Author: CCadmin3810

Posted on

A slow morning

I am sitting in bed, drinking a cup of tea and the bells are ringing for 10.30am. This morning’s mist is already mostly gone and the sun is shining and I feel very content. I have no classes today and will tackle the Doge’s Palace (when I finally make it out of bed).

Yesterday was Day 2 of my lace-making. It was a very misty morning – the lowest visibility yet of my stay and I arrived at the vaporetto stop to find that a number of the lines were closed due to low visibility. Fortunately, though, not the one out to Burano. I arrived in time for a coffee before I met Marisa again at 10 o’clock to begin. After a small practice on the work I began the day before, we moved on to some new techniques of bars and then crosses and then a fourth type of filling stitch. Things go quite fast now that I have the basic movement under control and can recognise the little things going wrong. when they do.

I have brought the cushion, etc home and will practice more during the week before I return next Friday for more lessons.

Once I left Marisa, I went to the Lace Museum and spent an hour or so there – there are examples of the most amazing, fine work in the thinnest of threads and it is hard to imagine the hours and the care that went into them. Those were the days, though, when they had whole institutions working on these pieces – convents, orphanages, workhouses, asylums, etc. Now the cost would be outrageous to produce even a small work. At Martina Vidal (the place where I am working with Marisa), they have for sale, for example, a v-shaped collar such as would fit on a coat or similar and it is E1000. Almost everything in the shops here is machine-made as they would sell hardly anything with the costs for the hand-made stuff. It is a great shame as the techniques die out because there is no market but to pay the makers a decent amount for the work.

After the lace museum, I took the vaporetto to the nearby island of Torcello. According to the guidebook, there are only 14 people living now on Torcello but it used to have a population of 20,000 and was the seat of the bishopric in the area and had a dozen churches and etc. The main church, which was begun in the 6th century remains and is pretty amazing. It shows the mix that Venice was between the east and the west. Both the apse-end and the entry-end of the church are covered in incredible mosaics with a distinctly Byzantine flavour. Apart from these, by Venetian standards, the church is fairly simple (only half a dozen magnificent sculptures and side-altars/monuments, barely worth mentioning) although one of the side chapels was also covered with fantastic mosaics, etc. The floor throughout was beautiful too with intricate patterns of different coloured marbles except for a small patch where they show the original floor of black and white tesserae from the 6th century (the newer floor is only from the 13th century).

Next I climbed the campanile (which was generously provided with ramps up each flight instead of stairs which was much easier on the knees coming down especially) for fantastic views across the lagoon – a shame it was still hazy into the distance. Then I wandered through the museum which has finds from Torcello and other parts of the lagoon dating back to prehistoric times and including lots of Greek, Roman and medieval pieces. I think digging in your garden here really can produce archaeological finds – what fun that must be.

After all of that I sat in a bistro garden and had a drink and met a group of Swedish people here for a long weekend. I don’t know if I have mentioned it before, but I am finding the whole Swedish-Italian thing amusing/slightly frustrating. I think because they are the only two non-English languages I know anything of, when I reach into my mind for a word, it is just as likely that the Swedish one comes instead of the Italian. So I might want to say “E bello” meaning it is beautiful and out comes “De ar fint”. The Swedish group found this very amusing, but having talked to them in Swedish (well…..) it will probably make it worse!

I found my way home from the vaporetto by the most direct route this time, and rounded out my evening with a prosecco at the bar in the square where I was joined at my table (there were no other tables free at the time) by a couple who turned out to be from Melbourne, from Delahey or some such place in the western suburbs (I half expected them to say Mt Waverley or somewhere close) who were also staying at Giusy’s place but only for two nights before they join a cruise today. Anyway it was nice to chat about impressions of Venice. It is interesting the things that different people do and don’t do, or notice and don’t notice.

I will post some photos and some more about the lace tonight, but I think I had better make a move or I might stay the entire day in bed, which would be nice, but I didn’t come all this way to spend it lazing about.

Posted on

Merletto

Merletto is the italian word for lace.

I had to get up quite early this morning to head out to Burano, a 45-ish minute journey across the lagoon. It was misty again this morning, almost drippy in fact. I arrived on Burano at about 8.45 and wasn’t to start until 9.30. It seems as though the island doesn’t properly wake up until 9.30 as all the shops were closed and everything was quite still and quiet. I walked around a bit enjoying the colourful houses and then eventually found one cafe that was open and had a fair smattering of locals having an early morning coffee. I ordered a coffee which was very good.

