July 17, 2017 Finishing the Mural

Finishing the Mural

Last night there were the most beautiful clouds. The colors were amazing. So I took some more cloud pictures. It is irresistible. 

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This morning Jim went off with Noel for three hour coffee. I took a three mile walk. It is a beautiful day. The temperature is fresh, there are lots of clouds and wind. The sun is baking, but it is fine with the clouds and breeze.

Castelvecchio in the distance

 I walked about three miles on a road that goes through the middle of the valley in the direction of Secinaro. On my left was Galaino Aterno and below and behind me was CVS. So far I have resisted talking about tics in Italy, but, there are, in fact, tics. Their name in Italian is Zacca. (note the feminine ending) Usually they are in the grass or trees where sheep hang out. I also have a theory that because Italians keep planting oak trees because truffles grow under them and oak trees make acorns and mice like acorns and tics like mice that this is why there are now more tics in Italy. But as far as I can tell, if a tic bites someone they do not rush off and get antibiotics. I rarely have occasion to walk in the grass and I try not to walk under trees. So far so good. 

On the way home I saw an old friend sitting outside her front door. She told me she is not well. I already suspected that and, in fact, I was concerned that she had died. This is the story of my old friends this year. They are all failing. One is in the hospital “enjoying” his last days. I bought my friend, Linda, some candy today. Since she has no teeth it is the only kind she can enjoy. The word for “whatever” or actually for “but” is ma. These older women can say it with incredible inflection and meaning. Ma is the answer to all the problems of the world.

“Ma”. Next I saw another old friend who is a laugh riot. She is outrageous. The other day she was on her way to mass wearing gold lamee converse high tops, a gold lamee purse, regular dress and real gold earrings and necklace. This is just how she is. I sat down with her a bit and ate a hard as a rock piece of bread that looks like a bagel and is flavored with anise seed. She said it would be better with wine and I said that it was a little early. Then we agreed that it is always wine time. 

Since the rain, the wildflowers are blooming

When I came home I just hung around the terrace until Jim came home from coffee. (yes it was three hours) I convinced him to go for another walk. It is just that kind of weather. 

Portrait of the day

After leftover pasta we went up to the bar to finish the mural. I did the black outline and Jim repainted most of the interior, gray, lines. I think it looks pretty good and probably good enough unless the owners do not like it. The reason it is an elephant and dancing woman is because the owner liked that best of all the ideas I showed her. I did three different color schemes on the computer and she picked out “the hippy elephant”. Well actually her daughter picked it out. It was a lot of fun and I hope they really enjoy having it. She is from the Dominican Republic so maybe that is why she did not want a traditional Italian scene. 

Tiny kittens and mom

Tomorrow we leave for Pescara where we will spend the night at an Airbnb and then fly from there to Copenhagen on Tuesday. The blog goes inter-European!

July 15, 2017 Mural Painting Day

I have gotten a little behind in my tale of vacationing in Italy. We went up to d’Lisa’s the other night with Noel. They have a very nice, outdoor seating area which they open when it is warm enough out…30 degrees or so…with a wood fired oven and a arrostacini grill. It does smell good! They make there own pasta. We sat near the oven and had pasta and arrostacini. So good. Wish you had been here. 

The next day we went to the BIG supermarket. I do not think it is as big as Tops in Northfield, but it is lots better. The cheese and meet counter is spectacular, there is an entire aisle of dried pastas and they have beautiful, fresh baked bread. I still prefer to shop in our town if possible, but it is nice to go to a store that has the toothpaste I like. 

Yesterday I had a lovely time painting. Clouds were back on the painting menu and I enjoyed doing this landscape after a morning spent doing more old buildings. The whole time I was painting I wondered if it would start raining, but it didn’t until about 3pm. Then it poured the big, fat, drops Abruzzo is know for. When the first ones hit the stones they make a 1.5 inch in diameter circle. It rained enough for all the dust and stones to be washed down the street. That is the first real rain they have had in six weeks. 

View

Beginning

Almost finished

My latest portrait

In the late afternoon we went to Brioco-io (translates to something like My Brico) which is a hardware and homewares store to pick out paint for the mural. Paint is not cheap, but cheaper than America, but brushes are really cheap and very nice. Instead of paying about $20 for one brush like I prefer to paint with, these were around 3E. They are made in Italy which is a good idea for a painting brush. Brico is a huge store so it is about the size of two full aisles in a Home Depot. There was a small section of artist’s supplies consisting of different brands of acrylics, brushes, canvases and frames. I was so excited I forgot to take pictures except for one t-shirt. 

One in a Melon!

