)

ornately painted pillars, Sta. Caterina (Janet Strayer photo)

The church of Santa Caterina in Galatina is a marvel to behold. Almost every inch of this large church is covered in beautifully intact frescoes. You can insert some coins for lights come on, and then see almost everything covered in painted narratives. Ceilings, walls, even columns are painted. The style is consistent: a mix of Byzantine and early Renaissance influences that works to make a unique artistic and religious statement.

Gorgeous frescoes occur throughout Italy, with the Sistine Chapel being perhaps the most famous. But on a more intimate yet complete scale, the frescoes here hit home. Not since Fra Angelico's work in Florence or Giotto's in Padua, have I been so impressed by a single structure so completely filled with such interesting and original religious art.

Dating mostly from the early1 5th C, the frescoes are in remarkable shape. Not all were completed, and you can sometimes see cartoons of the intended works on the prepared walls (an extra attraction for many artists). A few frescoes are in need of repair, but most are perfect. In general, they are just stunning in overall impact, plus they beckon you to come closer and see more.

wall and part ceiling of series of "Mary frescoes" (Janet Strayer photo)

We don't know the artists' names for sure, but they were stylistic masters (click for some suggestions and a good link for photos and text). They must have seen and been influenced in compositional motifs and stylistic concerns by early Renaissance work further north in Italy (Umbria, Tuscany). Yet, their work favours a different palette and the dramatic contrast of night-time settings.Talented in both stylistic and technical matters, the feast of frescoes beckons you to keep looking at them: the faces, the settings depicted, the flow of narrative, the use of space.

The Romanesque-Gothic church of Santa Caterina dates back to the late 1300's, and the frescoes are dated about 1420. Endowed by the wealth of the Count of Solento and his widow, the nave alone consists of a self-contained fresco composition that includes 140 picture compartments. The nave paintings extend across four bays. The largest group presents the Apocalypse according to St John. It extends across three walls in the first bay of the nave and includes some fifty separate scenes. The Apocalypse is aways a show-stopper, in my opinion. But I'm also drawn to depictions Genesis and Adam and Eve. You can pick your own favourites, as I'm sure the parishioners did when "reading" this extensive pictorial narrative.

I took a mass of photos under the poor lighting conditions. I've given you just a taste from a few samples I liked for different reasons: their blend of Byzantine and early Renaissance styles, references to their time (knights' armour), their refinement, expressive quality, linear emphasis, spatial sense, or composition.

Other fresco series are dedicated to Mary, and yet others to Sta. Caterina. You can find something remarkable in any of them, in the different depictions of John the Baptist, of the slaying of the Dragon, or even of the small touches in the little figures (perhaps patrons) only marginal to the main scene.

incidental figure (Janet Strayer photo)

One can tire of visiting so many notable churches and cathedrals in Italy. But truly, this is one not to miss.

More Creative Life News

You can read and see more about Italy, plus other travels and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at Creative Life News click https://www.janetstrayer.com

Regards, Janet

Taranto, Italy and the Dance of the Spider

noreply@blogger.com (Janet Strayer) — Thu, 15 Mar 2018 13:20:00 +0000

Taranto

You've heard of the dance, the Tarantella? Its origins are an oddity, and it is linked to Taranto, a small city in Puglia, on Italy's Ionian coast. It's an odd distinction for a town, but that is its fate and fame. Another nearby city in Puglia, Galatina, with similar links to the tarantella -- plus some incredible art worth seeing-- is featured in a separate column here.

Title still-shot of documentary, credits and link

The Origins of the Tarantella

The peculiarity of the tarantella is that its origins are associated with a psychic disorder, a form of hysteria, known as tarantism that was recognized in Italy as early as the 15th C. Tarantism has lingered on in isolated rural areas through the 20th C. This has been recorded n a documentary clip from nearby Galatina the 1950's and aired on TV by another off-beat traveller, Anthony Bourdin. You can click here to see the original Italian documentary, La Taranta, which filmed incidents of tarantism occurring in the nearby countryside. Filmed in the 1950's, it looks much earlier in time and is quite different in its rawness from the holiday tarantellas celebrated in festivals now.

Spider Bite or Hysteria?

Said to be caused by the bite of a tarantula spider (a form of wolf-spider or black-widow), its victims (mostly women) display distressed and feverish symptoms that include vomiting and sweating, fear and delirium, depression and paranoia. They are seemingly cured by a rite that involves feverish 'dancing' that can last for days. It's not so much dancing as it is impulsive, pulsing movement: jumping, hopping, gyrating upright or on the floor. The frenetic movements are accompanied by music played fast, in 6/8 time, with the pace of both music and movements reciprocally urging each other onward, all in the company of family and neighbors who attend the seized woman. The often delirious victim, with attendant crowd, eventually is guided to the local church where, still trance-like and tired-out, she is finally 'danced-out 'of her throes with religious help.

A Fascinating History of a Malady and a Dance

The tarantella has a fascinating history. It is thought that the town of Taranto, in particular, gave its name to the dance because a particular variety spider, popularly believed to be venomous, was common to this region.So, the dance was named the tarantula.

Dancing Maenad on Vase by Python, 330 B.C. credits

The origins of the dance, however, may lie much deeper in history and cult. This dance is speculated to be a surviving remnant from ancient rites of Diana or of Dionysius.

We know that all of Puglia was originally more Greek than Latin/Roman. By early Roman times, Bacchanalian rites were suppressed, which may have driven them underground ... where they lingered and were transformed into another collective ritual in the cult of Tarantism. What is known for certain is that Tarantism dates back centuries in this region, appearing in early manuscripts.

The music, originally played on local instruments available at the time (tambourine, drums, fiddle, accordion, guitar) developed into folk dance forms. These dances became popular in several regions of southern Italy. In the Salento region, the dance is also known as the pizzica.

The tarantella also made its way to the more formal dance-floor for nimble-footed partners. And the stellar choreographer, George Balanchine, adapted it to ballet. Remarkable in its journey from dirt floors to concert halls, the tarantella also appears in the work of such dignified composers as Franz Liszt and Frederic Chopin. But the original forms of the dance, very obscurely caused by a spider's bite, were inspired by each individual's almost hypnotically frenzied, trance-like movements in response to the dancer's delirium, then set to music's beat.

Archaeology in Taranto: the MARTA

We visited Taranto, the city etymologically linked to this curious dance, We were unlikely to see the tarentella danced today. Our motivation for visiting was to see Taranto's well-recommended archaeological museum, the MARTA.

a navigation scene with figure carved on cup, 2,000 BC

We were not disappointed. The MARTA (Museo Nazionale Archeologico di Taranto) is easy to navigate and fun to explore, with excellent staff to help, if needed. The access and lighting are modern, and the items just enough to give a sense of the particularity of each item and its context. The displays are very well presented (many in English and Italian), with computer-screens that let you look further into particular items and context.

