Week 5: 09/23 - 09/29
Who’s Helen Frankenthaler, Anyway?
Opening day at the Helen Frankenthaler exhibit at the Palazzo Strozzi!
Week 5!
We spent most of Monday at the Barcelona airport, exploring European boutiques and trying to understand their questionable attachment to Burger King. It was so sweet to land back in Florence and feel a sense of familiarity after a few days of travel — we even grabbed some gelato on our walk back to the apartment!
I won’t bore you with Tuesday — it mostly involved me catching up on my sleep backlog and grabbing some mediocre pizza.
A statue of Lady Justice in the Piazza Santa Trinita
On Wednesday, I was ready to reenter the world. I headed over to my favorite consignment store and rifled through the newest options — no winners today — for a couple of hours. Then, I had to check out Zara (and everything fit me in the absolute worst way!) and H&M just for the fun of it. I sat in Piazza Della Signoria for a bit — this is one of the major squares with the Palazzo Vecchio and about 1/3 of the city’s tourists.
Shopping for thrifted books in the piazza.
I had considered taking another trip this weekend while I still had class vacation, but truthfully, the price was not tempting enough to get out of town. Instead, I had a nice little relaxed rest of the week with my roommates.
Friday was a treat — I grabbed tickets to the Palazzo Strozzi’s opening day of the Helen Frankenthaler exhibit. I first discovered Helen’s work in my high school art class; she was introduced as a leader of the modern abstract movement. I ended up being assigned a presentation on her as well, so Helen and I know each other well. If you give her work a quick Google or check out one of the photos that I took, you’ll see that she did most of her pieces on huge, unstretched swaths of canvas. Her medium was thin, watered down paint that she would pour, sponge, and splatter until she decided that it looked finished. I have to admit, I don’t particularly enjoy abstract art. It often feels flat or easy to me, but for Helen I feel the exact opposite. I know that she spent years studying great artists like Cezanne and Picasso, and she used that knowledge for her abstract work. Because of that, you can see so much intention and calculation in each of her seemingly “haphazard” splatters. She also spent many of her early years working with Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko — some of their work was included in the show as well — which puts her in league with the greats of modernism. It was such a thrill to discover that I would finally get to see her work in person after learning about her years ago. I spent a good few hours in there, and I know without a doubt that it is one of the best exhibits I’ve ever been to.
On Saturday, I grabbed some more American breakfast (it’s becoming a problem), stopped into my favorite thrift store yet again, and then watched a few episodes of Gilmore Girls with my roommate, Virginia. It’s starting to feel like an American fall here, so we had to celebrate with some appropriate television.
Check out the Florentine march reenactment Virginia and I caught while we were out! They do things like this pretty often throughout the week; it’s quite endearing to see how much respect the locals have for their history.
Florence has the best designer consignment stores! This sequined bag was the cutest. I just need to find a spare thousand euros somewhere… maybe I’ll start busking on a street corner!
A quiet little week for me and an easy read for you! I really enjoyed catching up on my sleep and enjoying some neighborhood spots around town this week before class starts on Wednesday. Don’t get too bored, though, because I’m headed to America (!!!) on Thursday for the big wedding! I’ve been compiling a list of things that I need to experience while I’m home — for example, using a drive-thru, hopefully for Starbucks or Chick-fil-a, and seeing my dog — and searching market stalls for extra little diddies to bring to my family. Send your requests now!
Bye for now!!
Charlotte