Wardrobe Malfunction

Today was a typical school day for me. Got up at 6:45 for no good reason, moved my bowels, and then ate some breakfast. TYPICAL. Went out at 11 to buy my ticket for Harry Potter only to find the theater closed then, so I just kind of wander into an art gallery. Turns out the one I stumble into was on Picasso, Dalhi, and some other dude no one really cares about (Malo or something). The exhibit was really great and showed the style influences of Dalhi and showed how he took up cubism and Neo-Classism before finding his niche. Apparently all these guys knew each other too. Picasso had met Dalhi when he was 18 or 19 and Malo knew Dalhi when he was like 16 or something ridiculous. Picasso I think was mid 20s/ 30s at the time, so his style was a little more rooted by then, but Dalhi still made some impact on Picasso's style and shifted Picasso into an even more cubism style. Picasso didn't really fall into cubism, a style Malo had been doing for sometime, until he was 40, and Dalhi was around 26 when he found his. It was really neat because it all happened around the same time, 1930/40s, which caused a big explosive amount of artistic innovation and views on modern art. Overall it was really cool to see all these ideas come together in a similar time frame with such great artist bouncing ideas off of one another. NEAT CONCEPT SAYS I.

Anyway, after contemplating the awesomeness that is painting I realized I should probably get ready for painting class. I go to class, nothing special, and then start work on my still life. Now, I haven't painted since high school, so I had kins of forgotten how incredibly messy the entire ordeal can be. I got paint all over my paints and shirt and now my shirt is ruined (though the paints are fine). I am thinking I will leave that shirt here and try to buy a new one, one more in style for Italy (but nothing too pricey, I am hoping to find something on par with an Italian thrift store). Anyway, during my break I head over to the snack shop across the way and order and sandwich. The lady there, Moso, is really sweet and remembers me by name. We have a conversation (a small one since she only nows Italian, and my Italian isn't so good) about how much she worked, what her life is like back home and her dogs and kids and all that (I tell you about this because I was so proud of myself for holding a normal conversation in another language for a good twenty minutes). I have to say I now understand why when you are talking to foreigners too quickly they just look at you and smile. Moso was talking too quickly to understand and all I could really do was smile and nod. It felt ridiculous. But I did well enough for a conversation in another language. So well Moso came out with free Risotto for me and my friend. It was awesome.

Then I went back to my still life and after about two hours I was so tired of working on it I decided to work on my next project. The project is an abstract concept piece (meaning we can do whatever we want, as long as we work on it the entire month we are here), so I tried to figure out what I wanted to do. I really wanted to test my painting abilities in the sense that I wanted to try out different styles. Seeing the Picasso exhibit really inspired me to try out different styles and see which one I liked and understood best. I couldn't stand the thought of doing still lives everyday, so I decided to be incredibly self centered and do a painting self portrait every day in class. Each class session I would paint over the previous painting and then do the self portrait in a completely different style. My teacher loved the concept and told me to really go for it and learn as much as I can from experimenting like this. I don't think the practice will help my technical painting skills, but that is ok because I really hate painting and do not want to become good at it. If I do become good at painting I fear I will do it all the time, and I do not have the patience for that. I need instant gratification when it comes to painting, and it takes me half an hour just to get the color right (even when it is dead wrong).

So, that was my day. Not too exciting, but I thought you would like to see what I am doing in classes and what my class day to day life is like! Tomorrow is laundry and museum day and then Sunday I am off to Venice! I am going alone, which kind of freaks me out, but I think I will be ok. I will have my phone as a safety net, and I my Italian is specifically geared for practical things like train stations and such. Fingers crossed and pictures soon!