This is a museum you can appreciate, one that takes both its informative function and audience satisfaction into consideration. We left, feeling both intellectually and aesthetically satisfied. And maybe we even learned a thing or two. Especially notable is how much the language, artifacts, art, and customs derived from ancient Greece (magna-Graecia) and cross-cultural interactions influenced this southern region that is now Italy.

One of the reasons I love museums like MARTA, which focus upon what we call "prehistory" and "protohistory", is that they show as well as inspire a special blend of skillfully investigative research +

imagination in order to unearth, literally, what the displayed objects likely meant when they were fully alive.

The museum is arranged chronologically as you walk through its levels. Here are some of the many intriguing and beautiful objects in the museum -- a random and non-chronological sampling from photos I took. They include 20,000 year-old figurines of a female/goddess, a polychromed head with its colours intact, anthropomorphic pots from the 6th century B.C., one of the most intricate gold earrings I've seen (4th century B.C.), a nutcracker in the shape of black hands, representations of African faces ( 3rd-4th century B.C. cross-roads of many cultures), wonderfully designed functional pots from different epochs, and Medusa as she looked across ancient time.

Communication and Cross-Cultural Influences

It's a gift to us that a focus of such museums is to illuminate the earliest forms communication within this region of multiple cultures. We come to appreciate the intents and meanings behind the many quotidian, functional, ceremonial, religious and just plain beautiful objects displayed.

Given that there are no extant traces of the language that accompanied many of the objects shown, we're left with marvellous clues to decipher: technological artifacts of the time, items relating to food production/consumption, houses and settlements, burial remains, ritual or ceremonial objects, human adornments, decorative motifs and representations (animal, human, gods), aesthetic styles, art.

Almost any human act can have both functional and symbolic or ideological meaning, and meanings can change across generations and different communities. In this way, archaeology s remains a living story precisely because it remains open to be deciphered, by us now... as it was then.

Quite a time-travel adventure when we visited Taranto!

More Creative Life News

You can read and see more about Italy, plus other travels and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at Creative Life News click https://www.janetstrayer.com

Regards, Janet

Ever Want to Hug a House? You Will in Puglia

noreply@blogger.com (Janet Strayer) — Sat, 10 Mar 2018 18:32:00 +0000

Unusual Houses in Puglia

I mean it. Really. Have you ever seen a house you wanted to hug?

That's exactly what I wanted to do upon first seeing a trullo: I wanted to hug it!

Trulli in Alberobello (photo Janet Strayer)

Structures Called Trulli

These unusual stone houses are called Trulli. Their conical stone structure is so distinct, diminutive and charming that it forms a category unto itself. I'd even say these houses are adorable, easily skipping into the world of fantasy hobbits and elves, except for the fact that they are quite real. And inhabited by real people.

The name, trulo, derives from the Greek word for dome. In contast to hobbitland, they are, and have been for centuries, functional houses serving the needs of their inhabitants ... as well as bringing delight to visitors. They merit a whole area of Puglia devoted to them.

Alborobello is a World Heritage Site

Travelling a bit more than hour from our home-base in Lecce (Puglia) is Alborobello, a UNESCO world heritage cite. It is a city put on the map by its trulli. All around this area, you can find trulli scattered throughout the countryside. In Alborobello, one finds their densest concentration.

a congregation of trulli (photo by Janet Strayer)

The Scenic Drive

The route to Alborobello from Lecce is interesting, presenting a change from flat to hilly to steeper and greener terrain, with winding mountain passes that get snow (I saw road signs warning of its eventuality). The area is a distinct change of scenery from further south, and it is home to many nature walks in the woods. It was taking this drive that I realised how much I missed large masses of green and trees. Seems the ancient Romans de-natured the once-forested south of Italy (and Sicily), uprooting the trees to build ships. Ah yes, the lessons of history...

streets of trulli, Arborobello (Janet Strayer photos)

It makes one smile to see a cluster of trulli from a distance. I imagined a whole village of small persons with pointed hats. Not so, of course. The trullo is a unique example of ancient architecture that survives and functions in today's world. Nowadays, several trulli can be seen joined into quite fantastic, castle-like residences with charmingly curved courtyards. There are trulli hotels, though you can also stay in a small trulli B&B. Their conical roofs are are made of horizonatal slabs of limestone, positioned in a series of diminishing concentric circles, and often mounted by a decorative feature.

trullo roof stones (Janet Strayer photo)

Inside a Trullo

I wanted to get a feeling for the more modest trullo, as it might have been in the past. One was open for vistors, allowing us to see how remarkable it was inside as well as out. I was amazed by how compact and comfortable it was. The structure's interior is distributed around its central space without any additional elements of support -- like the modern concept of open-space interior, but with arched ceilings separating modular units in this space. The "rooms" (without doors) are identified by changing curves in the wall, each one mounted by a high coned ceiling. Standing was comfortable and, though each room was tiny, each was sufficient to its purpose, explained to me as the central living area, kitchen-dining-area, adult bedroom, children's bedroom. The walls' thickness and the scarcity of windows functions to promote thermal regulation: warm in winter, cool in summer.

History of Trulli Structures

Trulli have been recorded in archaeological finds as preshistoric burial sites, among other things, and their construction is not complex--- but building them to endure stably is a skill (link to read more). Made of limestone rocks built up concentrically into ever smaller circles, their bases are now grafted with limestone masonry.

But why should they have remained distinctly prominent in this region? Their historical origins as a settlement of houses in Alborobello date back to the 14th century. The story is that this form of construction, known from earliest times, was used because it is free-standing dry wall (no mortar) that can be readily constructed (and dismantled). Those qualities, plus the abundance of white limestone in the area, could serve the needs of hasty settlers, eager to take advantage of land grants while evading building taxes.

Locorotondo

Leaving Alborobello, we made a brief stop in nearly Locorotondo ("round place"), heralded as one of the most beautiful small cities in Italy... and one of the whitest. Some of Italy's fine wines can be found in this area.

Although trulli can also been seen here, my lasting impression of this city is of well cared-for, simple white houses, calmly positioned in a circular city plan.

We stopped for a machiatto at an fine little coffee bar facing the little park atop the city, taking a look down at the scenic valley before continuing "home" to Lecce.

I'm eager to see what comes next. Until then...

More Creative Life News

You can read and see more recent posts about Italy plus other travels and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at my Creative Life News site here.

A River Runs Through It: How an Ordinary House in Puglia Became a Treasure Trove

noreply@blogger.com (Janet Strayer) — Thu, 22 Feb 2018 19:17:00 +0000

The House a River Ran Through

Walking within the walls of the old city of Lecce, we come to a house. From the outside it looks like the other old stone houses lining this street. Perhaps not as fancy on its exterior as some others we've seen on our walks in this gracious city, but a solidly constructed part of this ancient street. Its door is open... and we enter.

