Coro

I've seen SO MANY churches in Italy, and every time I walk into one I notice something missing. I mean, what is a gorgeous cathedral without some music?

Anyway, I found out that Rebecca, the printmaking professor, sings in a choir every once in awhile. My friend Ashton and I asked if we could sing with her sometime. We waited a couple of weeks, and finally found out that the practice was Wednesday night at 9:15 - and that Rebecca couldn't come. Still determined to go, we wandered into one of Cortona's many churches after dinner and ran into the choir director. Naturally, he didn't speak much English, but I had to explain why we were there: "Siamo studentesse di Rebecca Ghezzi; possiamo cantare?"

We were immediately welcomed in and given seats and sheet music, and I got quite a lot of practice with my Italian. Eventually an Irishman showed up, and all three of us were a little relieved to speak English. And then the singing began! There were around twenty choir members, all with a surprising amount of talent for a community choir, and we sang four-part Italian hymns that echoed across the church. Ashton was sandwiched in the alto section, and I was with the first sopranos (despite my attempts to explain in broken Italian that I've probably lost that range and might have to switch), and every so often we gave each other looks that said "this is crazy cool, right?"

The director (I forget his name! So bad of me...) conducted really loosely, so we kind of had to go with the flow and sing phrase to phrase rather than with the written rhythm, but I think it was nicer that way. He'd stop us occasionally to spit out a stream of rapid Italian corrections, and even though I could only catch about every fifth word I knew pretty much what he was saying: don't breathe here, it's much more beautiful if you sing the whole phrase, and basses you're missing the third note at the bottom, and for God's sakes will the sopranos shut up a bit.

Anyway. The practice went until midnight (!), at which point they told Ashton and I (with our Irish friend translating) to show up at Teatro Signorelli tomorrow at five wearing black pants and a white shirt, because there was a concert to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Italy's unification.

To make a long story short, we arrived around five wearing borrowed clothing, listened to a lecture about Italy's history and culture (at least I think that's what it was about; I got tired of paying attention to the Italian) for an hour, and then shuffled onstage with our choir friends plus about forty other (rather loud) people to sing "Va, Pensiero" from Verdi's Nabucco and the Italian national anthem. Youtube the national anthem. It's great.

Ashton and I had to run straight from the stage to Tonino's to take a group photo, but we did stop briefly to hi-five each other.

That's my Italian choir experience.

Walkin'

My drawing critique was short today (probably because the drawings were not so great this week), so I took a walk. I went down the hill to get a cappuccino, then I went to the park...and just kept walking. I went all the way around the mountain.

towards the end of my walk, near Santa Margherita

Today in Cortona

Today is Women's Day! I don't know how the tradition started (I heard it had to do with a factory in America that burned down), but women are supposed to go out with their friends and wear yellow flowers called Mimosa. This morning at breakfast, Gino the groundskeeper had put a vase of Mimosa on the table, and he broke off a sprig and gave it to me. Buon dia delle donne!

It's also Carnivale, which we've seen traces of for weeks as kids dress up in costumes and dump paper confetti everywhere. Apparently the tradition for adults is to dress up in costume and go out at night.

Everyone's in a festive mood, but we all have a big art history test tomorrow! I'm trying to memorize slides as fast as I can, because every Tuesday night after dinner two faculty members present their work. It's been really inspiring so far - check out those links in the last post! Here are some of the other professors: Nathan Dube (jewelry/metals), Lauren Gallaspy (ceramics), Robin Dana (photography), Rebecca Ghezzi (printmaking), and Erin McIntosh (art education).

Ok, I think I'm going to go into town soon so I can see the shenanigans before dinner!

Classes

Here are the classes I'm taking. I'll post pictures of some work when I get the chance:

Intro painting: I've never done oils before, but I love them! So far I've painted one still life (of a white box and a white bottle, very exciting), and I just started on another more complicated one. My painting teacher is Ridley Howard, who once worked as a color mixer for Jeff Koons and so tends to be a stickler for color accuracy. He lets me paint what he calls "tight little paintings." We listen to a lot of Bob Dylan in the studio, which is a converted chapel from the fourteenth century that's been decked out with fancy sun-imitating lights.

