Music festival

Same day, Monday, later, much later. Ok, this time we were not the first ones at the concert which started at 9:15. The group arrived at about 9:30 and then they needed to change. It was all worth the wait. All I can say is, "you should have been here". The dancing was amazing, the singing, interesting, the costumes so cool. Here are a few pics. I made a lot of movies, but they don't seem to load. 








The first man on the left is the dance leader. He whistled so loud when it was time to change step. The kid behind him had about the deepest voice I have ever heard.

 This group was in perfect synchronization. It was mind bending.

This is a shot of the same group doing something else. They wore belts that the dancers would grab on to from each side to help them stay together. While jumping up and down and kicking and shimmying they also sang.

Today, so far, we have nothing to do. I have worked on my two paintings, one is finished and the second is started.

Wayne in Abruzzo

4:30 and it’s off to Gagliano. This time to do a drawing lesson for the students, Italian and American, who are studying at the “Wayne in Abruzzo” summer program. The universities, Wayne in Detroit and in L’Aquila have been having these summer programs for years. Since the earthquake they have been in Gagliano. Around fifteen students, including community members, showed up. The good news is that everyone went home happy. Everyone seemed to learn something. Some were quite good, but each one had something special about it. I remembered again why I love to teach, even though it is completely exhausting. Now I am just sitting here waiting for Jim to make dinner, even though he helped me today, he is working, I am vegging.

How many days has today been? Gas guy, wood stacking, afternoon nap, teaching, dinner and there is the concert at 9:15. It is exhausting being in Italy. (that is a joke, by the way, but we have been doing a lot!)

Ski lift

Things are a little out of control here. We are so busy we do not have time to even get on the Internet. It has been weeks since I played Angry Birds. I have not come close to reading all my books and we can hardly get around to watching a DVD at night.

We had another unexpected excursion yesterday. We went to ask the Danish neighbors if they would come to lunch. It was a blazing hot day by ten in the morning. They told us that they were thinking of going to the mountains where it was cooler. Did we want to go? We did not say no to that. We drove, in their car, up to Rocca d Mesas and then to the ski area. We took the lift to the top where it was 10 c less than in CVS. 23 compared to 33.

There was an excellent restaurant at the top. They are well know for their polenta, but I do not really like it. Jim and I split a pasta dish and an antipasto. It was great. I had a piece of cake with “fruits of the mountain”. There were blackberries, currents or lingonberries or both. I am not sure, but I am sure it was delish. After we took a walk to the bottom of another ski lift and paid a little to come back up. It would have been quite the climb. At the top again we sat out in the sun in sling back chairs. Sublime. Finally we took the lift down and got home in time for the 5:30 concert in the church.

It was much steeper down than up!












We were sadly misinformed or misunderstanding. At 5:30, as we were approaching the piazza, we saw our friend. He is in the singing group and was just heading home to change into his outfit. We went ahead and sat down in the cloister to wait. 




At 6 pm there was still no one there, but our friend was back and he brought us some wine and bread covered with tomato sauce. Jim said no, but I said yes and ate it all. That was my dinner.

AT 6:30 our friend brought over his camera and asked me to take pictures while he sang. At close to 7:00 he got up and started talking about the group. He thanked everyone, including the Americans, for come to hear them and for coming to Castelvecchio.

Our friend is the last guy on the left. He is a lifesaver.

We were very tired from a day in the mountains and Jim had thought he would go home after a few songs, but no way after being introduced. Before the second group was finished, the bells for eight o’clock from two different churches started ringing. They had to stop and start over, but that was their last number. It was a lot of fun.

Monday

We were supposed to help our Danish neighbors stack their 5 tons of wood on Tuesday, but it came today at 6:45. Sadly,  we were expecting the plumber at 9:30. We went up to help until he arrived, but he came immediately thereafter. Back we went to our house. We will need to buy a new hot water heater next summer. I think it is better to wait until then rather than to get it now and it does nothing for 9 months. Ours was cleaned and inspected and is safe, but the company has been out of business for 10 years, so it is better to get a new one: 700 to 800E, but it was a miracle that it worked at all and we have used it now three years. And they were almost done moving wood when we got back. Score!

