Carnevale in Via Reggio -Art reflects larger than life..

Carnevale has come and gone for 2012 but the most extraordinary manifestation of this 

traditional festival is in Via Reggio , Tuscany with a procession of floats each more amazing than the last.

Its oversized - decidedly irreverent with spectators share the jokes as they spot the famous Italian or infamous ones!

 The sheer scale of the floats is staggering and local artisans are employed year round to create uptodate satircial digs at politicians and topical themes..the local community of all ages participates in exuberate spirits with wild abandon from gaily dressed babies to senior citizens in hula skirts and cocouts!

The movement sequences of each float are even more marvellous knowing each movement is achieved through the local volunteers operating a series of mechanical pulleys and levers inside the body of the carts  and given the procession lasts for hours these operators are the unsung heroes of this uncompromising and enduring spectacle

February is short and bitter...but not in Venice...!

      In Veneto,they say the month of February is short and bitter but in Venice,as the snowflakes swirl , works of Alessandro ,a metal sculptor whose tiny atelier in San Polo is full of light and imagination.

Its a Calvino-esque world of moons and whales that oscillate in starlit spaces. Lampshades in naturalistic forms and branches of trees with glowing light eggs.
You can even but a sigil in Renaissance style to imprint on the wax to send a letter to send to

www.mano.it




Shibori silk with moulded glass for Biosfera exhibition 2006. Photo Alvise Guardagnano


Another contempoaray emerging artist who uses the light and reflections of Venice is photographer Alvise Guardagnano  .His formative years were spent literaly above  the studio of Tintoretto
in Canereggio revealing itself in his use of refections,mirages and optical illusions  .

Tintorettos miraculous rendition of light and dark in his fescoes still inspires us
who, many centuries later ,use light boxes instead of pens and paint -both illusionists of light and dark..


 Venice has many frescoes of Tinteretto but my favourite is at the Chiesa Madonna del Orto, a dark brooding flurry of tangled figures reminding us of  universal esxistential themes , in that ebbing and flowing struggle between light and darkness under the sceptre of eternity...

Manuzzi project- young artists alive and well in Veneto

The recent Manuzzi Progetto exhibition instigated by the principal and teachers at the local art school Pietro Selvatico Scuola DArte in Padova,Italy is a testament to the resilience of the staff  who are dedicated to re-expressing the Italian aesthetic through practical application of specialist materials-textiles,wood carving and goldsmithing/metalwork in collaborations between  departments in which 14 to 18 year-old  students can select to specialise in. All this achieved despite the economic and political instabilities that have had a devastating impact the Italian education system.

 Having taught 2 didactical Shibori courses to the teachers there over six years ago , it was gratifying to see the results being two group projects.The first was to reproduce the technique of shibori in metal in the goldsmithing department .A computer program for 3D forms was used and the modelmaking department constructed plastic forms that mimiced the 3D shapes and resembling architectural forms.
The exterior of the school with its neoclassical pillars ,badly in need of repair, belies a glorious light-filled pantheneon  atrium where there a permanent display of gesso replicas including a classical bust of Prof.Selvatico, a Padovan architect who founded the school.This is the life drawing studio for the students ,still an important subject in the Italian curriculum, contrary to the trend of overseas art schools that have axed this essential subject.
Pictured in the atrium with a current display of textile students work is Donatella Michelon,one of its dedicated weaving teachers who organised my workshops that focused on professional development in the area of dyes and shibori,the resist dye technique whose collective Japanese name is shibori.
Being an art gallery itself ,Selvatico is worth a visit if you are ever in Padova (request permission first of course! but the reception staff are friendly if you say,Per favore, posso dare solo una occhiata!Please can I  just want have a quick look!).There,classical Roman bass reliefs,life size Michelangelo slave series and Canova Baroque classics mingle with changing displays of the students work, contrasting between traditional and contemporary, interpreted in new mindset of the young e-generation,attesting to the enduring power of art to inspire successive generations.This is only possible if institutions like Selvatico are supported. I had a short encounter with the principal of the school who greeted me graciously but did not linger.She looked worried...she is soldiering on, according to the great Italian politician and philosopher, Antonio Gramsci's advice-
" I am pessimisitic by nature and optimistic by determination"

Buon Natale in Venice

 Christmas in Italy is not only about food but about music -Monteverdi, the Renaissance composer chose San Marco for the recital of his vespers with its acoustics designed that the sounds are really celestial....

link-http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=xiGjF91UcOE&fmt=18

 In contrast,the harsh reality of hard economic times in our era are expressed by the Italian version of Occupy Wallstreet staged by the transport Unions, spilling over the steps of the Venice railway station and dramatically voicing a disturbing erosion of union regulations and job security..

Natale a Venezia

Music for Christmas in Italy...this one 

Caruso-Author unknown, about memory and loss in inimitable Italian style by two greats..

Here, where the sea shines
and the wind howls,
on the old terrace beside the gulf of Sorrento,
a man embraces a girl
he wept after,
then clears his throat and continues the song:

I love you very much,
very, very much, you know;
it is a chain by now
that melts the blood inside the veins, you know...

He saw the lights out on the sea,
thought of the nights there in America, 
but they were only the fishermen's lamps
and the white wash astern.
He felt the pain in the music
and stood up from the piano,
but when he saw the moon emerging from a cloud
death also seemed sweeter to him. 
He looked the girl in the eyes,
those eyes as green as the sea.
Then suddenly a tear fell
and he believed he was drowning.

I love you very much,
very, very much, you know,
it is a chain by now
that melts the blood inside the vein you know...

The power of opera,
where every drama is a hoax;
with a little make-up and with mime
you can become someone else.
But two eyes that look at you,
so close and real,
make you forget the words,
confuse your thoughts,
So everything became small,
also the nights there in America. 
You turn and see your life
through the white wash astern.

But, yes, it is life that ends
and he did not think about it  so much
on the contrary, he already felt happy 
and continued his song:

I love you very much,
very, very much, you know,
it is a chain by now
that melts the blood inside the veins, you know...

Buon Natale from Venezia

Rialto Clock keeps Venetian time while Shylocks ghost...

  This church- San Giacomo ,the oldest in Venice at the Rialto surrounded by  famous fish market  for many centuries is buzzing with the crowds of visitors and Christmas shoppers.In the shadow of this mysterious  time-keeper lies a glorious mask shop, whose work is my favourite in Venice, called  La Bottega dei Mascareri (www.mascarer.com) see below

The recent version of  The Merchant of Venice with Al Pacino splendid, as Shylock-the reviled money lender who, in an attempt to extract his revenge on the contemptuous Christian nobles of Venice, has his scheming come horribly undone by a young lawyer from Padova, who turns out to be  a woman. This convoluted story by the bard had a cruel fate in mind for the merchant.The ethereal foggy  waterscapes around the Rialto provide a  perfect scenographic atmosphere with its  floating world of intrigue ...Venice is most beautiful in the fog as the Nobel prize winner Russian poet Brodsky in Watermark wrote ..