Wow!

terracota artifacts, found at Faggiano house

The Faggiano Legacy

The house is named after the Faggiano family who own it. By accident, it was found to be a treasure trove of archaeological finds, all coming from beneath its floors and within in its walls. And it's true: a river runs through it!

Tuffa deposits underground, Faggiano house/museum

peek trough walls, Faggiano museum (Janet Strayer photos)

The story of this house and the remarkable findings under it was written about in the New Yorks Times in 2015. Even more remarkable when the story is told to you, first-hand, from one of the boys (now an adult) who did the digging... seven years of it!

Andrea Faggiano told us the story that brought history to light. He had worked with his father and brothers to fix the water problem, and ended up bringing this "museum" into being. His enthusiasm and respect for the archaeology and history of his house are infectious.

Andreas Faggiano (standing on one of the glass supports allowing you to see below (Janet Strayer photo

Is Dampness a Problem in Your Home?

The story begins with those who occupied the house repeatedly complaining of dampness. Some years ago, Luciano Faggiano (the father) decided to take a shovel to the situation and explore the piping and sewage system below the house. He had intended to make the house a trattoria when he started digging to repair the pipes. He and his young sons encountered far more than wet dirt, (though there were masses of that). In fact, they discovered an underground river that runs eventually into the Adriatic. More than this: as they dug, successive layers of tunnels were found, each deeper than the next, with artifacts of different civilizations found at each levels.The finds go back at least to 2,000 B.C. The family just had to stop digging by this time!

looking down into cistern (Janet Strayer photos)

one level Faggiano museum, stone steps up

It was just Mr. Faggiano and his sons doing the work until the State archaeologists were called in. One archaeologist was sent to supervise, but the digging remained a family affair, with most of the artifacts carted off to museums to be analysed. I've included some photos that may give you a feeling for it, from my eyes, anyway.

reclining female, Faggiano Museum (Janet Strayer photo)

Museo Archaeologico

What is now called the Museo Archaeologico Faggiano is a wonderful tribute both to the Faggiano family's efforts and to the civilizations that lived here before them. Visit this website link and make it a unique part of any visit to southern Italy. In this ordinary-from-the-outside house setting, you feel like an explorer, yourself. Spiral metal staircases lead down to the lowest chambers. You can walk on sturdy mirrored floor coverings to see historical excavations beneath the current floor and, in other places, walk the stone steps yourself.

jumble of terracotta remains found in Fabbiano house (Janet Strayer photo)

A World of Cultural History Beneath an Ordinary House

It is the surprise of this apparently "ordinary house" setting that makes everything unique. Within it, you walk through layers upon layers of history -- made very accessible through years of work. You are walking upon this region's earliest settlements, Greek Messapian culture, ancient Roman, Medieval to Byzantine cultures, and onward. Serving as places of worship, ancient burial rites, convents, hiding secrets within it. There is an underground system of caves clearly visible and partly open to exploration, which continues in different directions, including one ending at the ancient Roman amphitheatre in the center of Lecce.

The Knights Templar are a most active presence in the hidden tunnels and cisterns (now unearthed) that go down farther than I wished to. Templar etchings are visible on the walls, and the tower they used to scan for trouble remains intact.The chambers unearthed and other discoveries are numbered, along with informative explanations. Climbing to the top of the tower of the house, you would once have spotted possible invaders from the east (Ottoman invasions occurred). Now the view it is surrounded by the rooftops of other houses.

Though it is now called a 'museum' (for all the museum-quality artifacts and architectural remains in it), the outstanding feature of the Faggiano is that is was, and remains, a living house. It just happens to be a house that goes down to reveal layers upon layers of human history. It is an extraordinary experience to wander within it and through time. It was a great afternoon's adventure to travel thousands of years within this one private house. The invitation remains open. Thank you for our visit!

More Creative Life News

You can read and see more recent posts about Italy plus other travels and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at my Creative Life News site here.

Regards, Janet @ https://www.janetstrayer.com

Otranto in Puglia and its Marvelous Mosaics

noreply@blogger.com (Janet Strayer) — Tue, 20 Feb 2018 11:34:00 +0000

Otranto in Puglia:A Real Find!

I love this place!

Otranto is a another exceptional place well worth a visit on this narrow heel of southern Italy. We went there primarily to see its noted medieval mosaics, one of the largest pieces of inventive design to survive intact to our day. These mosaics also contribute one of the most important pieces of artwork

from the middle ages.

It's a wonder to be able to walk among these images today. They remain vibrant and so interestingly unique in their depiction of familiar themes.

A man on branch of Tree of Life, Otranto (Janet Strayer photo)

Built by the Normans in the 12th Century

exterior entrance, Otranto Cathedral (Janet Strayer photo)

The mosaics are the highlight of Otranto's ancient cathedral, built of monolithic granite and marble by the Normans at the beginning of the 11th century and incorporating Romanesque, Byzantine and early Christian styles. Despite the flourishes added later, the simplicity of its architecture and its stone rose-window may seem like a relief after all the very ornate and elaborate Baroque one sees in later and larger cathedrals. But just wait until you step inside! It is fantastic.

An Artist Who Did Not Want Anonymity

photo credit

One artist, a monk named Pantaleone (with his co-workers), was responsible for all this mosaic magic. He must have been sure enough of its legacy to leave his name in stone, along with all the other Latin inscriptions. Ah, the ego of an artiste!

nave mosaics, Otranto, photo credits

These wonderful 12th century mosaics are very different from the justly famous gorgeous floors and walls seen at Piazza Armerina in Sicily. First of all, here you are actually walking on the mosaics (for better or worse, in terms of their conservation). The mosaic floor is part of a still active church, with pews set atop them. Wonderful for the parishioners, I'd think, but a bit disappointing for viewers from afar who have read about this marvellous floor and wish to see it uninterrupted and undamaged. For photos taken with the floor cleared of pews, click on this recommended link. Otherwise, here are my own photos, taken under the present conditions.

Elephants holding up the Tree of Life (sideways view, Janet Strayer photo)

In the center , as you enter the cathedral, you see the Tree of Life balanced on the backs of two elephants. The tree branches out into the aisles and apses and beyond. Other original depictions range from genesis to redemption, all created with what seems to me a joyously inventive spirit and accomplished within a fine overall sense of decorative design.

Walking On an Illuminated Manuscript

The floor is so compelling, you might forget to look up at the elaborate carved and decorated ceiling, a contrast to the more simple architectural pillars and layout.

interior, and ceiling Otranto cathedral, Janet Strayer photos

But look to the floor! It's like walking through a huge, illuminated manuscript of the time. You even see some aspects of life (clothing, agriculture) in the Middle ages. Everything links to everything else in this marvellous depiction of the ever-branching Tree of Life!