Renaissance art history: This class is required, and our Saturday field trips correspond to what we're studying in class each week. It's interesting enough, but I took a similar class last year at Truman, and you can only stare at so many frescoes per week. Being in class is relaxing, though, because I usually make a cup of tea, and the lecture is a nice break from having to think for myself.

Advanced drawing: I'm getting a 400-level credit, but this class is a mixture of all drawing levels. It's taught by Imi Hwangbo, the softspoken drawing and sculpture professor who totes around her five-year-old daughter Mia on Saturday field trips. We have one assignment per week; last week's was to create an "Italian self portrait." Critiques are on Thursdays, and work ranges from my controlled graphite drawings to splattered paint on eight-foot wood panels. When I met with Imi the other day she reviewed my in-class work (gesture drawings of a still life) and told me I had to loosen up.

Italian: I'm in a class of six, and so far we've been reviewing very basic things like "Mi chiamo Becca, e sono di Saint Louis. Piacere. Potrei avere un cappuccino?" I've taken two semesters of Italian already, so this week I'm meeting with Marco, my teacher, and four other students for breakfast and more advanced Italian conversation. I'm not sure how well that'll work out, since I've forgotten a lot of what I learned last year, but hopefully it'll help jar my memory.

Italian Culture: I'm auditing this class because I wasn't sure if I would have enough time to do all the readings, but I haven't skipped a class yet. There are three people enrolled, plus four auditors, and we sit around a table in the auditorium and listen to Marco (who's fluent in French and English and has two PhDs) talk about Italian history through cinema. He doesn't quite understand how little we've been taught about Italy, so it takes a lot of filling in the blanks to try and grasp how neorealist film is a response to Fascism and the need for a national popular culture. Marco makes up for the pauses he takes to search for English words by gesturing emphatically with everything he says. So far we've watched 1900 and Amarcord.

I don't know too much about what's going on in the other classes, but the sculpture students had two weeks to make eighty sculptures, and they're due tomorrow so everyone's hurrying around right now. Well, I guess I'd better come up with an idea for this week's drawing assignment...

Stipend Jobs

I feel like this is pertinent because I'm on library duty.

I'm one of ten stipend students, who all received varying amounts of money from the program, and in exchange we each work ten hours a week. Five hours are with a faculty member (I'm working with Imi, my drawing professor), and the other five are made up by sitting in the library or computer lab and opening and closing the studios.

Everyone gets two keys when they arrive: one to the dorm, and another to your room. But...surprise! Stipend students get like sixteen extra keys. I don't even know what some of them are for; presumably to make us feel more important.

In any case, I haven't had to open or close the studios yet, but I work in the library every Tuesday and Friday. Imi doesn't have much for me to do other than sweep charcoal out of the drawing room, so I've been working with Jacob, one of the program directors. He's frustrated with all the junk that's accumulated on campus over the years, and he spends a lot of time lamenting the lack of American-sized dumpsters. So far we've cleared out the gatehouse near Severini (which included moving a printing press) and the storage rooms in the painting studio. It is SO SATISFYING to organize art studios, plus I keep finding things like half-used pads of newsprint and cans of fixative to use for drawing class.

Ten more minutes of library duty (er, surfing the net).

Cortona

I ran out of time in my last post to adequately describe the town I'm living in. Cortona is where "Under the Tuscan Sun" was filmed, to give you an idea of how pretty it is, and my dorm (the Kehoe Center) and the other classroom building (Severini) are near the top of the hill. At the very top is an Etruscan fortress-turned-art-gallery-sometimes, then below that is la chiesa di Santa Margherita, patron saint of Cortona. She started a hospital in the thirteenth century, and her body is displayed in a lovely glass case at the front of her church. The next thing you run into when you walk down the hill is the dorm, then Severini (I'm there right now!), then the town springs up as you hit apartment buildings and windy roads with little gardens tucked away everywhere. At the center of town (which is by no means at the bottom of the hill), there is Piazza della Reppublica and Piazza Signorelli, where most of the grocery shopping and cappuccino drinking happens.

