home, artists and earthquakes

I woke this morning to an email saying "come back to NZ and live in Wellington, you would love it there". And as usual, although there is still no logic in it, my response on all levels is "but this is where I live, this is home".

Last night happily confirmed for me that I am an accepted member of this community, being a part of the exhibition as an invited local artist, not as a foreigner, and also that my little mountainside hamlet is so very accessible, not isolated at all. The world comes to us.

The guest speaker at the opening last night was Danilo Lisi, an architect, docente dell'Academia di Belle Arti di Brera, Milano (Professor of Fine Arts in Architecture, in Milan), and architect of several churches in this region. A quick search on google and I see he was involved in the Parco della Memoria a Memorial Park for the town of San Giuliano di Puglia, where 27 children and their teacher died in an earthquake in 2002, along with other building and park "green" projects in cities.

I understood about one third of what he said about art in different settings, but when he talked about Frida Kahlo I think I understood nearly everything. I am a big Kahlo fan. In 2001 I was lucky enough to go to a Frida Kahlo - Diego Rivera exhibition in Venice. That same trip to Italy found me in a Munch exhibition in Verona.

An artist from Frosinone, the capital of this province, asked me if I felt shut off, or closed in, living in my little hamlet. He couldn't understand why I would come all the way from New Zealand to be in such a remote place. Remote? An hour and a half from Ryan Air and Ezijet to get me all around Europe at ridiculously low prices. Or for less than the cost of half a tank of petrol I can hop on a train and go to Rome and back, as I did to go to the Rothko retrospective exhibition, no parking problems, no driving in that traffic, any day of the week. But I wouldn't live in Frosinone, or Rome, if you paid me to! (Mmmm... might do a re-think on Rome, if the price was right...)

We had another earthquake the other day. I heard, rather than felt it. This village was once destroyed by an earthquake. So was the Abbey on Montecassino. Being the veteran of many many NZ earthquakes I tend to take them rather lightly. But reading again about the tragedy in 2002 I see now why my little mates were sent home from school two weeks ago when a reasonably big one struck.

This is a rocky, unstable hillside, and some things are beyond our control. I have seen the size of the rocks that can be dislodged, was here when a young man was killed by one. I treat them with great respect. But I am not at all afraid, because this feels like home.