Yayablog

entrance

A short little alley leads from the main road to the gated entrance to the courtyard.

courtyard

This is “my” side of the square courtyard, which I share with the nursery school upstairs- they rarely seem to use it.

inside the shop

work table

felt display

old work bench

Suddenly it is late Fall, spectacular thunder storms, foggy mornings, overcast rainy days and a chill in the air. Suddenly the conifers seem more odorous- can it be that the colder air does something that causes them to emit their wonderful perfume? It is the kind of cold that is invigorating not intimidating, the kind that feels like therapy for the skin, that encourages long rambles in the countryside- not that I have time.

I have too many art projects going right now. I have a couple of botanicals in marquetry requested by a gallery on the Big Island, three pieces to prepare for another Hawaii event in early ‘09 that I want to get off (shipping will kill me), am working on felt masks, vases and wall “spots”, (photos soon to be up in www.julimorsella.com), fourth and final piece in the Civilization series to make, large panels in marquetry and watercolour, two of three raven panels cut but not glued.

This is when I like it here, the almost complete lack of distractions, noise, people, problems is so conducive to creative production.

Raven on Fence

This is  actually the back, as the front is full of tape. It will be darker when finished- that is raw wood.

                   Big Mouth Fish

This is hand felted with a felting needle, something I have started  recently and really enjoy doing.

     Apex/Solo Goya

The figure is wood and the whole thing is painted in watercolour. It is second in the Civilization series.

So that is a taste. I have yet to photograph most of the new stuff, and create new pages on my above-mentioned web site to accommodate all of it, but I am having a helluva lot of fun with the variety and experimentation at the moment.

Unusually, I have been spending most of my time up in Todi with Carlo these days. A week ago he proposed a space in the Santa Maria church complex as a in-town studio for me. It is a nice sized room with an independent entrance on a courtyard. The room  was absolutely filled to the ceiling with stuff such as  old windows (old going from the 60’s to the 1400’s), doors, chairs, tools, boxes, school notebooks from the 50’s, stones, plastic sheeting, chemicals, diesel fuel, broken vacuum cleaners, magazines, old shoes, bee keeping paraphernalia, toys, a  pair of giant lungs of a church organ and naturally the 40-50 years worth of dust that had settled on the objects since they had been stored in the room.

 It was a dirty  job, but in a week we are down to needing to mop the floor, and with all sorts of interesting finds set aside, many of which I hope to incorporate in my artwork.

To keep a balance, my feminine side has been felting when at home. The type of felting that is done with sharp barbed needles. As I am doing vases and other three dimensional objects, I am holding the pieces in my hands and poking holes in my finger tips with the little barbed points far too frequently, a sort of “Poke, poke, poke, shit! Poke, poke poke, shit!” rhythm. I have found that barbed needles are very painful, one gets used to pain, and finger tips heal very quickly. Felt is fascinating. It holds shapes wonderfully and  I love the sheepy smell of the Norwegian wool I have settled on, the simplicity of the material and tool.

Spring is in full force and  my favourite moment, when the poppies come out, has arrived. The End of Winter starts with yellow flowers; various types of yellow flowers- this year wild broccoli are in mega bloom just everywhere, but other kinds too with a strong prevalence of yellow for some reason, and some pretty little purple varieties as well. Poppies take their time, arrive after the others have settled in, like the beauty who arrives at the party late and makes the grand entrance. We all wait for the arrival of the poppies, and Spring is not complete until the fields are speckled here and there with that one of a kind red. The red, yellow, purple within fields of bright moist green is breathtaking.

There are fewer now, with the ever heavier handed use of pesticides, wild flowers in general and the sensitive poppy in particular are absent from cultivated fields and where these fields drain. When I first moved here young green wheat everywhere was speckled with poppies and other flowers, but you now see them only on roadsides and fallow fields. Organic farming is rare in Umbria and the farmers that do practice it complain that they get no support from the county and regional government, which is not the case in all italian regions.

The weatherman says that the cold spell is over and that Spring, which has been a tease, is really really here for reals this time. We will see. The rain was much needed.

Not sure if it is a particularly beautiful day today, but it occurred to me as I drove home, enjoying all I saw, that I always have something beautiful to feast my eyes on in this place.

A friend and I have started jogging, choosing a different path each day. Sometimes we are down by the river, other times in the hills, or the valley and have been thus treated to an exhilarating variety of beautiful country homes and churches, winter rivers and end of winter scenery with its green green wheat popping up optimistically everywhere, first trees starting to bloom white and the faintest mauve, soft white wild flowers in all the fallow fields with their more tempered sage greens, the temperamental sky which can never decide which face to wear but which never once wears the same one twice, the every day drama of changing light, the details like wild grass next to a porous beige stone, or fat black crows resting in the top branches of bare trees, the changing moods of the Consolazione church in different moments of the day, the dutiful rows of plump winter vegetables, the soft variety of colours in a stone wall, the sturdy old woman with a jewel-toned scarf over her head- it is enough to make one short circuit! So much to absorb, all of which I want to paint, photograph, write about or use in a wood project, because that is how I  get to know and embed in my memory things I love.