We went on this shopping trip with the owners of the bar and our friend who speaks English and Italian. It was so fun and the drive is amazing like everything here. 

On the walk from Galiano Aterno

Today is beautiful with more clouds, a fresh breeze and a more pleasant temperature. Soon we are going off to meet up with our painting team. A Dane, an Irishman, the Italian who speaks English and the two Americans. The paints are mixed and ready to go. 

Get your friends to do the work and take all the credit. 

Meanwhile, back in America we have been trying to buy one house or another since November. Today we signed the papers to close on the Barre House on Friday, July 21. So maybe while in Sweden we will be buying a different house in America. No point in getting too excited yet. 

July 13, 2017 Hot and Hotter

July 13, 2017 Hot with a chance of hotter and no rain ever

Yes, it is hot. At least there is breeze even if it does feel like the door to a blast furnace has been opened. I worked on two oil paintings yesterday. I am going to run out of white paint maybe even before we go to Sweden. That’s ok. Then I will just use up the pastel paper I have been hoarding. 

In the morning I returned to an old favorite spot from one of our first years here. It wasn’t till I saw my start completed that I realized I had done this exact same scene in pastels years ago. For the oils I seem to just work out of a puddle of paint. All the colors are so similar that I use my yuck pile and just add a little of this or that. I love my plastic palette because I can keep it in the freezer, but I do not like the feel of the slick, plastic, surface. 

On the way up

It is a long way up to my painting spot, but even worse is that it is a long way down. 

Going down.

In the afternoon I also returned to an old spot, but found a new view looking down the stairs. 

Afternoon and Morning

Sunset behind the Sirentes

Now I am busy on the mural in the Bar Al Kaffe. I drew it in pencil first, took a photo, opened it in photoshop and was able to show my friend three versions with different color combos. It was pretty great and more fun that coloring. Photoshop makes it so easy and fast. 

Me, drawing last night

Jim outlining my drawing in paint. 

It is not my usual subject matter. I worked on getting the drawing on the wall from about 9pm till 11pm last night. I have to finish drawing it today, we will go buy paint on Friday and maybe we can finish painting it before we go to Sweden on Monday. That would be good. I think other residents of CVS are bewildered by it, but all that matters is that our friends, the bar owners, like it. We have been living on free drinks since the project started, but last night we finally got to pay. 

Although it has been a struggle, I have gotten all our tickets printed to go to Sweden. You would be shocked how long each print takes and how many times I had to go back to the tech shop to get the prints. I am also printing new photos I have taken for portraits. I already have enough done to exhibit this year, if we do something like that, but I have a few more I would like to do. 

Free day at the market July 11, 2017

No one told us it was free day in Castelvecchio, but it started right away. First the pastry I was given at the coffee shop was unacceptable so I was given a second one. I had not noticed any problem?? When I went to buy a 1/2 kilo of bread for about $1.50 she gave me two delicious cookies that we had with coffee in the afternoon. The vegetable woman she gave us more stuff than we purchased.

Every thing to the right of the lettuce was a gift. And the chicken man gave us each a big bit of pork rolled around herbs. That did not make it home before being eaten.

It has been really hot here. Everyone is complaining and everyone who can has left for the beach.

We keep our house nice and cool by opening the windows at night and leaving it shut up all day. Our friend, Noel, is back and I have lost my painting companion as the two of them spend hours over third coffee each morning.

Here is my effort from yesterday afternoon and the day before. I am sitting in my friend, Maria's, garden. She brought out caffe and cake so it was a good place to paint. She is always giving us things from flowers for the table to zucchini flowers also for the table.

It may be hot, but it is a sweet life!

Bringing in the Sheaves: July 9, 2017

Bringing in the Sheaves:  July 9, 2017

Hopefully, today is the hottest day of the next week. Thanks to the tiny bit of rain we had last week that made it impossible to harvest, the grain harvesting festival happened again today. 

Me and the major waiting for the fun to start.

The Castel di Ieri Squad.

The squad from Castel di Ieri won this year, but next year it will be Castelvecchio I am sure. 

Maybe four or five squads participated. Each squad has three people although one guy started out with just himself. One person harvests using a scythe, one gathers and one makes the sheafs. The man with the scythe wears bamboo stalks over the fingers on his other hand so they don’t get cut off and he carries a wet stone in a cow horn holder on his belt. It was so hot just standing there that I was amazed no one collapsed from heat stroke. But they are an intrepid lot.

CVS Squad

The squad that came in last included the guy who was on his own harvesting for quite a while. I don’t know if people just volunteered to help him or what. Although they had no chance of winning they continued until their row was finished. It is not just speed that counts. It is also how well the field is harvested. And the sheaves have to be bundled and neatly stacked. 