Tonight Jim and I are going to Gagliano to teach a two hour drawing class to the Wayne in Abruzzo students. We are going to draw the castle. Jim got some art supplies at the hardware store to show that you can do art with anything. I sort of disagree, but I wish I believed.

After that is another concert at 9:15. Should we go then or wait? What do you think? I do get internet connection there so maybe we will go on time. I have six bug bites on my face from last night. More zirtec is needed. The moskies seem to never end. Our other friends are going to get something that puts an electronic field around their bed. We are all somewhat desperate. At least my eye is not swollen shut and I am resisting the urge to scratch my face. It doesn’t help anyway. My ankles have a tattoo of scabs from scratching bug bites.

I believe that we identified some of the night time dog barkers. Three little dogs live next door to each other. When a person walks by, the first starts barking, then the next and the next. The first cannot stop, even though the person is gone, because it cannot be outdone by the second barker. And so it goes. How they have a voice left is beyond me. They live by the fountain and people are coming and going there all day. I can hear them now.  Oh yea! Time for lunch.

San Stefano - Uffizzi exhibition

Road trip today! We went off with Kristen and Rolf and Noel and Marzia. The first are the Danish friends that have the gallery and the other pair are an Irish/Italian couple who also live in Gagliano. We drove around the edge of our valley and into the valley that includes the Gran Sasso National park and Colleto Grande. We saw many beautiful hill towns on the way: Capistrano, famous for swallows, Calacio, with an amazing castle that looks as if it is growing out of the rocks, from which there is a view of the entire Gran Sasso and then San Stefano, our destination. San Stefano is supposed to be one of the most beautiful towns in Italy, but it was devastated by the earthquake some years back. There was a hugh medieval tower that had just been renovated before the earthquake knocked it down. In its place is the most amazing scaffolding ever.

Near Calacio is a separate micro climate. Although they are higher in the mountains than we are, they can grow grapes and olives. There are huge cactus and palm trees.
San Stefano is above tree line and looks completely different than our landscape. 


We were there to see an art exhibition of some paintings and Roman base reliefs from the Uffizzi Museum in Florence. The paintings were basic renaissance, with some by Dutch painters who had gone to Italy. None of their names except Claude Lorrain (French guy who painted in Italy) were familiar. My favorite thing in the show was a base relief about 10 inches tall and 24 inches long. It showed a lion knocking a man off his horse, an angel on the horse in front of him, a lion on the roof a cart pulled by oxen led by another angel on a horse. It was so mysterious. What was the story?

Mail box made out of roof tile.

Photographs in the exhibition were not allowed. The show was in three venues. The first was the elementary school and was not too exciting except for the amazing lighting. The next two were up in the old part of town. One was in the jail and another seemed to be a library. The roofs of these rooms were vaulted with large complex fireplaces and other antiques from the town. One room was devoted only to the arts of the area. I saw a basket that looks just like the one I bought. They had picked rooms with windows for light and security. The library had an amazing window. You could not see out of it. It was an arch shape above eye level, but the only opening must have been at the bottom. The light was reflected up through the opening and was pure gold.

Drinking coffee...you can always tell who the artist is because they will look right at you.

You can bet that coffee was part of this expedition. While we were drinking coffee, a group of Italian tourists came by wearing matching t-shirts. Turns out they were a choir so they sang to us all. It was beautiful. Magical things just seem to happen here. (except for our internet service, which we cannot make work)

Our Italian member of the group asked a Carabinieri guy (military police) where was a good place to eat. He told us to go to the campground restaurant. Would you ever eat at a campground restaurant in the U.S.? No, I think not. We had the usual antipasto, procuitto, cheeses, salami, bread with truffles, bread with sun dried tomatoes, strawberry jam for the cheese and a delicious scoop of ricotta cheese.  For primo, Jim and I each had a wide noodle with sun dried tomatoes, saffron and some cheese. Yummy. We were all smart enough not to order a secondo, meat dish, so we could have saffron gelato. A young couple was running the place with the woman as the chef. They were totally nice and she smiled all the time. It was a great meal. In Italy you must ask for your check, or in this case we asked to be told what was the bill, because they would never be so rude as to give you the check and imply you should leave. We were the only people there so they could not close until we left. The simply sat out of sight until we asked for the total.