Not just Old Testament (Cain and Abel, Jonah and whale, Sampson and lion , etc.) and New Testament theological narratives are depicted, but also the zodiac, pagan references (satyrs, etc.), fanciful beasts and mythological figures and symbols, as well medieval romances.

depictions of the Zodiac, and other fantastic creatures (above) photos by Janet Strayer

The inclusiveness expressed within Otranto Cathedral is said to mirror the interests of a once international city (of Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Jews and Muslims) in which "the culture of inclusion" thrived. Otranto was a hub of maritime trade connecting cultures of East and West. One hopes this focus on inclusiveness instead of insularity still lives on.

More Creative Life News

You can read and see more about Italy plus other travels and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at Creative Life News here.

Regards, Janet @ https://www.janetstrayer.com

Living in Lecce, Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Janet Strayer) — Fri, 16 Feb 2018 10:09:00 +0000

Catholic Baroque in Lecce

This southern region of Puglia is a very Catholic part of Catholic Italy. Visiting the many churches in Lecce (and in other nearby excursions), the daily masses are well attended, in contrast to other parts of Italy we've explored. Cathedrals and churches abound in all directions, and all seem to have some special treasure to gaze at, some historical feature to note, and many, many confessionals, should you need them.

In Lecce you can find an impressive church at literally each turn you take, with more than 20 elaborate stone churches in the historic centre alone! Given all these structures, no wonder Lecce's is famous for its own style of elaborated Baroque. Santa Croce is often heralded as the most ornate of these (under renovation as I write), but none are negligible. I've looked at and into each one, and the photos taken would fill an album. (All photos here were taken by me)

An overall impression that remains is, of course, the baroque stone elaborations outside and inside the churches, something for which Lecce is known. Particularly, however, I've been delighted by how all of the churches seem to love cherubs: chubby little angels appear again and again, entwined with flowers, plants, and ornaments or with each other. And what's not to love? They seem spirited, hopeful, and add a touch of gaiety to otherwise somber matters.

inside one of Lecce's grand churches

Given the many notable chuches in Lecce, I'll highlight just one of the lesser known, dedicated to Saints Nicolo and Cataldo.Walking to it takes you away from the hub of the city and near a cemetery and park. Once we thought we were in its vicinity, but still couldn't locate it, we asked for directions from a young local couple walking with their child. They had no idea it even existed. So we walked together to find the place, and it was a pleasure sharing our delight with them at this discovery.

Contrasting architecture of domed church, cloister and pergola

tree near S. Nicolo

A lovely guide welcomed us and provided a wealth of information, easily converted into English for our ease. She led us into the cloisters so that we could see both the otherwise unseen campanile and the original Latin inscription, testifying to its medieval architect and patron, Tancred, the Norman ruler from Sicily (a rarity to have both inscribed).

I inquired about a fresco I thought was by a medievalist who seemed herald Giotto in style. No, she informed me. The artist had already been impressed by Giotto's work in the north and had tried to apply it here. The result was what I mistook for pre-Giotto (because of its more naive style). So much for artistic appropriation! Still, to my eye, it retained a naive and very authentic quality, a "presence" of its own, even in fragmented form.

Having feasted richly on the Leccese Baroque style, coming to Saint Nicolo cleansed the palate. It is set in an open surround with trees and a cemetery nearby, and with no other buildings to compete. The church is notable in its Norman arches and architecture, as well as its Norman-Byzantine interior, with parts of frescoes remaining from the middle ages (as noted in my "Giottoesque" example).

Obelisks instead of Skycrapers

oblelisk near Porta Napoli + my favorite one at roundabout

Along with its churches, this is a city that also loves its obelisks, many of which you can see while trying to negotiate the traffic roundabouts. Though I've snapped one of its major ones while walking near the Porta Napoli, my favorite one is more whimsical, with birds flying out of and atop it. It's inconvenient to stop and photograph it, and I'd never hazard this while driving around its roundabout. But here's a photo of it, too (cannot find its name or information about it). I like its composite structure and birds flying off from it.

Paintings and Structural Flourishes

Lecce's paintings and architectural flourishes reside not only in its churches. The homes on its streets are filled with interesting surprises at the cornices of buildings, on balconies, and other places you might look. Even the pavements offer changing patterns.

Cultural Crossroads

This small city has a wealth of architectural and archaeological treasures, including its Greek, Norman, Roman, Byzantine and Baroque influences. Just imagine having a house in the old city and needing to make some basement excavations because of sewage problems. This led one family to the chance discovery of multiple strata of archaeological wonders. This home stands in the historic town and has now been turned into the easily accessed Faggiano museum. As you travel downward, its deepest finds take you back to the Messapii culture of the 5th century BC; then up through Roman crypts, medieval ramparts, Jewish insignia and Knights Templar symbols.

Nothing missing so far except a castle. Oh, wait, there IS an unmistakably grand one here. The emperor Charles V thought Lecce was key to his defenses, so he built a mighty castle-fortress here. It guards the city now at less than casual attention, open to any and all who wish to walk through it. It's fun taking a short-cut through the castle to get from the main square where you've been drinking a cappuccino at Alvino's café and looking over to the ancient Roman amphitheatre (not yet excavated in Charles V's time). The castle can be and is treated as a short-cut from this main piazza to the streets behind that house theaters, beauty shops, wineries, boutiques and other shops catering to a lively modern city. How many cities offer such impressive short-cuts for daily use?

Historic Walled City of Lecce

I especially like walking into around the old walled city from its different portals. The central one is Porta Napoli, to and from which you see university students streaming. We live nearest the Porta Rudiae, right inside which is the art academy, the Accademia Belle Arti, with its stately old entranceway (photo at right).

Porta Napoli photo Janet Strayer

Accademia Belle Arti

Accademia Belle Arti photo credit

Given the contrast it offered, I couldn't resist a picture of this old bicycle parked outside the ornate entrance to the Art Academy in Lecce. This bicycle frame seemed to me like a Dada-esque sculpture left always outside the ancient entrance to the Academy -- symbolic of all that is old and young in this vibrant city.

Bicycles seem to be an icon this city -- easy to ride on the level (even if cobblestoned) paths, and many are ridden in traffic as well. On the first day of exploring old Lecce by foot, I even spotted a wooden bicycle outside a shop.

wooden bicycle in Lecce

Entering the Accademia for a quick peek, I loved the young faces seen in this ancient place, toiling or bluffing away at their creative studies.