I went back towards the vaporetto stop and the shop (well, it’s really more than a shop) where I am to have my lessons. There was some small misunderstanding and the lace makers don’t usually come in until 10.30, so I went away again and had another coffee and returned at 10.30 to meet Marisa who is my teacher.

Marisa is 76 and has been making lace since she was 5 years old, taught by her mother and sisters. She has been working as a lace-maker ever since. Marisa has no English at all but we managed very well with my Italian (which is improving) and watching and interpreting and occasionally seeking help from one or other of the women working in the shop. I began my lesson with the most simple stitch and over the day learned also two others.

The type of lace, broadly speaking, is “point lace” (as opposed to bobbin lace, tatting or crocheted lace which are all different and generally not a fine as point lace). It requires a lot of patience but I didn’t find it too difficult and thanks, I think, to my embroidery experience, I picked it up pretty quickly.

The thread used it just ordinary cotton sewing thread and you make the lace over a design marked on paper, the edge of the design being sewn in a running stitch through the paper. The lace itself is achored to the running stitch but nothing else, giving it its other name of “punto in aria”or points in the air.

The time absolutely flew by. I was astonished when they told me it was lunchtime and again when it was time to finish. Tomorrow I will learn more new techniques and practice those from today. Then I will get to bring the pillow and thread home to practice further during the week until my lessons next week.

After I finished there, I came back on the vaporetto – the sky has not cleared today and it was heavily overcast, although not at all cold. I visited one church on the way back from the vaporetto stop – Santa Maria Assunta (Gesuiti) which is an amazingly OTT exercise in greenish-blue and white marble. I can’t quite decide if I loved it or was slightly horrified by it. Certainly overwhelming with all of the walls covered in the two coloured marble in an intricate design looking like wallpaper or damask fabric. There are many statues, one complete with draperies also of the marble. I can’t imagine the hours and hours it must have taken to make this. The high-altar is surrounded by twisted pillars of the marble and there are statues galore.

I found my way back to my room (not, I think, by the most direct route) and did a little hand-washing and now, at 8pm, am finding myself sleepy again! This could get to be a new (and rather alarming) habit.

Posted on

A toast to Venezia

After having finished my glass-day, I took the vaporetto to the railway station and walked from there back towards my accommodation through the part of Venice called San Polo. My promary destination was the church Basilica of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. This is the church of the Franciscans in Venice and it is seriously amazing. One of the works of art in this church would make it a “place to be seen” in any other city – it has over 30 major works. The two Titians and one Bellini were definite highlights, as were the Escher-like perspectives of the inlay on the choir stalls, and the sculptures of the tombs of Titian and Canova. I spent about two hours there and then wandered slowly back through this neighbourhood towards the Rialto bridge.

I had intended to visit a couple of other churches and museums, but had spent long enough at Frari that the other places I was heading for had already closed. I went over the Rialto bridge which, although pretty amazing, was packed with tourists and touristy shops (the bridge has shops actually built on it). I managed to find my way back to my room, dumped my stuff and went back downstairs to the open-air bar in the square just outside the building.

I enjoyed my first Prosecco for the trip (and my second) while relaxing as the sun set, drinking a toast to Venezia.

An aside: the two things about Venice that I do not like (apart from the tourists, of course) are cigarette smoke and mosquitoes both of which I find in abundance. I am a walking fast-food shop for the mozzies and am living on Claratyne 🙁 – but it’s worth every mouthful.

Posted on

Pics from Day 4 of Glass fusing

These are project 1 after the second firing – you can’t see very well, but it is now a shallow dish (you can just tell by the shadow).

This is project 2 after the first firing – I’m a little disappointed by the colour that the red glass turned out (its the opaque brown) but cĂ©st la vie. Otherwise I am very happy. It’s not perfect, but it is also good to see the difference between a good join and a less-good join.

This is the mold and then the fused piece sitting on top of the mold. It has gone into the kiln for the second firing which will thermoform the square into this dish – essentially it just sinks down into the shape when it becomes hot enough.

This is Project 3 which is the circular base that I cut of clear glass, covered with the two semi-circular pieces I cut. Around them are the cut pieces of stringer (in opposite colurs to the glass semi-circles) and then crystals of violet and clear covering the rest of the background. This has gone off for the first firing and I will collect it (and/or thermoform it) next week.

