Italy, The Self-Portraits: I Came, I Saw, I Conquered

In light of a previous post...


Campanile, Piazzo San Marco, Venice



Santa Croce Courtyard, Florence, Italy



Hotel Steno, Monterosso al Mare, Italy


Ramparts, Lucca, Italy


Field of Miracles, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Italy

Last Stop: 18 hours in Pisa

The Hotel Minerva was the worst place yet but the a/c worked and I was only staying one night. The carpet was stained and the room was very dark. The mustard hues also contributed to my dislike for the location.



I thought this was an ironic work of art to hang over the bed in a tourist hotel room, let alone cover with a wafer-thin towel.



The view outside the window because, lo and behold, there were wood panels and no curtains to pin money from.



Hmmm... what does one do in Pisa? I only had one thing on my list, thoroughly saturated with artwork by this time. Pisa is on the Arno River and how the buildings are situated around this body of water is very similar to Florence. It's a lot grungier though: more graffiti, dirty streets and so many more people selling their wares. Approaching the Leaning Tower from the East was SPECTACULAR. I didn't have much interest in climbing to the tower top especially after learning it was sold out for the day.



It was incredible how much that tower leaned compounded with my inability to take a truly good photograph of it crooked (I unconsciously straightened it out with each image). Rather than going inside any of the buildings on the Field of Miracles, I spent a great deal of time watching tourists pose in front of the tower.



I sat in between the two buildings below (the Baptistry and the Duomo) for nearly an hour in the shade, over saturated by nearly everything ornate and artistic and touristy.



I didn't buy a plastic Leaning Tower though I had many an opportunity. They were nearly as prevalent as David in Florence. I didn't buy one thing aside from food, lodging, and museum entries the entire trip (I still marvel at that).



After foraging for dinner (difficult to find on an empty stomach on a Sunday night not directly next to the major tourist attraction), I went back to the hotel room to catch up on the New Yorker magazines I finally had time to read. En route to the airport via the train station the next morning:



I learned so much this trip, thoroughly satisfied with accomplishing the feat of going on my own. I didn't know the language and there weren't any mishaps. I also discovered that I'm tired of making artwork focused around a location that I'm visiting for a brief amount of time. It's time to return to introspective Jacinda in terms of making art. This whole trip was a struggle in that regard. As much as I knew I needed to finish Nine Fake Cakes..., I kept thinking about the Marilyn Monroe photographs, the artist stalking images, and what to do with the 3770 cats. I want to incorporate more writing into my work and a couple of series I am going to keep plugging away on will certainly welcome that.

20 hours in Lucca, Italy

On the train ride from Monterosso to Lucca, I studied Cararra hard this time. No clouds obscured my view of the mountains so it did look like havoc. The marble rock areas along the train tracks were so varied. Some specialize in BIG blocks while others "siding" or extra thick kitchen counter sized sheets. Even pebbles and powdered marble were featured. One such place was a cloud of dust due to the sanding. Is this where Michelangelo acquired his stone? I began to notice marble everywhere. In the Viareggio train station, all the pillars and benches were made of marble.



Lucca was instantly a likeable city. It's surrounded by ramparts from the 16th century. I walked the circumference once and then crossed over it several other times over the course of my 20 hours in the city.



For some odd reason, I was reminded of Prospect Park in Brooklyn on several occasions during the walk along the 2.5 mile perimeter. Then the Parque del Retiro in Madrid entered the comparison list and Olmsted's Laurelhurst Park in Portland, Oregon (all minus the water). Lots of cyclists and pedestrians on a hot summer day but the shade was relatively cool. I saw some incredible four inch high heels peddling bicycles today. The abuse of the bike bell was starting to drive me batty around the time this photograph was taken.



More ramparts. I loved this place because it was one of the first parks I had visited in a very long time.