Molesini's is the main grocery store that I visit every few days, and it's hard to describe if you don't understand some basic things about Italian stores:

Rule #1: There are no supermarkets. There are frutterias, meat shops, chocolate shops, hardware stores, and pharmacies. But heaven help you if you want to find shampoo, because you'll end up looking in the pharmacy and the hardware store (which sells percolators and washcloths next to the drill bits) before you find a lingerie shop that sells makeup and hair products.

Rule #2: Everything is tiny. It's kind of refreshing, but sometimes it makes things harder to find.

Rule #3: Nothing is organized. Going grocery shopping is like treasure hunting, or thrift store shopping. This is probably because stores only keep two or three items of one kind stocked at a time. Example: I bought my hair dryer at the hardware store, and I knew which one to get because it was the only one there.

So anyway, Molesini's is the closest thing to a supermarket we have. They make great panini (I got one yesterday with tuna, pesto, mozzarella, and tomato), and there is an entire shelf devoted to chocolate bars.

Speaking of chocolate, there is one gelato shop in Cortona and it just opened! It's called Snoopy's; I haven't been yet, but I'll keep you updated. And of course there's Cocoa Cortona.

I realize I made it sound like all I do is shop for food - not true! I went yesterday, though, because I needed soap and blood oranges, so it was on my mind.

I'm behind!

I meant to get this blog going so much sooner, and now I'm behind! I'll give a really brief overview of my trip so far:

The plane ride(s): My flight was scheduled to leave February 1st, but a huge snowstorm hit Missouri and I had to fly out six hours earlier than planned in order to beat the ice! I met sixteen girls from my program at the gate in Washington D.C., where we had to wait for five hours. I sat next to a priest on the flight to Rome, and tried to be friendly but he wouldn't talk to me - I assumed because he didn't speak English - but when I offered him my dinner roll in broken Italian he laughed at me and started offering advice on which artworks to see in Rome (in perfect English, of course).

Ashton (left) and Angela wait at the gate in D.C.

Rome: We spent four days trying to learn all fifty-something names and faces, while cramming as much art into our schedules as possible. The hotel was a ten-minute bus ride from the city, and we rode in every day to see things: St. Peter's, the Vatican museum, the Roman forum ruins, the Colosseum, the Maxxi (a contemporary art museum), the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, the Four Rivers Fountain, some Caravaggios in various churches, etc. Best food eaten: a slice of pizza by the Colosseum with eggplant and basil.

Maya (one of my roommates in Cortona) enjoying her pizza

Florence: I started getting to know people better, and the hotel was much closer to the center of town, so no buses were required! We were still pretty busy looking at art (the Uffizi, Galleria Academia, Il Duomo, Orsanmichele, etc.), but we had some more free time, too. I went to La Specola, Florence's natural history museum from the 1700s, which has everything from stuffed platypuses to wax anatomical models on silk cushions. I wandered around by myself in search of yarn (not an easy task in the less touristy parts of town, especially because I didn't know the Italian word for "yarn") and wound up at a chocolate festival in Piazza Santa Croce. There's an art supply store (Zecchi) right next to Santa Maria del Fiore, and we nearly cleaned them out of paint. Oh! I should mention that in both Rome and Florence the group ate together at a restaurant every night, and pasta is SO DELICIOUS. Favorite food in Florence: dark chocolate orange gelato.

In front of the baptistry doors (by Lorenzo Ghiberti)

Cortona: Finally we arrived in Cortona! The bus took us up a winding hill into the most perfect Tuscan town you can imagine, with terra cotta tiled roofs and Starry Night trees and laundry hanging out of windows, and dropped us off in Piazza Garibaldi. We got to see Tonino's, the restaurant where we eat dinner on the weekdays. And then we began climbing the hill: the elevation rises 400 feet in the quarter-mile stretch of cobblestone road leading to the dorm. My legs are in such good shape now, let me tell you. But it's worth it - look at this view!!!

I get to look at this EVERY DAY.

Ok, that's it for now. I have to go to town and grab some food for lunch.