One of the reasons I love living in the country is you don’t miss those often short moments when the light is especially beautiful, like this morning.

The Winter wheat is coming up everywhere, a sudden explosion of luscious wet green.

I love the colourful bee homes.

The green is especially precious framed by trees in their winter garb.

My brother peeks at the sunny field.

Umbria is so beautiful!

[lang_en]I look at the bottom right hand corner of the computer. Yep. It is 7:05; time to wake up Camille. I look over at my cup of coffee and yes, it is empty, as expected. A single wave of panic pulses through my body. The idea that routine and predictability have control, down to the minute of time and the teaspoon of coffee without me even being conscious of it caused that moment of panic. Routine scares me for that very reason. You stop thinking about what you are doing and go on automatic pilot. Big chunks of your day can transpire without your active participation.

It is interesting that this can happen during such a wide gamut of activities, many of them complex. The obvious one that alarms everyone who has experienced it is when driving, that “coming to” and realizing you are pulling in to your driveway when your last conscious thought was at that traffic light 3 km away. If we are able to operate a vehicle at the correct speed, not have an accident and take the correct route while” on automatic”, we are capable of doing a whole lot of things.

It is insidious, it can permeate your life without you even knowing it. It isn’t the routine itself that is the problem- my routine is based for the most part on things I enjoy doing, like reading, writing, studying and walking- it is the fact that you do things, even enjoyable things, without being conscious of them that scares me. Have you ever looked down at your icecream bowl and thought”What do you mean the last bite? Where did the other ones go?” Or realized you have apparently attentively read several pages of a book, but have no idea what it said? Suddenly become aware that you have been staring out the window of the passenger seat at the beautiful scenery going by while listening to your mate talk for a fair chunk of time, but have actually not registered either? Because all the while your mind has still been feeding itself the “gee this is interesting” thought to lull you into thinking you are still “there” while your consciousness was gradually, gently removed from active participation. By what, exactly? Your sub consciousness? Why? Do we expend less caloric energy while on “automatic” so nature has added that ability?

All I can think of is all those missed opportunities, experiences, emotions, thoughts that were right there in front of my face, if I had only been paying attention.[/lang_en][lang_it]Guardo l’angolo basso a destra del computer. Sono le sette e zero cinque è ora di svegliare Camille.
Do un’occhiata alla mia tazza di caffelatte e si, è completamente vuota, come previsto. Un unica ondata di panico pulsa dentro il mio corpo. L’idea che routine e prevedibilità hanno controllo, fino al tempo di un minuto e al cucchiaino di caffè senza che io sia cosciente, è ciò che causa il panico. La routine mi fa paura esattamente per quella ragione: metti i il “pilota automatico” e smetti di pensare su quello che fai. Grossi pezzi della giornata possono passare senza la tua partecipazione attiva.

E’ interessante pensare che questo può succedere durante una quantità varia di attività anche complesse. Chi di noi non ha girato per la strada di casa e realizzato che l’ultimo pensiero conscio che ha avuto era di dieci minuti prima, mentre magari eravamo fermi ad un semaforo in tutt’altra zona. Se siamo capaci di gestire una macchina complicata in modo corretto, alla velocità giusta senza infrangere regole stradali senza essere completamente coscienti, credo che possiamo fare anche un sacco di altre cose.

E’ una fatto insidioso, può impregnarsi nella tua vita senza nemmeno che te ne accorgi. Il problema non è la routine in se- la mia ad esempio è basata su cose che trovo piacevoli: camminare,leggere, studiare e scrivere- è il fatto che puoi fare tante cose, anche piacevoli, senza essere cosciente di farle, questo è ciò che mi da fastidio. Hai mai guardato il piatto e pensato, “Come l’ultimo morso? E gli altri dove sono finiti?” O realizzato che le ultime pagine di quel libro interessantissimo che stavi leggendo con così tanta attenzione, in realtà è come se non le avessi mai lette? O improvvisamente realizzato che di quel bel paesaggio che stai ammirando dal finestrino della macchina e della conversazione del tuo compagno hai registrato solo una vaga impressione? Perché la tua mente continua a mandarti il messaggio che stai attenta e sei interessata e allo stesso tempo, piano piano, delicatamente ti rimuove dalla partecipazione attiva. Come? E perchè? Forse consumiamo meno energia se andiamo in” automatico” e allora la natura, genio d’efficienza ha fatto in modo che noi avessimo questa abilità?