Along the western edge near sunset:



San Ferdiano Guest House - My room was huge and the bathroom gargantuan! I photographed the curtain minus the money and the artwork uncovered because it was so dark and there weren't a lot of options during the small amount of time I had with relatively good light.





San Martino was also on my Lucca list. It ended up being my favorite church interior because all the scaffolding was on the outside in a distant location not the inside, it was free, and it wasn't very crowded.



White marble! Surprise! The facade was carved and each column was different.



Since I was unable to take photographs of the interior of San Martino, below is one gleaned from here. The ornamentation on the ceiling and the painting in the dome (with a circular stained glass window) were quite beautiful. There was some poorly constructed Jesus on a cross in a cage where one could make an offering (depicted below). The painting L'Assuziona by Stefano Tofannelli from the 1800s was amusing. Mary is suspended on a cloud held up by angels. The cloud looks like the Looney Tunes abominable snowman trail. Clearly I was reaching my capacity of looking at art and architecture if these were the analogies I was coming up with toward the end of the trip.



There were many Tony Cragg sculptures up throughout the city during my visit as part of the exhibition It is, It Isn't. Here are two made from a fiberglass material though others were carved out of marble. They reminded me of geological formations and eroding sediment. For more information see this website.





The view I stared at for a very long time waiting for my train to appear to take me to Pisa is below. I saw an older nun with a black hood and sandals though the rest of her outfit was white on the platform in front of me. She pulled out her old school cell phone and started to talk. A pigeon walked by with nubs for toes and took a crap right in front of me. For some reason, I felt compelled to text this fact to my aunt, Lesley, and instantly regretted that my phone was off for the trip. It was here during this wait that I realized how long the last two weeks had been. I hadn't had a substantial conversation in English with anyone in many days. I was beginning to miss talking, a tall glass of real orange juice, and eating fruit and vegetables on a regular basis.... but first Pisa - the town of my departure.

Cinque Terre: Le Fin

Some final thoughts on Cinque Terre:

As we neared Liguria on the train, one section of the mountains looked like it was covered in snow. The elevation was far too low for that and I deduced it had to be removed by rock quarry equipment since we passed so many stone facilities right next to the railroad tracks. It was a little cloudy which added to the mystery of wondering what on earth I was seeing.


Ed Burtynsky, Carrara Marble Quarries

I later looked up the mountain range on my phone and discovered that I saw Carrara. My main point of reference is Ed Burtynsky photographs and suddenly it all began to make sense. I would see it from the airplane as I left Italy as well.

I saw a lemon so deformed it looked like it had eight legs like a carrot (not here but it's a good example of why Cinque Terre is known for it's lemon trees):



Cinque Terre where you can definitely tell the locals apart from the tourists. The former are elderly, stare at you through the windows of their prominently located apartments on the square, and huddle in groups in the alleyways talking about "Americanos."

I loved listening to the sounds of the restaurants and people walking in the streets from the balcony of my hotel room. I don't know if I want to come back here per se, but it makes me want to visit other parts of the Riviera in Spain and France in the off-season.

The church bells sound so rinky-dink compared to Venice or Florence. It is as if someone's in their backyard hitting a big bell with a stick. I had to listen to my sound recording at the Campanile in Venice just to compare and it is more majestic and mournful than the bells in Monterossa.



Rebecca Solnitt's "Blue of Distance" came to mind frequently (it reentered my consciousness in the Uffizi seeing how many Renaissance artists used the blue backgrounds to denote vast spaces). The "blue of distance" has a sense of longing attached to it. Since coming to Liguria, I'd like to think that I'm in that blue and it's not so distant anymore. I am engulfed by it. I don't long for it. It is everywhere and I am in it.



"The world is blue at its edges and in its depths. This blue is the light that got lost."
- Rebecca Solnit

Fake Cakes: The Final Chapter

The laminated postcards and clear water test on the rocky beach:


The rock barrier that I swam to in order to deposit the postcards into the clearest water I saw in Italy.