I snapped some photos as I peered inside the Accademia halls showing well-used printing presses, a class at work, and samples of contemporary sculpture and painting found inside its walls (I wish I could credit the artists but could not find this information and was asked not to interrupt the staff). As well as the Accademia, Lecce also hosts a more generic university. An assortment of international faces could be seen among students and residents.

photos inside Accademia Belle Arti by Janet Strayer

class inside Accademia Belle Arti (Janet Strayer photo)

artwork inside Accademia Belle Arti Lecce
(my photos)

art store in Lecce, photo Janet Strayer

Art Supply Shop

A meandering distance away, from the Accademia I found a wonderful old and crammed art supplies store: Belle Arti Caiulo. I love such tucked-in shops with their wooden shelves and counters, somewhat dark in places, with the aroma of years. Lovely Fabriano papers of all types are in stock and really everything one could need, plus a knowledgeable and helpful staff, understandably proud of their shop.

Outside the Walls of the Old City

The pleasure of Lecce lies not only in the historic old city but spills out into its surrounding streets. On the streets outside the historic center, the traffic is brisk. I much prefer walking to driving, when possible. Especially because some of the houses lining "ordinary" streets make you stop and marvel at them.

On one of the main avenues leading to our own side-street is lined with privately-owned mansions in styes ranging from Renaissance balance to high Baroque with a Moorish twist. We fantasize about which of these remarkable houses we would live in. Of course, we'd have to restore most of these structures properly (as seems to be happening to some, properly or not). And then we'd need to decorate their interiors appropriately ... in our dreams! But what fantastic fun to imagine.

Moorish-inspired mansion on Gallipoli, Lecce (Janet Strayer photo)

We're quite happy where we are, though. It's wonderful to sit in outdoor cafés (even in winter jackets, if needed). The wintertime sunshine is ample (compared to Vancouver!), and we can enjoy the local treats as we people-watch. The treats include puccia, a local bread that is somewhat like a fuller and richer pita, its dough sometimes flavoured with spices and olives. There's also rustico, a delicious puff pastry filled with various savouries and cheese. And then there's pasticciotto, an egg-custard pastry with a rich and buttery baked crust.

So I'll leave you with this taste of Lecce as we rest up for more of Puglia.

More Creative Life News

You can read and see more about Italy plus other travels and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at Creative Life News here.

Regards, Janet @ https://www.janetstrayer.com

Living in Lecce (Puglia) Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Janet Strayer) — Thu, 08 Feb 2018 13:57:00 +0000

In the Heel of the Boot of Italy

photo credits

Arrival in Lecce, a city of modest size at the center of Italy's Salento Peninsula, occurred at night after a long and uninteresting drive southeast from the Rome airport. We came to this special city , touted by guidebooks as one of the most beautiful in Italy. Located on the stiletto heel of Italy's boot, it's a fine place from which to explore Puglia one the economically poorer regions of Italy. But not poorer in historical or, as I've come to see, in scenic and cultural interests.

It is very different here from mid and northern Italy, which we've lived in previously, and will again. Here we are at the heel's tip of Italy, set narrowly between the Ionian and the Adriatic Seas. This is a land marked by its flatness in all directions. It might be compared to the prairies back home, but it is so different in its vegetation, colours, and scenic outlook that you know you are living elsewhere.

And living elsewhere is exactly the point of these travels: changing perspectives, experiencing life a bit differently, eyes open to the familiar because it has become unfamiliar. Even the sky here is different, spreading itself closer to the ground and sea. This region is a haven for sea-lovers. It's too cold now to swim at its beaches, and the winds can be strong ones, as the rainstorms have been this winter season.

The land outside the cities can be fairly bleak, though the nearness of both its seas makes for some lush watering holes and interesting old ports. As you travel, the land is filled with acres of olive groves, many close enough to the highways to see the characteristic silvery-green of the leaves and the gnarled, thick trunks of the ancient trees, pruned since before Roman times. In fact, the culturally influential origins of this region are Greek, with pre-historic settlers coming across the Ionian Sea, and the early artifacts found across this area typical of ancient Greece. I'm looking forward to visiting some museum sites to see and learn more.

An Apartment Just Outside the Old Walled City

We're renting a large and comfortable apartment, conveniently located a walk away from the historical walled city of Lecce, with its famously Baroque architecture and beautifully gold-yellow stone that is characteristic of this location. Winter it is ...and it does feels like it, but still there are cacti and some flowers in bloom on the terrace. Ah, the eternal hope this gives!

Our apartment has a genteel, retro feel to it, a feeling of having been well lived-in .... as witnessed by this old radio console and accoutrements atop it.

original artwork by T.F., photo by J.Strayer

There is also some charming art on its walls, some of it done by the original owner, a physician who also painted.

Along with the paintings is this interesting ceramic piece from Calabria. Altogether a very pleasant place to reside, with pleasant memories still alive.

photo by Janet Strayer

From the terrace of our apartment, you can see the campanile of the Duomo in the center of the old walled city. It's just a brief walk from here.

photo by Janet Strayer

Campanile, photo credits --a blog I recommend

Looking Not Painting

I've tried to do a bit of sketching and painting here myself. I put plastic on a table and cardboard on the floor, to keep all clean and tidy. But I feel constrained in the space and limited to small studies and experiments. Maybe that's all I'll do while here. But it's all worth just being here and absorbing what I can. It's always been the case that travels and living in different parts of the world have influenced what and how I paint, though it's not always obvious (to me or to others) at the time. We'll see, I guess.

Piazza del Duomo in Lecce

The main piazza of historic Lecce is a surprise to come upon as you walk through the old walled part of the city's diverging streets and pathways. The 12th century Duomo was restored in mid 18th century by the architect G. Zimbalo, regarded as the master of what has become known as the Leccese Baroque style so typical of this area.The Duomo has an impressive facade facing the piazza and a very tall campanile beside it. It's the campanile I notice most, its structure so compact yet directed so high you can barely see the bell as you look up from the groundstones. But it is the combined impact of all that constitutes this piazza that impresses most -- especially as you surprisingly come upon it, tucked away, as it were, amidst the angling streets.

The Piazza del Duomo strangely has always been sunlit, even on cloudy days. It's a calm and pleasing rectangular space with interestingly proportioned buildings and decorated stonework. The yellowish Leccese stonework and decorative architectural touches are typical of much the old city, giving it all a harmonious feeling.

Lecce is not particularly known for its painters: none in Italy's south rival those nurtured from the pre-Renaissance, with its prosperous patrons living further north. But a tradition of rather fanciful Baroque architecture did develop, and the area is rich in historic Roman, medieval and Renaissance structures and monuments.

Ancient Roman Amphitheatre

Notably, at the beginning of the 20th century, a Roman amphitheatre of the Augustan age was unearthed beneath Lecce's streets. It remains the main feature of Piazza Sant'Oronzo, a large central piazza in the heart of the old city, surrounded by outdoor cafés and shops, in some of which Lecce's skilled artisans still practice the ancient craft of papier-maché, notable in this locale.

