out and about

Hot, 

We stopped just off the motorway at a most unlikely looking bar. It was an urgent stop, and I was hoping that the facilities would be clean enough for my overseas guests. I decided to make it a coffee break as well as I had been driving a while, and two breakfasts are always better than one.  

Thirty years of making cappucini a showman makes... and the performance was superb!  There are no coffee bars other than Starbucks in Japan, so we enjoyed the speed, the flair, the absolute showmanship of the barista who quite clearly was not used to having appreciative clients.  When I explained who my guests were and that they had never seen anyone work as he did he simply said "Thirty years makes you good at it".  

Hot, 

One of my little lost detours took me through a little village just before the drive to the Amalfi Coast. I couldn't resist making a series of snaps that could well end up in paintings. This one I am sharing is simply a reference shot, not a composition.  

Hot. 

Wouldn't you just love to be at a concert here on the Amalfi Coast? Almost everywhere we went there were lights, temporary stagings, and lots of activity.  (Who would be mad enough to go to the Amalfi Coast the day after the Ferragosto holiday?) But the opportunity to dance centre stage was simply wonderful.  No, that is not one of our group there, but some other tourist exalting in the moment.  It was lovely seeing how uninhibited people were, anonymous and on holiday... quite a series of performances in their own right!


Today I am grateful for potable water. 

buon ferragosto

It's been a memorable day :-)  both personally and project-wise.

Today my inbox had several different links to the increased circulation of an article about my exhibition . This is important as it was generated by the cultural assessore for the entire province and circulated widely both in print and via internet newspapers (so I'll forgive whoever got my nationality wrong in the newsroom press conference and I'll be Australian for a while).  His kind words have been well received, have appeared in at least four publications and are now spinning around facebook.  My exhibition hosts are absolutely delighted too.

My two articles for YAP have been published in an English edition of Cittadini Globale Global Citizen now (they originally went out in translation in Italian) and one made the front page of the paper.

Another article that I have been researching (helped by my awesome PA) and writing to meet a tight deadline also went online while I was at the airport last night. I will reprint it here some time in the future.

Then it was on with my day... blogs checked, emails read, breakfast eaten...

After a leisurely start it was up to the abbey and this time a trip through the museum too, down to Piazza Green for gelato for lunch, afternoon shopping in a shopping mall to escape the heat, a sound late afternoon sleep, dinner outdoors overlooking the valley with friends, a concert at Pontecorvo with everything that is wonderful about summer festivities in this part of Italy, then back home to candle light and limoncello under the olive and mandarine trees (with Pickle and Zacchi claiming their share of affection and attention too).

But a pair of anxious eyes has just asked me "Mum, are you sure it's ok to drive us tomorrow, you are not too tired?"  Yes, it will be, but I had better get some sleep.

So here, (instead of photos and more description from me), from the excellent About.com Italian Language site, is the story of Ferragosto.

Ferragosto is an Italian holiday celebrated on August 15, traditionally marked by an exodus of Italians to beaches and mountains attempting to escape the summer heat. The holiday coincides with the Roman Catholic feast day known as the Assunzione di Maria in Cielo (theAssumption of Mary into Heaven).

On a linguistic sidenote, the term Ferragosto is derived from the Latin feriae Augusti, literally "Augustus's holiday." By proclamation of Roman Emperor Augustus, the feriae Augusti were originally a full month of festivals and celebrations.

Today I am grateful for my beautiful guests.  

magic moments

Tonight I have been "catching" falling stars... they are really a meteor shower, the detritis of a former comet with the very unromantic name "Swift-Tuttle", but they are certainly exciting as they dart, dash and ping across the sky!  They seem to be coming from behind me, but are appearing in different parts of the sky.

The first one I saw I doubted... was it just my shonky retina playing up? But no, there were more, and some were a little slower and longer, so I knew I really was seeing "falling stars".

The sky has little milky patches, as though perhaps there are sprinklings of fairy dust.  It's not the wonderful Milky Way in a rural Waikato sky, but it is fascinating as there is almost a rhythm to it. The stars, however, are completely unpredictable.

There are over 60 shooting stars an hour at the moment, according to the experts.

My tally so far is 3 aeroplanes, two little dogs, one bat, half a bar of dark chocolate (yes, chocolate in summer thanks to my special shopper) and several falling stars, two of them much bigger and slower than some of the others.

A rooster crowed a few minutes ago (it is well after 3am) so dawn can't be too far away... oh wait, it's an Italian rooster, the time means absolutely nothing to them  :-)  I'm heading back out...

Today I am grateful for happiness. 

why is it...?

Why is it that just when you think you are on track to meet a deadline, and things seem to be going quite smoothly, your brain heads off in another direction and you can't wait to do the next thing? The "next thing", of course, being faaaaaar more exciting!

I'm not quite sure that the current series of "sweet and pretty little pictures, cameos from the neighbourhood," will ever be completed.  A painting that has been in my head for two years has suddenly been joined by another four or five, and they are going to consume me until they are done!

Today I am grateful for a sense of purpose.

almost there

These are "all but" finished, and will now sit out of sight for a few days so that I can look at them with fresh eyes when I come back to them.  

Oddly enough I think you get a better sense of them in the smaller versions below.  

Today I am grateful for time to paint. 

not much time today

All the flaws in my compositions are showing, and I am becoming impatient to move on to a much more considered work... but it has been very good working quite quickly on these with no expectations of creating the perfect painting. Hopefully tomorrow I will finish all four. The lower one has had the least time spent on it so far. When they are done I will straighten them by spraying the backs with water then letting them dry under a flat surface.  

Today I am grateful for firemen.  

a little bit more on three

(Photographed in poor night light) 

Now... number four, or go to sleep? Buonanotte, a domani :-)