The postcards:





I tucked the laminated postcards into my suit and swam out to the rocks. Oh the water felt great! Cooler than the air but not bathtub warm. Refreshing. One major downfall was that it was so salty when I put my head in, I was repulsed. I swam through the small section of brown muck and all the way out to the rocks with the cards scratching my skin, refusing to put my head back into the water. This was no Lake Michigan as far as freshwater vs. salinity and it was deep. I made it to the flat rock that I saw people sitting on earlier, climbed up the slippery algae, removed the cards from my suit, slowly slid over the second line of rocks and started to throw them into the sea.

It was important to swim to the place where I would throw the cake postcards. Because of this, there is no documentation except for the scrapes on my left shin and right foot. I threw them out one by one and they didn't sink unlike the Venice Canal which instantly dropped to the bottom. [Oh yeah... salt water is buoyant.] When I climbed over the second group of rocks to swim back, I was slightly horrified to see that one postcard had made it to my side four feet away. I swam out to fetch it, dog paddling in the deep water because I wanted to know which one it was since the Ed Ruscha side was floating up. It was Desert Sun from Tucson. I threw it back to the rocks but it went up, not straight due to the fact that I am apparently incapable of throwing something far while swimming. One more was also floating toward me (again Ruscha side up). I turned my back to the cards and swam away.

There were a handful of people making their way toward the same rock when I approached the halfway point. I watched them from my blanket on the shore and when they got about half way back, I picked up my things and left.

When I first stepped out of the sea, I can't describe the feeling of relief that swept over me. Why? I finally let the cakes go. The series was done before this trip but there was never the act of letting go. They had Ed Ruscha's approval (which they didn't have last summer). They, also like Ed Ruscha's artwork, traveled to the Venice Biennale. I searched hard for the place in Venice but my only option was unclear water. Monterossa al Mare is in the same country, on the other side but not too far away. It still makes sense. I know the cards will float to the shore rather than sink but that is okay because it's all up to chance and sometimes nothing works according to plan.

The scrapes that would grow larger and redder throughout the rest of the time in Europe (and my only proof that I did indeed perform this action).

Cinque Terre: Clear Water Test

29th July: A fairly cloudy day at the beach in Monterosso al Mare to test water and deposit cake postcards in a clear sea. I had scoped out this location two days before - it was the beach closest to the trail head from the previous day's hike and it looked ideal with the exception of the crowds that quickly filled every available towel space.



I sat against the rock wall on pebbles very difficult to walk on waiting for the sun to come out.



There was some bubbly water with brown stuff floating on the surface eight feet out. "Please don't be what I think it is as I have to swim through that," were my continual thoughts. Overall it was very clear water. As the crowds grew, more and more people walked in front of my photographs.





Yup.... clear water. The rock barrier in the distance was the next obstacle to conquer.

James Luckett's "Suginami"

Wednesday I am driving to Springfield, Ohio to see James's exhibition and gallery talk on his recent series Suginami. He asked me to write something about my experience viewing the book and so it follows:

I am looking up and I am looking down peering in with very few horizon lines to separate me from the objects close at hand: a halo of clothespins, branches stacked upward poised to fall, a cat (feral?) staring back – the only living creature that acknowledges my shared presence in this still neighborhood.

The image above (one of my favorites in the series) juxtaposes the clean, smooth cement walls with a pile of detritus – functional objects abandoned and slowly integrated back into the earth but the ground is also concrete where these plants grow. The weeds that overtake the bicycle look like they are in turn, choked by their surroundings.

Other photographs depict plants arranged carefully in pots and I am drawn to how they are displayed and yet their spaces are also contained and claustrophobic. Is it the trash or is it the plants that become the barrier between me and the private spaces on the other side? There is a struggle to control nature yet nothing appears to be winning in Suginami.