Roman amphitheater in Lecce (Janet Strayer photo)

For me, the main artistic interests in Lecce are architectural ones, in contrast to the splendid paintings and frescoes seen further north in Italy. But there ismuch to delight in, especially while walking upon ancient pavements, some filled with amazing mosaics, or looking up at finely decorated wooden ceilings and Norman arches, or at cathedral columns festooned with an incredible number of angel-cupids and other fabulously plentiful creations. Even in the less palatial houses in Lecce's historic center, you can often look up to balconies supported by caryatids and to cornices filled with faces created centuries ago.

As for the people-watching, there aren't many tourists this time of year, and we try to blend in as much as possible.. as you can see in this photo:


photo by Janet Strayer

Street Music

Now is definitely not tourist season here, and foreigners are easy to spot. But the folk here are very friendly (except when driving!). There is an off-season sense of reality in contrast to the showiness that seems to accompany any city at tourism's heights. But there's also still a good sense of show here. Take, for example, this distinguished and appropriately well attired busker with his dulcimer. He played beautifully in Lecce's old streets, and was most gracious to his admirers.

Costumed busker with dulcimer in Lecce (Janet Strayer photos

There's still very much to explore and learn in Lecce. But we also want to see other remarkable places in Puglia. Thankfully, we have some time to do it. And hopefully, I'll find the time to keep you posted.

Happy trails to you as well!

More Creative Life News

You can read and see more about Italy plus other travels and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at Creative Life News here.

Jet-Lagged in Southern Italy

noreply@blogger.com (Janet Strayer) — Sun, 21 Jan 2018 21:24:00 +0000

After leaving Canada on January 15, we stayed overnight in London. It was a fine flight, but jet-lag really took its toll on this one. Too tired to see anything, we sort-of-slept in one of the non-interesting hotels near the airport, waiting for the next morning's flight to Rome. You know how you can get so brain-muddled and dreadfully weary after altering your sleep cycles? All this when you have major baggage (including two trombones and paint supplies) to deal with, along with the winding maze of security checks and customs lines. It's a wonder we made it, with all our time-zone challenged non-sleep grogginess. I don't remember it hitting this hard before.

In any case, we picked up a rented car in Rome and drove a long 6-7 hours south to Lecce in Puglia. Of course the Italians do it in less time, but we made it without too much mishap.

I'll write more about this lovely city of Lecce after it sinks in more. Right now it's much colder than I expected. Aside from getting our living situation set up as "home"and dealing with the basic orientation and chores needed for settling in( food shopping, electricity adaptors, cellphone changes and on and on), all I can look forward to at the moment is sleeping at Italian (not jet-lagged Canadian West Coast) hours.

It's been four days and we're still clicking on foreign time. Who knew jet-lag could take so long to dissipate? These time-space continuum flips of this rather ordinary little trip have been so disorienting it makes me marvel at how astronauts ever managed!

Figuring Out the Universe, painting by Janet Strayer

Good night all. Wake me up for lunch tomorrow!

Regards, Janet @ https://www.janetstrayer.com

What's Music Got to Do with It?

noreply@blogger.com (Janet Strayer) — Fri, 22 Dec 2017 21:30:00 +0000

Can you see and hear the connection of this painting, Night on Bald Mountain, with Mussorgsky's evocative music?

Night on Bald Mountain: painting by Janet Strayer

Many painters I know like to listen to music as they paint. Not me. Music often takes me away with it, my full attention absorbed, so that I can't be fully involved in the painting process. Yet music often lingers strongly in my mind, affecting my mood and the rhythms of the next painting I start. That's the case with my Night on Bald Mountain.

Though it was originally composed on St. John's eve (midsummer), this music always comes to my mind in wintertime when the ground is barren, the colors are muted, and the trees and land forms are silhouetted in a dusky atmosphere.

Listening to Rimksy-Korsakov's orchestration of this tone-poem is especially wonderful on a winter night, temperature falling as the dark flickers with with shadowed light. Surprising to learn that this famous piece of pictorial music was ill-received by Mussorgsky's mentor. It was pulled off the public charts by its young creator in mortification. Yet the music lingered in its creator's mind. Despite several attempts to shape it for public presentation, Mussorsky's version was never publically performed during his lifetime-- only to become famous after R-K's appreciation of this work and his own orchestration of it after Mussorgsky's death. The music subsequently become riotously famous in contemporary times after Disney (with Igor Stravinsky's help) fabulized it in Fantasia (1941, click for youtube clip)

Grateful to R-K for realizing Mussorsky's auditory vision, I'm left pondering (once again) the syncretic and generative nature of art. Night on Bald Mountain demonstrates again for me the richness and depth of many art forms that beckon and beget themselves anew -- in slightly or even drastically altered form. This occurs in a single artist's own works and, of course, it occurs across artists. In this context, appropriation is no sin. Nor is it to be regarded as a glibly cast-off hand-me-down. Rather, it can be a genuine tribute and enrichment of art for its own sake. Who is the "authentic" composer of Night on Bald Mountain? Depends where you want to start ... and stop.... your search.

Happy Winter Solstice and Holidays,

Defiant Grief: Antigone Today

noreply@blogger.com (Janet Strayer) — Fri, 15 Dec 2017 00:51:00 +0000

Defiant Grief is a painting from my archives. It is now on exhibit with other powerful artwork at the Moat Gallery in Vancouver's stunning central library. The exhibition began on Canada's Day of Remembrance, in honour and remembrance of the people slain in the Montréal Massacre, our own very poignant example of the worldwide violence towards women. The exhibition continues until Dec. 28 . It encourages awareness of and social action against violence to women. Hope you get to see the powerful work displayed and organized by Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelters.

My own personal statement about this painting is that I wish it to serve as a testament to the deep grief that underlies our defiant resistance to violence. It is called Defiant Grief in order to acknowledge that this defiance is born of grief for all who suffer at the hands and will of the more powerful and unjust. This is a substantive grief that transforms into strength -- not just for endurance but for wilful action. Both principled determination and a strong reservoir of feeling underlie women's resistance, not only to outrages committed against individuals, but also to aspects of society that permit such abuse.

Although the painting is an individual testament, it also calls to mind the ancient Greek drama of Antigone's resistance to the state/tyrant. Perhaps like this enduring heroine, we cry, we scream, we rage, and we gather our considerable strength to resist and work against such outrage.

As this season of political infamy turns to upcoming winter festivities and holiday celebrations, perhaps it is worth remembering.

And good wishes to you all.