Posted on

Hit the wall

I hit the wall last night – must have been more tired than I realised. I fell asleep at 8pm, which for me is usually only something that happens when I am sick. I am not sick, in fact I am very well, but I suppose the concentration of the work, the language and being on my feet for 12 hours a day and all the walking and climbing of stairs added up. After my day’s activities (which I will describe below), I had a glass of Prosecco at the open air bar almost literally outside my door and came back to my room and crashed.

Anyway, yesterday was the final day of my first glass course. Project 1 is complete, Project 2 has been fused and will go on to the thermoforming to make a shallow dish and I worked on Project 3 and my additional project for the glass blowing.

I started with the additional project, which was to make a piece 15cm x 25cm which will be fused and then when I am doing the glass blowing course in the third week, will be re-heated and I will wrap it around a blown core. Anyhoo, I made this one using some of the scrap pieces from Project 2 and added small pieces and powder which come in a huge variety of colours and sizes. The sort of thing that you could spend hours and hours playing with.

The next task was learning to cut a circle with a circle-cutting tool. Again, lots of fun and very satisfying. We took my perfect circle to the room where there are lots of machines specialised for grinding and polishing and the guy who works there (you aren’t allowed to do it yourself) ground the edge to make it smooth and rounded (he also showed me a few of the other processes). Next I learned how to do sandblasting – a cool surface-finishing technique and I can imagine some quite intricate designs you could cut in the resist before sandblasting – which was easy to do and very quick, unfortunately requires the sort of set-up you couldn’t have at home.

Finally I got to decide whether I decorated the circular plate with sandblasting or other glass pieces. I decided to go with the glass and started working on that with pieces cut from a rod of glass (called a stringer), so they are little circles. As I worked I started thinking about the design more and then went back to the circle cutter to cut two semicircles in coloured glass for the design – I am really pleased with it and I got to practice the circle cutter use, which is really cool.

I am off this morning to Burano, so I will post pics from yesterday and finish the rest of the story when I come back tonight (if I don’t fall asleep).

Posted on

Feedback from mio marito

So David has said I need to add pics of my work in progress and it is probably a good idea, even just for my own benefit. I took a few today:

So, this is project 1 as it looked this morning when coming out of the kiln. It is now going through a second kiln process – thermoforming – to shape it into a dish.

This is ‘my’ workbench with Project 2 in progress and the sketches for project 1 on the right.

Project 2 heads for the kiln. The other stuff is small pieces of ‘stringer’ (glass rods) which will form up into balls when fired.

This is the completed Project 2 heading into the kiln.  The darkest pieces are actually a deep red which will apparently fire to a red-brown sort of colour. The furthest away part is simple squares but the shapes become more complex travelling towards the camera. The small diamond shaped pieces were the hardest to cut.

I am very pleased with the result. I have solved the issue of whether I am a prodigy or not – definitely am – ha ha. One of the maestros (the glass blowing masters) asked Francesca to tell me that he gave his compliments on my first project. All very formal and impressive (and flattering). Francesca said that it was unusual for someone to accomplish something like that on the first day. The same maestro (Roberto) came in this afternoon to see how the second project was going and said I could have Francesca’s job  – much more jokey than this morning. I asked Francesca if he would be teaching me when I do the furnace course the week after next. She got all excited because she hadn’t realised that I was doing the other courses. She rushed off and then came back with one of the other maestros and much discussion was had in rapid Italian and then she told me later that they had decided to change the plans for tomorrow. Because I am doing the other course as well, there is the opportunity for me to do something utilising both techniques. So tomorrow, as well as some of the planned things, I will cut some pieces for a design that I will then roll onto a blown piece to make a vase or similar. Very exciting!

After my glass-time I went to San Marco and visited the Museo Correr which has several parts including the apartments used by the Austrian royals in the post-Napoleonic era. The next part is historical artefacts from Venice’s past (documents, coins, textiles, sculpture, etc. The third part I viewed was actually the Archeological Museum which connects, and has roman, greek, egyptian, etc as well as archeological finds from the Venice area. And the fourth part was the history of Venetian painting. Kicked out from a museum twice in two days, this time at 7pm – over four hours museuming.