*** *** ***

If you are in the area, check out his exhibition (he's also coming to Ball State in October):
Ann Miller Gallery
Wit­ten­berg Uni­ver­sity, Spring­field, Ohio
August 23 — Sep­tem­ber 24
Lec­ture Sep­tem­ber 8 at 5pm
recep­tion to follow

Cinque Terre Day 2: Hiking the Sentiero Azzurro

My friend Cass told me about Cinque Terre once a couple years ago and how she enjoyed hiking all five towns on the Italian Riviera over a decade ago. I was enamored with this idea and came prepared to walk. I bought water and pilfered some packaged snacks from the hotel breakfast for the road. Initially I chose to stay in Monterosso al Mare which was the northernmost town on the trail and also the one with the most prominent beach. It was an easy starting off point and I wouldn't have to backtrack on two consecutive days. Monterosso is in the distance:



The sun was shining and I wasn't prepared for 95% humidity (on an 85 degree day) so I was also sporting a nice layer of sweat over the top of my sunblock. There were so many things to love about the scenery. The path runs directly next to people's houses tucked in the middle of the hillsides. The owners tend to the vineyards with ancient rock walls separating path from private property.



On occasion I would see rickety vehicles that ascend the hillside on a metal bar (we are talking state fair quality here). They looked great for getting to the other side of the property and far faster than climbing terraced hills.



There were picnic tables interspersed throughout the hike but sadly, they were inhabited by homeless felines. There were even signs next to bags of food pleading with people to feed these "unloved cats." Right next to the picnic table (I didn't have the heart to photograph the cat):




I didn't spend much time in Vernazza. It had a small beach - mainly boats with people swimming between them. Getting closer to Vernazza and then right above it:






Vernazzo to Corniglia featured a lot of climbing up and down the hillsides. I was getting tired due to the heat and the sheer amount of walking I had done over the past week and a half but wanted to keep going. I wasn't here to see Tres Terre or Quattro Terre for that matter. I wanted to see all Cinque! This section from Vernazza to Corniglia featured olive trees. The cicadas were also on high volume.



Corniglia is on a hillside far from the beach. I sat down in a piazza off the main road and watched swallows feeding their young in the nests under the eaves of a pink building while eating my hotel snacks and drinking water. I walked down the narrow streets passing the continuous parade of gelato stores, turned around and kept walking out of town. I was not prepared for what lay ahead: the largest amount of stairs on the trip that lead to the train station. In the distance I could see where a landslide had covered a large portion of the path. I could see Manarola, the next village, in the distance and it looked like the most beautiful trail lead to it (much like Highway 1 hugging the coastline in Big Sur) but it was all out of reach and so I took the train. Of course I didn't photograph this because it was both horrific and beautiful and I was too involved with processing how to continue to the hike at this point.

Manorola was too crowded and I immediately began walking to Riomaggiore - the shortest, easiest, most wheel chair accessible and therefore the most touristy and incidentally, the most beautiful.






In one area, the wall was arched rock from long ago. In fact, the whole day, I kept thinking how ancient these paths must be with monks and priests traveling the hillside to get to the next town centuries years before. I was not intrigued by all the crap people hung along this section of the path - the Via dell' Amore. The "love locks" are the stupidest fad in addition to ribbons and anything else people could write on and leave in great mass all over the pathway.



Riomaggiore just around the corner:



The water is so clear. Several areas are marine preserves. There is an "Eco" bus that runs between the towns. This area is by far the most environmentally aware location I've been in Italy. I walked all over Riomaggiore and eventually took the train back to Monterosso, always wondering if I was hopping onto the correct one in this area of inaudible loudspeakers and no boarding signs.



Today was one of the days I looked most forward to this entire trip. It was an amazing hike with several areas of solitude, free from the continual string of American tourists. The best part of the day was coming to terms with what I must do with my postcards and deciding that Cinque Terre was indeed the best location in all the places in Italy where I could possibly leave them. Here is the view from Monterosso with all four villages in the distance photographed after a shower, a nap, a dinner, and multiple photographs of tourists on the beach (previous post).