More Creative Life News

You can read and see more about creative life, travels, tips and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at Creative Life News at https://www.janetstrayer.com

Regards, Janet

Death, Art, and Maudie

noreply@blogger.com (Janet Strayer) — Thu, 07 Dec 2017 02:19:00 +0000

Not the most attractive title for a blog, I know. But it succinctly captures the reality of my recent experiences, which might be of some more general interest or reflection.

I was called out from my peaceful slumbers early one morning on Saturna Island by the phone ringing at my bedside. It was a death in the family. Someone much too young and with a still young family.

I took the first ferry off island, and then onto a plane headed to the east coast. A doleful trip. Those of you who know such loss and sorrow in your lives need no more details of the heavy, dull, yet churning emotions en route ... or of the communal experience a family funeral exacts.

Tired but needing to distract myself en route, I turned to the airline movie selection and chose Maudie. A biographical film about the Nova Scotia artist, Maude Dawley Lewis, and set in the 1930s, it is directed by Aisling Walsh and features fine performances by Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke.

link to global news commentary

Overtly crippled by arthritis and disparaged by family and small-town judgements, Maud lives and works as house-cleaner for a poor, inarticulate, and rough fish peddler, Everett, in a house that seems barely more than a shack. Hardly the scenario for art or romance or some sort of success. And yet it is ... of a different sort.

The improbable happens. Maud is affirmed in love and in art, the latter being celebrated from locations as unlikely as Nixon's White House. It is no fable, yet the story has a fable's simply constructed trials, wonder, and moral outlook. Where better to find the truth of what one seeks or hopes for?

I cried as I watched it, stuck in the middle seat of a plane full of people, my eyes spilled with rolling tears. I was too tired, too drawn out of my life, to care much about my public appearance at the moment. In any case, these were not sentimental tears, but ones that seemed just: for the harsh realities of life. In this art-as-life movie, they were for a woman so bent yet strong, so afflicted yet affirming, so simple, direct, persistent, and brave in her art and in her life. Her circumstances were harsh, her health impaired by multiple factors, and her resources so substantially and financially constrained. Yet she endured and enriched, without triumph but with affirmation.

And, as with empathy, in general, the feelings evoked in the movie expanded to my immediate world. A world so different than Maud's, so jam-packed with greed, excess, deliberate hypocrisy and self-serving righteous attitudes, where the political and personal get so regularly demeaned that they become TV fodder displayed as info-tainment. Where art is so commodified and artists so competitive that one questions where the "spirit" in inspiration went.

I sometimes despair of such a world, yet cherish the moments of what I'll call "Maud's world" for their simple pleasure and appreciation of the richness of life when it is lived and loved for its own sake and on its own terms. Hers seems a world that, when death comes knocking, isn't met with an "Is that all there is?" summary but with "I loved and was loved."

Maud Lewis outside her home, see global news link

"Can you teach me to paint?", a sophisticated woman asks. Maud smiles that incandescent smile of hers, and quickly dismisses the woman's request, chuckling a bit with her gaze turned upward. "Owh, you can't teach that," she simply says.

Perhaps you can't. That kind of art stems from the untutored and very personally experienced appreciation of life. Something so simple, so profound, it cannot be taught.

More Creative Life News

You can read and see more about creative life, travels, tips and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at Creative Life News at https://www.janetstrayer.com

Regards, Janet

Dreams and Loving Vincent a

noreply@blogger.com (Janet Strayer) — Tue, 21 Nov 2017 17:00:00 +0000

This is a love letter. I love Loving Vincent.

Loving Vincent is the world’s first fully oil painted feature film. It is a masterwork, A gorgeous and gripping ensemble of painted visual art cinematically woven together. Not cartoony, not animé, but its own uniquely lush and painterly rendition of cinematic action. It's emotionally gripping, even without the plotline, which adds a touch of detective drama and mystery to the circumstances of Vincent's death.

It took five years to finish production of this film. No wonder, after you see it. It's a triumph of love and technique. Written and directed by Dorota Kobiela & Hugh Welchman, produced by Poland’s BreakThru Films & UK’s Trademark Films, it was funded by the Polish Film Institute. Kudos and appreciation to them for getting this huge ball of creative effort rolling. It's a stellar tribute and triumph.

The film brings the paintings of Vincent van Gogh to life and tells his remarkable story, with a twist of mystery added to it. Every one of the 65,000 frames of the film is an oil-painting, hand-painted by 125 professional oil-painters. Then there are the storyboard illustrators, animators, cinematographers, and all the crew it takes to make a feature film.

Although Poland has a wonderful tradition in both cinematic and graphic art, there reportedly were not enough qualified artists in Poland, so that local talent was enhanced by artists from across the world coming to studios in Poland and Greece to be a part of the production. Even the actors used as models in the production look uncannily like actual characters in van Gogh's paintings!

from online trailer

Watching this fascinating film, I was stunned by how quickly and thoroughly it drew me in. The black and white scenes (like flash-backs in a traditional movie) were intense, and at times so photographic I thought they were filming actors in black and white, rather than painting them.

The colored scenes are just thrillingly gorgeous, with enough quirky stylistic changes to peak your interest as you travel through, not only van Gogh's paintings, but the whole painted storyline with its interesting, amusing, and dramatic personae and plot. You hardly think about how impossible a feat it is to be watching paintings move!

I read subsequently that it took about 12 frames of individual oil paintings make up each second of Loving Vincent. That means a total of 65,000 paintings were used to produce the entire film. The batallion of painters spent up to 10 days painting just one second of film.

The result is breathtaking. If you haven't seen it, you must. And if you have seen it, you might like knowing something more about its production. Here's a brief BBC video interview by Sarah Wimperis that will give you a glimpse behind the scenes and into the process: click

I'm glad that paintings contributing to this film are available for sale. I very much enjoyed looking at the online site showing them, along with 16 pages of photos and profiles of the artist/painters . How wonderful and torturous their labors must have been. I do wonder, though, to whom the paintings belong: the film producers, the painters, ...? What a feat to be part of a masterwork in our own time!

Dreams

While thinking over my experience of Loving Vincent, another film popped into mind. I recalled Dreams, a Japanese film by Akira Kurosawa that I'd seen in the 1990s. He is one of my favorite directors and a master visual stylist, creating beautifully epic tableaus.

A departure from his typical films, this one (the only one written by Kurosawa himself) is composed of dream vignettes. In particular, one episode, "Crows", deals with van Gogh (played by another fine director, if less-than-convincing actor: Martin Scorcese).

The camera begins in gallery and moves across several of van Gogh's brilliant paintings while a solitary art student gazes at them. At one point, the student leans into a painting of a stone bridge with women working below it. Suddenly, he is inside the painting, which now has become the actual French countryside, and he is asks the women where he might find van Gogh.

from Crow segment of Dreams (click to see online video lnk)

The student journeys onward through many identifiable van Gogh scenes, some of them films of actual countryside, others (like Loving Vincent) close-ups and sets of van Gogh paintings. The student is always photographed as in a usual film (not painted) and he remains so, even as the scenes he walks through change from photography to painting.