I took the vaporetto part way home and got off to wander through Cannaregio (the part of Venice I am staying in) and stopped at a restaurant for an excellent prosciutto with melon, followed by pasta with a beef stew (sort of) and a glass of respectable Pinot Grigio. Totally stuffed full but enjoyed the first proper meal in Italy. I wandered the rest of the way home, which was all of 10 minutes at most, and found the two flights of stairs at the end very heavy going. No doubt I’ll sleep well again tonight.

 

Posted on

Shrouded in Mist

I woke up this morning to find the world shrouded in mist – even more mysterious and I can’t wait to see what it is like travelling out across the lagoon through the mist.

Yesterday was Day 2 of the course and peaceful without the teenagers. I had Francesca to myself which was totally superfluous as a lot of the time I was just working away at my project number 2. However, we started off with Francesca telling me more about the theoretical aspects of glass and fusing. She isn’t fluent in English (but her English is better than my Italian) but with a combination of her English and my Italian and a hefty dose of interpretive dance, the odd reference to my Italian-English dictionary and Google translator, we got on very well.

Having got a better understanding of the task for project two, I re-did my design. I don’t think I explained either project. Project one was using clear glass – essentially window glass. Onto a clear plate, I had to add pieces in my own design, that were cut from another sheet of clear glass. In my design I used a combination of squares and triangles alternating every radial eighth of the plate with curved pieces. I did this to practice the techniques of cutting straight and curved pieces. Once the cutting was completed and all the pieces cleaned with alcohol (to remove the traces of oil from the glass cutter), it has gone into the kiln to be fused, in this case partial fusion where they are in contact.

Project two is using coloured glass – not window glass but Effetre which is the glass made and used for everything in Murano. This project will be a total fusion so I have to have the pieces covering the whole surface of the base plate. It is 34 cm square and in a second process will be thermoformed to a shallow bowl. Consequently I decided to use the colours of our kitchen so it can be used as a fruit bowl or similar. My design (version 2) began with squares which across the bowl gradually morphed into curved edges. I soon realised that the curves were too hard to do and match and revised the design again (version 3) to make straight edges. I am a little over 4/5 of the way through cutting it but with the trickiest part to go. It is very satisfying and enjoyable with an element of jigsaw and patchwork. Several of the other staff members wandered over during the day and made ooh and aah comments about the precision of my cutting etc. I’m not entirely sure what to make of that yet, whether they are just being polite or whether I am a prodigy 😉 I am guessing that maybe I have pick up the techniques faster than some (going on what the students were doing yesterday), but experience with a variety of other tools for craft has probably helped in some way.

After my five hours were done I was quite tired – concentrating constantly, so I went for a walk around the island and sat near an old church – St Mary of the Angels – which is not open and looked quite sad needing renovation. I gathered my thoughts and worked out both where I was and where I wanted to go and headed off to the Museum of Glass. I spent the rest of the day there, reading everything on every info sign and plaque and gazing at all the different developments and types of glass. Wow. I could have stayed there for hours – oh wait, I did! Eventually at 6pm they chucked me out and I went back to the vaporetto stop for a leisurely trip home, crashing with a banana and some crackers for dinner. Tonight I am promising myself a proper dinner out.

Posted on

First glass class

I was so excited this morning that I was up and on my way an hour before I needed to be – sooooo not like me! But it was deliciously cool riding out across the water to Murano and quiet too, well before the tourists were about. My choice of lodgings was vindicated again, as it took me only 15 minutes to get to Murano – my closest vaporetto stop is the second last one on the main island before it heads out to Murano. When I got there, I walked about a bit and then sat and waited patiently for nine oclock to come around.

The course I am doing this week is glass fusing. My teacher is Francesca and, to my surprise, I am the only student. I am surprised because they wouldn’t confirm my booking for ages until they had enough students to run the course. Not that I mind. What I also didn’t realise is the place where I am learning – called Abate Zanetti School of Glass – is also a High School specialising in Communication and Design and with an obvious emphasis on glass as a medium. They are only in their second year of operation, so have only first and second year students. Anyway, I got to meet most of the first years as they were having a class with the teacher looking after me. There were only nine students in each of the two classes and it was all very hands on so it worked out well.

I learned all about cutting glass in straight lines and in curves and completed my first project which was a design in clear glass of cut pieces of glass placed onto a clear base which will be fired and fused together. I should have taken a photo, but will do so tomorrow. I have also started on the design for my second piece which will be in colour. It was lots of fun, not difficult, but learning and practising the techniques. The five hours absolutely flew by.