Io non posso dimenticare tutte quelle opportunità perse, vissute a metà o ancora meno che stavano li, nelle mie mano, se solo gli avessi prestato più attenzione.[/lang_it]

Some of you may have heard of the ball incident in Rome (see Bleeding Espresso’s article). This was preceded in October of last year by the filling Trevi Fountain with red with dye which was supposed to symbolize the blood of the part time workers in light of the vast amount of money being spent in those days on the first Festival del Cinema di Roma . The colored balls at Piazza di Spagna seemed to have vaguer motivations, disenchantment with the political leaders, a symbolic spray of color to fight the grey of politics. The culprit/creator (depending on your reaction to the incidents) is one Graziano Cecchini, and I decided to do a little investigation on who this guy is, and got a few surprises .

He defines himself a futurist artist and is an active member of an association called Circolo Futurista di Casalbertone (a suburb of Rome) www.circolofuturista.org is their website which I looked up, and invite you to do the same. I was immediately surprised by the graphics of the site, which made obvious that it was a fascist political site. Not at all what I was expecting from someone who protested in favor of workers’ rights. I checked the links and they are all to fascist web sites of a militant nature, many of which promote violence and among which were radio stations, propagandistic news sources, skin head bands, to name a few. But that which topped the list was the Fiamma Tricolore, the Italian Fascist political party.

Cecchini stated that the ball stunt cost 20,000 euro, and that he, like any artist, had to find sponsors. He mentioned two that I researched. One was a company that produced cell phone ring tones. The other was the owner of various local papers of Northern Italy such as Cronaca Qui. I looked them up. This newspaper owner was described on the internet as someone “that writes endlessly against immigration, against society’s emarginated people and whoever expresses his dissent”. His partner is an ex-deputy of the Fiamma Tricolore party.

I find very disturbing and frankly ominous that a man who presents himself like a non-partisan artist is in fact backed by the extreme right, and in an umbrella of other youth organizations that appear to be part of a campaign to recruit new members to the political party by presenting themselves in a fun and hip light. He presents himself as an artist, an individual with ideas, when in fact he is part of an organization which has been systematically using the internet in its campaign to interest youth in their violent and racist ideas, and that have very little to do with art, using it simply as a tool to recruit new members, unfortunately with quite a lot of success.

[lang_en]Seems like as time goes by, the number of traditions and cultural behaviours that are disappearing is increasing at an alarming speed. Whenever we drive around the countryside and see a woman washing laundry at the fountain we think, “this is probably the last time I’ll ever see that”. Many things I remember from my childhood in Italy (especially in Castelpetroso, Molise where we often spent our summers at the old family home) simply no longer exist.

One of the things I see less often every year is people who gather from the wild- there are prestigious items that have if anything become more popular to harvest, at least in this area, and those are mushrooms, wild asparagus and of course truffles, but all the other items that used to be collected are associated with poverty, or simply require more effort than young people are willing to expend, such as cicoria, wild broccoli, and other greens, cane for the vegetable garden, willow for tying, basket weaving and switches to keep kids in line (I swat them in the air; Camille giggles- she has no idea how easy she has it), twigs for firewood (I am always impressed when I see an old lady with a huge bundle of twigs balanced on her head, swaying home on solid legs) or acorns.[/lang_en]

[lang_it]Sembra che più il tempo passa, più il numero delle tradizioni e dei comportamenti culturali scompaiono a una velocità preoccupante. Ogni volta che facciamo una gita in campagna e vediamo una donna che lava alla fontana diciamo che “probabilmente questa è l’ultima volta che vedremo una scena come quella”. Molte cose che mi ricordo dell’infanzia (specialmente le estati passate in un piccolo paese del Molise, Castelpetroso) semplicemente non esistono più.

Una delle cose che vedo sempre più di rado è la raccolta dalla natura, ci sono cose che non hanno perso il loro fascino, come i funghi, gli asparagi selvatici e, naturalmente, i tartufi; ma numerose altre, forse perche associate alla povertà, o semplicemente perché richiedono più sforzo di quanto un giovane d’oggi e disposto a spendere, stanno passando alla storia. La raccolta di cicoria, rucola, broccoli e altre erbe, canne per gli orti, i rami di salice per legare, fare cesti o usati come frustini per “spaventare” i bambini, fascine per il fuoco (mi fa sempre impressione quelle rare volte che vedo una donna anziana con un enorme fastello bilanciato in testa, camminando flessuosa su gambe solide), o raccogliere le ghiande che cadono dalle querce.[/lang_it]

[lang_en]Acorns are harvested for pigs. It is still not too uncommon here in Umbria to see someone crouched down by the side of the road under an oak tree patiently collecting acorns one by one for his pigs. The people who do this are never ever under 70 years of age.