Interesting chimney

Gran Sasso

Painting sunflowers

We got out early yesterday to paint before it was too hot. Because of the rain, there was a little haze in the air. My glasses steamed up which has never happened here.

 This picture was taken later in the morning after we were finished painting.

 Jim's place in the shade.

 We didn't count on the mud, but it was intense. We are used to dirt like concrete, but it did rain a lot.

The happy painters and the happy painting. Jim has not released his for publication.

Pears, Paolo and perfect weather

Yesterday I did a still life of some pears. It was kind of fun to be doing a still life again. I learned some things about how a still life if different than a landscape. In landscape I mostly create distance with drawing, color and value. In a still life, where all the objects are so close to each other, the way to create depth is with edges. You can read all about it in my book, if it ever gets published. Yes, along with everything else I have been writing and editing everyday. I have taken sequential photos of every pastel I have done and I have written about all of them on the day they were painted.

In the afternoon, Paulo came over to fix the leaks, add electricity on the terrace and to make the bench on our terrace look nice. It was a horrible cement and plaster job by someone who didn’t care. We have ordered an antenna and a router and now we will be able to plug the router in on the terrace. We have the hooks in the wall that used to hold the TV antenna to attach the internet antenna. It is not a joke here to put something on the wall. You need a gi-normous drill and some muscle to get through the stone or brick walls.

Paolo at work

Jim at Paolo school

Beautiful bench

Another view of the bench

New electric box on terrace

Jim out exploring in the cooler weather. All new since earthquake.

This is my view of Castelvecchio from this morning. It is such a beautiful day. It is nice and cool even in the mid-day sun. Temps are going back up to crazy hot for the weekend. Where is our swimming pool???

Rain!

 This is the shoemaker, repair man in town.

Two days of rain. We have never seen two days where there was never any blue sky. We were able to go get pizza, bread and make it to market without getting too wet. I did take some interesting pictures this morning.

News is delivered here through bulletin boards where flyers are posted. This shows some a sale somewhere, and Avviso from the Commune and a notice of a funeral from Guido.

Whoops....left out July 21

Our neighbor’s internet is down. Last night we were up at the big piazza about 10:30 pm using the poor internet connection. There were probably 12 kids riding bikes, families with babies out strolling, lots more kids running around, older people sitting talking and the small piazza with the caffe bars was packed with people. From the voice level you would guess 200, but it was probably around 50. Today I was on the piazza at 3pm and it was a ghost town. Everyone is sleeping so they can partee tonight. This is the place for night owls.

While we were sitting in the piazza an elderly woman asked me when we were leaving for the summer.

She is one of a group that I say hello to daily. After I told her she went to her house and brought out two things she had crocheted. She had done them for me as presents and wanted to be sure I got them before I left. Really nice!! We kept sitting there and another friend drove up and gave Jim three eggs from his chickens. Then he got back in the car and pulled out two golden beets. He also gave these to Jim. Once again back to the car and he gave Jim two zucchinis.

Then he gave Jim a ride home to deliver the produce and then back to the piazza. Jim was sitting in the front seat with eggs in hand and no seatbelt. No one wears one here. Luckily we mostly ride with Danes and they all wear seat belts, but Italians, no way. I am confident in this definitive statement, because I can look down from my terrace into cars and I haven’t seen a seat belt yet. Plenty of kids sitting on laps in the front seat, possibly a car seat in the back, but no one is using them.

