Week 3: 09/09 - 09/15
Red lipstick makes you Italian… for better or worse!
Brelan and me at San Gimignano on Saturday!
Week three! Now that we’re settled into the structure of our class intensives, living in Florence feels a bit more like real life. I’ve gotten used to entertaining myself each morning before my 3:30 sketchbook class starts, so on Monday I headed out with a peach juice and no expectations.
I came across Museo Novecento, a modern art museum overlooking the Piazza Santa Maria Novella. I knew that one of my homework assignments for the week required me to visit a contemporary gallery, so I decided to drop 5 euros and pop in. They are currently hosting a temporary exhibition for Louise Bourgeois, who is a well-known French-American artist. I probably should’ve thought more about that before I paid, because if you know any modern French artists, then you also know that they’re creeps! Sorryyy, but they love to wax on about gross, icky stuff like super hyperrealistic paintings of a baby being born, or a huge metal sculpture of two embracing spiders. After I finished my homework sketch, I speed-walked through almost the entire thing.
The only semi-appropriate exhibit that I could find...
As I’ve lived here for a little bit now, I’ve learned more about how to dress like an Italian. Today, I wore a simple black tank with the tea-length skirt I bought at the market on Sunday, and no makeup save for a swipe of red lipstick. I hoped that this might save me from quite so many “oh, another American” looks. Well!! When I decided to leave the exhibit through the green door and was promptly followed and yelled at in Italian that I had used the emergency exit (why would you use the color green for an emergency?), I couldn’t help but be a little flattered. Yes, I was an idiot, but she thought I was an Italian idiot! Kind of a win.
For Monday’s class, we walked north of the city to visit Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the opera house of Florence. It was a surprisingly new building, and the brutalist angles felt out of place in such a historic city. It was nice to spend the whole class in one place though, so we spent several hours working on thumbnails and different perspectives on the building.
On Tuesday, I headed over to Piazza Santo Spirito in the morning to grab a cappuccino and spend some time sketching. It was quite nice just to sit under a tree with a coffee and a sketchbook and try to grab little glimpses of the things around me. Then, in class, we headed to Mercato Centrale to practice drawing faces by using the other customers as models. It was quite intimidating to try and steal glances of people without freaking them out!
A little glimpse of our (better) side of the river!
Wednesday was a bit more low-key: we headed to the Loggia dei Lanzi by the city center to sketch some of the sculptures housed there. It was actually a fascinating story to me: after it was built in the 1100s, they used the outdoor pavilion space as a sort of townhall meeting space to discuss local issues, but by the 1500s it was made redundant because of newly-built government buildings. So, they decided to fill it with statues and repurpose it into an outdoor museum.
I have always found faces intimidating, but I definitely feel like this course has helped me develop some more skills in that arena. There are thousands of statues here, so I have the opportunity for lots of practice!
After class, a few of my classmates and I couldn’t resist the smell of Chinese food coming from a restaurant just a few feet away, so we grabbed dinner and experimented with a weird Italian-Chinese-English language mashup. Aside from the clunky communication, the food was great! I didn’t really realize just how much pasta I’ve been having until I took a bite of sweet and sour chicken and pork dumplings. Such a nice break from the norm!
A view of the Arno in the early morning.
Thursday! Another true rainy day here in Florence. It’s a little more disheartening here when you remember that you’ll have to walk through it to get anywhere — and, when you know that your drawing professor will just tell you to hold your umbrella steady! We trekked through the sprinkling rain to Giardino delle Rosse, which is a rose garden perched on a hill a ways from the city. To be fair to the garden, it was beautiful. There were coral rose bushes nestled between statues, and a stunning view of the city in front of us. For a brief 20 minutes, it was perfect.
The view from the top of the garden!
It is hard to determine when the rain truly started becoming a problem, but when my page started getting too warped to even let my pencil make a mark, I knew we were in for it. Our professor, Caterina, stayed strong: we popped our umbrellas open and stayed in the garden for another 15 minutes before she finally admitted that, “our faces looked just a touch too miserable.” We hunkered down under a tree and chatted for the rest of the class.
After class, I ended up going out for one of my friend’s birthdays. We spent perhaps a little too much on wine and pasta, but it might have been the best that I’ve had so far!
The Ponte Vecchio.
On Friday, I had a bit of a lazy day and strolled around the city center to get inspiration for my last homework assignments. We were instructed to complete sketches of “busy locations,” so I worked on a few perspectives in the busier piazzas. For class, we headed to Piazza Savonarola, a quite large and quiet square north of the city in the residential area inhabited by locals. It was charming to sit and draw while parents popped outside with their children to run or play hide and seek behind the statues. Quite a few of them, bold as all children are, would trot over to us and demand to see our sketches, often offering a brutally honest Italian comment or a thumbs up.
The big day, Saturday!! Brelan and I signed up for a day trip to San Gimignano through our program; San Gimignano is an ancient town built on the top of a hill amongst acres and acres of vineyards. We were thrilled to have the chance to see some of the countryside, and to try some of their world-famous wines!
After the hour-long bus ride, wherein we picked up our tour guide at a stop sign in the middle of nowhere, we made it to the city’s outer walls, and started our tour. Martina (possible hitchhiker) did a fantastic job: she explained all of the nooks and crannies of the tiny city, including the world-famous contemporary art museum, the many churches-turned-bars-or-restaurants (God cannot possibly look kindly on that), and San Gimignano’s treasured 700-year-old cat, Gino. I took so many photos that I just stuffed them all below!
After the tour, we hopped back on the bus and headed a few minutes down the road to a local winery for lunch and a wine tasting.
Let. me. tell. you. They knew what they were doing. The vineyard was stunning, and the food revived us after a half-day without food. They served papa al pomodoro as an appetizer with the white wine, and then they offered a plate full of fresh meats, cheese, and bruschetta as the main with the two reds. It was such a fun afternoon spent chatting with our friends and having delicious fresh food and wine!
I mean...?! It was perfect.
I leave you with Sunday! I headed over to check out this week’s spread at the Santo Spirito market, haggled with a couple of vendors, and left mostly empty-handed. Afterwards, I trekked up to the city center to draw at the piazzas and check out a few thrift stores. Luckily, I did get a win there! I grabbed a pair of 12 euro jeans that fit perfectly. I grabbed a pizza to take home, and then settled back into the apartment for a quiet night with the roommates.
Thursday is my last day of my sketchbook class! It’s crazy to me how quickly my intensive has flown by. I’m sad that I’ll be leaving some of my classmates, and the habit of drawing for hours a day, behind after this. Onto the next adventure!
Bye for now!!
Charlotte