I stopped this morning and asked this gentleman if I could ask him a few questions about what he was doing and take some pictures. He stood up slowly, brushing his dirty hands on his work smock and demurred in a quiet voice-”Non so’ bono a fa’ ’ste cose”, I am no good at doing that sort of thing. It took a little convincing, but he finally agreed.

He told me that pigs eat about 5 kg a day- that is a whole lot of gathering. He said the reason that he feeds his pigs acorns is that, of course, the meat tastes better and that he likes to use all natural feed, corn and acorns mostly, and never the store bought mix.

I knew that pigs were killed in this period and asked him why. “From December to February”, he specified, and explained that this is the tradition because the meat cures better in the cold. There are numerous cuts that require intervention: meat sausages, liver sausages (the sweet ones made with pine nuts, raisins, chocolate, nutmeg, cinnamon and candied fruit), and all the cuts that must be salted, such as capocollo, pancetta (bacon),guanciale (called barbazza here) and of course the mighty prosciutto. Blood sausages, again made with spices similar to the sweet liver sausages, are rarely made anymore.

I told him of a video I put on YouTube (well, I didn’t say YouTube) of my neighbor killing a chicken and how it suscitated such a negative response that I removed it (and then regretted doing so, not least because it took 6 hours to load the damn thing, being on the heavy side) and he was surprised and a bit annoyed, as country folk inevitably are by the sensitivities of those who buy their meat packaged.

Country life is different, this short conversation reminded me. People still search your eyes to see what kind of person you are, to see if you are honorable. That may seem like a small thing, but it is not. The gentleness emanating from this man’s eyes, this man who spends hours a day in this season on his knees in the simple act of collecting acorns, makes me think that we have lost a little more than free stuff from nature by giving up on these customs.[/lang_en]

[lang_it]Le ghiande sono raccolte per i maiali. E’ ancora abbastanza comune qui in Umbria, vedere qualcuno accucciato sotto una quercia sull’orlo della strada che pazientemente raccoglie ghiande per il suo maiale. Le persone che lo fanno non hanno mai meno di settanta anni.

Mi sono fermata questa mattina a chiedere a questo signore se potevo fargli qualche domanda e fargli qualche foto. Lui si è alzato lentamente, pulendosi le mani sporche di terra sul grembiule e ha scosso la testa, “Io non so’ bono a fa’’ste cose”, ha detto. C’è voluto un po’ per convincerlo, ma poi, finalmente, è stato d’accordo.

Mi ha detto che i maiali mangiano circa 5 kg il giorno, ci vuole un bel po’ di tempo per raccogliere quella quantità di ghiande. Mi ha spiegato che si danno ai maiali perché migliora il sapore della carne, e che preferisce usare prodotti naturali e non la miscela che si compra.

Sapevo che i maiali si ammazzano in questo periodo e gli ho chiesto perche. “Da dicembre a febbraio” ha precisato, spiegando che con il freddo la carne si cura meglio. Ci sono numerosi tagli che richiedono lavorazioni diverse, salsicce di carne, salsicce di fegato, o mazza fegati, (quelle dolci fatti con pinoli, uva passa, cioccolato, noce moscato, cannella e frutta candita), tutti i tagli che devono essere salati come il capocollo, pancetta, guanciale e naturalmente il magnifico prosciutto. Sanguinacci, fatti con spezie simili ai mazza fegati dolci, raramente si fanno ormai.

Gli ho parlato del video che ho messo su YouTube (beh, non ho detto esattamente YouTube), la vicina che ammazza un pollo, che ha avuto una reazione così negativa da parte dei visitatori che ho finito per levarlo (per poi pentirmi perché ci sono volute ben sei ore per caricarlo nel sito) e lui era sorpreso e un po’ irritato, come lo sono di solito le persone di campagna riguardo la sensibilità dei cittadini che poi comprano al supermercato il pollo chiuso sottovuoto nel pacchetto.

La vita in campagna è diversa, questa breve conversazione me lo ricorda. Le persone di campagna ti guardano negli occhi per capire se sei una persona “per bene”, e questo può sembrare una cosa da poco ma non lo è. La gentilezza che vedevo negli occhi di quell’uomo, un uomo disposto a passare ore sulle ginocchia nel semplice atto di raccogliere ghiande, mi fa pensare che perdendo queste tradizioni, abbiamo perso anche un po’ più di cose sane e gratuite che la natura ancora ci offre. [/lang_it]