So it was a good deal sitting in the piazza at night. There is a group of students here from a university in Detroit. They are doing a summer school program. I talked to one of the teachers, on the piazza, and told her I would be interested in doing some sort of art thing for the students. I would do it for free in hopes that it would work into something else next year.

We are showing pastels in Gagliano on August 14. I have spent today doing some more of that town from photos I have. It is a long walk and really hot so I am cheating. I think I can finish 2 or 3 today. It is so easy when the sun doesn’t move, it isn’t hot and the clouds stand still.

Yesterday we found out that there is a flour mill in town and that it is just across the street from us. I took a picture of the bag of flour in the little store about a block away from us. If flour were not so heavy that is what you all would be getting from Italy. How cool is this?  I also took a picture of the adorable couple that owns the store. We buy cheese there and things that are too heavy to carry from the big store. It is great that it is here, because many elderly people use it who could not walk to the supermarket. The obnoxious veggie truck parks by it on non-market day so it works well for those that cannot walk far or drive.

We are back!!

Yea, our friend's internet is back. We just made our first attempt at ordering to be delivered in Europe. I think we have ordered an antenna and a router so we will have our own internet. I got a great chair at the hardware store so now I can sit outside the neighbors house for hours, but there is still the rain. It is interesting how much more isolating each improvement in technology is. When we had to go to the piazza to get internet, we got gifts and socialized. When we sit outside the neighbor's house we are in a back alley where there are a dozen cats and people coming and going. Once we have our own antenna we will sit, alone, on our terrace. It is exactly the same as not having or having a car.

Sunday Morning

I rained yesterday afternoon and it was pouring when we got up. It is still threatening and at any moment I may have to make a run for it. I spent the morning doing yet another picture of the Castello in Gagliano. I now have five pictures for the gallery. Jim has one. Next I may paint the stairs. The real stairs. In our house.

Farmers Market Sunday

Today was a real farmers market in Castel di Ieri. The difference is that all the items had to be produced by the people selling them.

The first thing I saw was a women wrapping wire around clay pots. We had seen pots like this last summer at our friends’ mountain home. We had thought they had been wrapped with wire to hold them together after they broke. I still think that, but Jim thinks maybe they wrap all the pots because they probably will get broken. I got a bean pot for 20E. I didn’t really care what it cost. How long will old ladies know how to do this? She hardly looked up from her work and twisted and pulled the wire for hours while her daughter sold the pots. Next to her were some people making olive oil infusions. Next was a cheese maker. When he unloaded the cheeses the smell filled the air, then the baker, who was selling different kinds of flour for different pastas, bread, cookies for dipping in wine and tarts and a vegetable truck.

Outside the official market was a man who had made shoes out of tires. They do not look too comfortable. He was willing to sell me an enormous pair for 10E, no 5E as I walked away. As my friend said, this guy could sell sand in the desert. In the end I bought two toy pairs of shoes for Christmas tree ornaments. He wanted 5E each for those so I said only one. He had amazing baskets. You could see that all the twigs had been hand whittled with the bark stripped off. I got a largish bread basket for 8E. When I gave him the 10E bill he handed me the other pair of shoes. I guess this meant we were even. I did not get any change. Next he gave me a blue plastic little fan that said “Raid” on it. It is to blow insect poison into the room while you are sleeping. It was my present, even though I pleaded with him not to give it to me.  As we walked away he was still trying to convince us to buy more stuff...holding things up and calling out the prices. If I could have bought a pile of baskets, think what I could have sold them for. When was the last time you saw a hand made basket for $10? Or a pair of shoes made out of tires? I was 15 and in Mexico.

My basket

This is the bean pot and honey made from the flower I talked about before. The flower is tall and has a spike covered with yellow flowers. There were so many bees on it that I thought it was a motor somewhere.







And that was today before noon. Rain is forecast for the next two days. Since our friend has lost his internet, we may be off line for a few days, maybe I will have time to get some work done. Jim is talking antenna and wireless router now that we are deprived a close internet connection. It is either that or make new friends.