For me, a surprising pictorial moment occurs when the student, walking in the actual countryside, finds it has turned into an ink painting:


online link

He subsequently traverses more richly painted backdrops. But, as an actual person, he's not fully integrated into the painted scene (in contrast to in Loving Vincent). He remains a foreign body inserted into it. It's a different kind of statement, but seems to me a trail-blazing precursor.

For example, having the student blunder into the thickness of the paint (see below)makes this a palpably different experience for us watching than the more unified Loving Vincent. The dialectic between the actual and the imaginative creation is visible and mediated by Kurosawa's film itself. He conveys the tension of engaging in creation in a way that is both highly sophisticated and joyously naive.

Kurosawa is one of the great directors of the 20thC, who made stunningly beautiful movies -- even of mass carnage in combat. To learn that he was also a painter, often spending time painting pictures of every scene, makes the Crow segment of interwoven film and paint media even more meaningful. In his own words, "My purpose was not to paint well. I made free use of various materials that happened to be at hand." But the actual shots framed in his films clearly represent a realization of what he'd visualized (and often painted) beforehand.

A personal footnote to the magic of the moving picture:

As a very young child I was fascinated by a TV show that encouraged its tiny viewers to draw on the TV screen (plastic overlay sheet required). Whatever you drew would be incorporated into the plot in order to complete the scene for the show's cartoon characters. For example, you would draw a bridge to help a funny little guy get across a river, or crayon in a ladder for him to reach a window, or give him wings so he could fly.

The idea was that if enough of us created the needed device, it appeared on screen and our little person would get out of a jam or get something desired. And of course, in the next few moments, a bridge, ladder, or wings appeared in the show, and the action was completed on screen.

For me, this show was enchantment itself. I was the creator of a small bit of magic that worked. I saw it happen on TV! This engagement in the process of art making reality has never left me, though I do wish I could now be as effective in changing the world as I was then.

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You can read and see more about creative life, travels, tips and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at Creative Life News at https://www.janetstrayer.com

Regards, Janet

The Story of a Painting and What Makes It Sell

noreply@blogger.com (Janet Strayer) — Wed, 08 Nov 2017 19:19:00 +0000

You know that I'm a painter, right? Like many painters who enjoy or are impelled to paint, I'm a prolific artist who completes more works than can shown in public exhibitions or sold. Still, sometimes I just know that a certain painting has a certain zing to it: it just has to been seen in public and sold to someone who loves it.

I'll try to explain it this way: the painting hits the mark... my own mark first, by surprising me in ways that both ring authentic to what I intended and go a bit beyond this in interesting ways. I want to keep looking at such an artwork. And, getting anthropomorphic, it wants to go out into the world!

Typically, these zing-artworks do get reaction from the public, one way or another. Some of them also get purchased. Which brings me to what I think is an interesting story for all those who wonder about what makes a painting sell. I'll stick to specifics rather than try to speak to the generalities of selling art (a quagmire of opinions -- all of them right to some degree).

This story is about one painting that not only sold, but sold triple-times! The first time was when it was shown in an open-studio show I did presenting some new works. Early in the show, a man who had been standing looking at this painting in less than the best viewing conditions started nodding to himself, called someone on his cellphone, then with speed and much excitement, walked over to me. "I'll buy it!" he pronounced. His cheque followed immediately. I wrapped the painting for him to pick up later that day.

Within a week, I got a call from the same man, now somewhat embarrassed. Would I come pick up the painting at his huge house and return his cheque? He loved the painting, he insisted, but his wife worried that it might offend some of their visitors. Poof!

Of course I did that. Who wants a controversial painting hanging in their house? (Well, you might answer that one differently). I was disappointed, but consoled myself that art is such an individually meaningful exchange, it's best when it fits well with its purchaser.

I didn't show the painting again for a year. I decided to change an aspect of the boy's face and hair in the interim and repainted part of it. I do this kind of thing when a painting remains with me to look at for a lengthy time. Sometimes, it starts telling me things. They were small changes, but I think the result was even better.

I made a card of the painting and had it among other cards available for visitors to my Saturna Island studio. This past summer, I had quite a few visitors, and many conversations about art, island life, and whatever matters. The cards of this painting were often pocketed as souvenirs.

One day a visitor asked if I could bring the actual painting. He was surprised it hadn't sold (but it had, once before) and came again, with his wife. He wanted the painting and would pay whatever the asking price. His wife looked startled and asked him to step outside.

Uh-oh. I knew at once. And you now also know what happened. I heard him protest in the hallway, "but I'll keep it in my study." I shrugged, knowing how this was going to turn out.

When they walked back into the studio, I immediately short-circuited things by mentioning that I understood this painting wouldn't really fit into their lives. I cared about things like that. Nothing like "divorce-by-painting" for me. OK, done deal = no deal.

By the way, it could just as well have been "woman-wants/man-doesn't" theme to these events, but it hadn't worked that way two times running. So, back the painting went into storage. I felt a bit sad about its history of two almost-but-no sales. Still, looking at the painting itself made me happy.

About two weeks later, in another setting entirely, someone mentioned how much he'd liked the card he had of this painting. Yes, I agreed, it was popular. Especially now that Wonder Woman had been a popular movie, as well. "Was it still available?", he asked.

painting by Janet Strayer www.janetstrayer.com

Whoa!, I thought. Here we go again. I told him the story of its two previous art lovers. I guess it was a warning, and certainly not the greatest sales pitch in the world! But I really like this man and, despite wanting him to own this painting, I felt it had a history to relate.

I was delighted when he re-confirmed by saying "I know I want to buy it." Nice because it seemed like the perfect fit: he had the combined artistic sensibility, humour, and generosity of spirit to enjoy it fully. This time, it was a final sale for Wonder Woman & Superboy.

This is a painting that pays homage to two periods in art history that revered the human figure: the European Renaissance and North American Classic Comic Book Art. Set in the traditional Madonna-Child pose,Wonder Woman and Superboy are pop representations of the abiding power of iconic imagery. Technically, as well, blending modern acrylics (pop art) with traditional gold leaf and pose helps link the centuries and merges the reverential with popular cultural forms -- a humanistic approach.

Wonder Woman & Superboy are now where they belong. I appreciate it. And I hope you appreciate this story of its journey.

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You can read and see more about creative life, travels, tips and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at Creative Life News at https://www.janetstrayer.com

Regards, Janet

Janet Strayer

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You can read and see more about Italy at Creative Life News here. plus other travels and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at Creative Life News here @ janetstrayer.com

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You can read and see more about Italy at Creative Life News here . plus other travels and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at Creative Life News here
@ janetstrayer.com