Nintendo and the Secret Service

1) This first image is the best finished exercise for my jewelry class.

2) This is a stunning Brandi posing next to her Herculean god fresco. Don't you just want to stroke the cheek of the sinopia?

3) Getting ready for a herd day in the conservation lab!

I am currently sitting down enjoying a bowl of pasta. Huge surprise, right: Brandi is eating pasta while she is living in Italy. What’s next?! As suggested by an earlier post, I have already fully adopted the notion that waking up before 8 o’clock in the morning is unimaginable. Before you know it, I’ll be speaking fluent Italian. While it is not unimaginable that I could learn a good deal of Italian, I owe a large amount of my education to Marco, my apartment doorman.

Marco is a muscular, silver-haired, gruff-looking man of about sixty who, I don’t doubt, would not hesitate to beat up pesky youngsters. I first saw Marco when I was leaving my apartment building one day; he was just sitting on a bench in the foyer. When I came back to the apartment later that afternoon, Marco was still there. I said, “ciao,” and that was the beginning of our friendship. Now, Marco daily greets me with an exuberant, “ciao, bella” and asks me how I am doing.

Now, I am not sure whether Marco does not know English, or he just refuses to speaks it with me. Regardless, Marco recently told me (in Italian) that I am going to speak GOOD Italian by the time I leave because he is going to teach me. What a relief!

However, if that avenue fails, I could always look to Nintendo to learn Italian; my fresco professors, Mario and Luigi, are also teaching me Italian.

Yes, I did say Mario and Luigi! Oddly enough, Mario actually looks like the videogame superstar; rumor has it that Nintendo actually modeled their characters after these two fresco masters. While I don’t doubt it, I don’t particularly want to ask Mario and Luigi the truth; I prefer the fairytale if the rumor is false.

On that note, seeing as how I have not yet written about the classes I am taking in Italy, I will give you a brief synopsis of what my academic life looks like.

I am taking a batik class; a class dealing with the art of fabric dying. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the process, this class is teaching me to use hot wax as a resist on silk. Once the wax is applied in my desired design, I can dip my silk in different dues, or apply the dye with a paintbrush. My current design is more-or-less a trial run on a regular square of silk. I am enjoying learning the process, so far, and am discovering the beauty of imprecise hot wax application. I will post pictures of my current assignment as soon as I am finished!

I am also taking a class in jewelry making. The first few weeks featured a series of simple exercises to familiarize us with the different tools in the studio, and different finishing processes. Of the techniques we were required to master, I have posted a picture of the best product of my exercise labors. Who knew brass could look so shiny, eh?

I already mentioned that I am taking a fresco class. . . with Mario and Luigi. I just recently finished my first fresco! The assignment was to recreate the bust portrait of a character from Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. My character, I think, looks rather like a brooding Herculean god. I posted a picture of the sinopia layer above. The sinopia of a fresco is like the rough draft of a paper. Over the top of the sinopia layer lays the finished fresco. I will post a picture of the “finished” product soon!

My final class is a series of lectures and lab sessions about painting restoration. The class is fascinating, and has stirred within me a debate about the value of restoration: now knowing what restoration does to a work of art, I wonder whether we ought to be changing what time naturally does to a work of art. Are we not deteriorating the work further if we cover up what original artist did for the sake of “restoring” the work of art? The other half of my debate is this: because there are such careful processes behind the restoring of a work, and as long as the art works are merely enhanced to almost mimic what they once looked like (after consultation with art historians and scientists), why would we deprive future generations of the privilege of looking at masterpieces? What do YOU think?

The lab section of my conservation class is, by far, my favorite portion of the class; I am bound to secrecy about the specifics of the work completed there! The Studio Art Centers International, where I am attending school, does not have rights to the works we help restore in the lab. Every Friday, therefore, I quietly slip into the lab through the back door. . . under the cover of morning dusk and a black trench coat. I hold my breath and keep my collar turned up and the brow of my fedora pulled down low until I turn on the lights, check to see that everything is as I left it, and ensure that no one has dared to contaminate my ox bone glue with acid.

Feel free to laugh. It’s not actually that serious, but it is fun to image oneself as a top-secret artistic employee. It’s like being a member of the Central Intelligence Agency for art world: we work under the radar of the general public against the forces of. . . parasitic insects and deterioration.

Until next post, I love you all! Still feel free to email me!

Brandi