After the harvest and the judging there is the festa. People with pocket knives came around offering people piece of fresh fennel. All the vegetable were harvested this morning. Besides water and wine there were baked beans, a cold dish made with faro, tomatoes and carrots, salad, bread made from Solina wheat, Solina wheat pasta, sheep cheese and proscutto. We were under the trees and there was a little breeze. 

Salad makers

Proscutto cutter

Enjoyers!

The guys in charge of pasta were obviously experts. They added salt to the water, removed some of the water. Added more salt and then olive oil. When the pasta was cooked and they added the sauce there was no straining of water involved. The measurements were perfect. All this was accomplished on a hot plate fired by a bombola or gas canister.



I can now have a three sentence conversation in Italian. One man asked me where we were from, if we had had relatives from here and if not why had we bought a house here? I told him it was our good luck and he really  appreciated that! Today I felt like such a lucky person. It was all so much fun and people were so nice and the food so good, the views so spectacular and the event was seeped in tradition and the history of the region. I asked a friend of mine if she had done this as a child and she said that she had. It is recent history and it is important to keep the memories alive even if for only a day a year.

July 8, 2017, Abby Road or What Another Long, Strange, Trip it’s Been

July 8, 2017, Abby Road or What Another Long, Strange, Trip it’s Been

It was a most interesting and amazing day, but it did prove once again that it is better just to find and not seek. Nothing turned out like we thought it would, but it was better or at least equally great. We set off for L’Aquila with our friend and the mighty dog Fred. We spent a long time looking for an art supply store that was no where near where I thought it was. Then instead of going to the museum in L’Aquila we drove way back out this way and went to an amazing Abby in Bominaco somewhere in Abruzzo. It was a long and winding road that led to some dead ends and impassible roads along the way. We were happy in the same way that Fred seems to be happy although he has not idea where he is or what is going on. 

At last a sign.

As is often the case there was a wedding in the Romanesque Church of Santo Maria Assunta (12th Century), but we were able to get in the small church of San Pelligrino. It was founded by Charlemagne but rebuilt in 1263. 

Roman columns

As is also often the case we had to call up a woman to come and open the church for us. Then we had to put 2E in to turn on the lights, but it was well worth it. The entire place is painted floor to ceiling with frescos and carvings. 

I sort of like my photos before the lights were turned on, but it was much easier to appreciate the interior with the lights. I did not read the sign that said no pictures until we were on the way out and I am very grateful that I did not. 

Above the horse and rider are the calendar months including the zodiac signs and the saints’ days and other holy days celebrated in that church. 

Here is a better shot of the calendar with the prophets above it.

This is the view looking back toward the front door. The 30 foot high guy on the left is San Cristofer. 

I really liked the moorish designs on the vaulted ceiling and all the strange, to my eye, midivil characters doing midivilish things like carrying a box with half a guy in it. 

Here are some Danes that we know who also were in the church. Just to the left of San Christofer’s knees is a saint that looked like “Thing” in the Adams Family. He had hair down below his knees. More to the left are frescos depicting the life of Jesus. 

Jim, Marzia, and the church lady looking toward the front of the church. 

This is the big church of Santo Maria Assunta. It is really big and, compared to the little one, quite austere. The outside and the inside are not as ornamented, but there were some interesting things I found by looking closely. 

Picture of Fred carved into the wall.

The right hand of God. 

This is a shot of the long side of the church and the cute little house along side it. 

Here, I am on the porch of the little house and am trying to give you an idea of how long the church is. 

It was hot enough to cook a pizza on the pavement, but still there were some bell flowers growing in a shady spot on the church. 

We were lucky that the woman let us into the big church after the wedding. She had missed her lunch, but still took the time to give us a minute. 

This church is very white with only a few frescos partially uncovered on the side walls. 

As well as two amazing churches we also had an amazing lunch of homemade pasta. I had pasta made with saffron….which is harvested in our region and Jim had carbonara. There was a another family dining and the man was from California about 30 miles from where Jim grew up. He is retired and he and his family have moved full time to Italy. ( to do that as Americans two people have to have an income of $6000 a month and I do not know how more it is if there are four) They had a small, white, version of the dogs that live in the Montpelier pet store. 

 It was around 40c today so since returning home we have been hiding in the house waiting for dark to go interneting in the piazza. We learned an Italian saying today:  Eat like a prince at breakfast, like a king at noon and like a peasant in the evening. This is our problem. We have been eating like kings every meal all day.