When I left, I was determined to sort out my power adaptor-less state and easily managed this at a newsagent at the train station. Then I took the advice of my teacher, Francesca, and went to the island of San Georgio Maggiore. I spent some time there in the Church of San Georgio Maggiore which has some spectacular paintings and a bell tower which affords excellent 360 degree views.

Also on this little island is a centre for exhibitions of glass, in particular the history of glass-making in Venice. At the moment, the exhibition is the work of Vittorio Zecchin who was one of the people responsible for the revivial of Venetian glass in the 1920s.  It was really interesting and very beautiful. I suppressed my desire to buy the catalogue of the exhibition which, although only 39 euro, would have weighed several kilos and taken up a good deal of space in the suitcase.

After the exhibition, I had a coffee (note to self that Cafe Freddo, which I knew translated to cold coffee, does not mean iced coffee in the Australian sense, but black coffee with ice cubes – I drank it but wont be ordering it again) and then waited for the sun to set. I had read that  San Georgio Maggiore was one of the places to view the sunset in Venice.  I wasn’t disappointed and for once the camera seemed to capture even more colour than the naked eye. I stayed there until dark and then rode the vaporetto, reaching home at about 8.15pm.

 

 

Posted on

Today I fell in love

I knew I was going to love Venice, but nothing prepared me for falling this deeply in love, this fast. I’ll write about that some more in a minute, but first things first.

I arrived yesterday in the late afternoon and took the ferry from the airport to the main island of Venice, the stop quite close to my accommodation. I pulled my suitcase along the cobblestones, already amazed by the strangeness of a car-less city. I found my AirBnB without any drama, met the host (Giusy) and her little boy, and lugged the suitcase up the two flights of stairs to the top floor where there are four rooms, each with their own bathroom and sharing a “breakfast” room. My room is small but charming, designed for just one person but with everything I need including a comfortable bed, something between a single and a double in size. The room also has a bar fridge so I can keep a few food items there The bathroom is pint-sized but has a shower, toilet and basin.

Giusy had pointed out the location of a small supermarket, so after a shower, I went out and bought a few supplies. Back at the room, I unpacked and sorted a few things out before falling asleep, fairly wrecked after 24 hours in transit.

I woke this morning gradually, listening to the new sounds: water lapping on the edges of the canal, bells marking the hour and the half hour, the engines of the boats on the canal (not all hand-rowed gondolas, alas), a few seagulls squarking. Once I finally got up, I had a cup of tea and dressed and headed out for the day.

I decided that today there would be no museums or churches, no photos and no agenda except to find a bank to procure some Euros, buy a ticket for the vaporetto (water bus) and soak in my first feel of Venice. Although I didn’t take photos, I did make some notes during the day.

My first word as I wandered through the streets vaguely heading for Piazzo San Marco, was “intoxicating”. I felt a heady sense of history and mystery and the peace of the lanes between the buildings. Their direction and  arrangement seems entirely arbitrary and you pop out onto a canal or over a bridge, find yourself at a dead end or turn a corner, drifting where the streets takes you. I love the old, irregular bricks and the iron barricades at every ground floor window which don’t seem forbidding, but instead hint at another mystery kept secret. The windows of the upper floors mostly sport window boxes draped with succulents or Mandevillia or ivy.

This sense of intoxication, while not lost altogether, did abate as I gradually encountered more and more tourists as I came closer to Piazzo San Marco and the Rialto. Now my overwhelming feeling was that I didn’t want to be one of them – hard to pretend that I wasn’t a tourist but I wished I wasn’t as I can understand how the locals must hate the hordes. When I finally reached Piazzo San Marco, I walked the length of the square dodging selfie sticks yet finding it impossible to avoid being in someone’s photo and in that space was asked by two separate people to take photos of them. After utilising an ATM, I retired to a restaurant a bit away from the square along the water for a coffee and a sit down.

My next move was to purchase my vaporetto ticket. Because I wanted to minimise the cost by buying a monthly pass, I needed to buy a card which is only available at a few places, one of these being the Rialto vaporetto stop. Consequently, I braved the crowds again to walk through to Rialto and negotiated the card and the monthly pass (this totalled E87 instead of E7 per day so quite a big saving). Then it was onto the vaporetto – I rode the Grand Canal, out to the Lido, on to Burano then back to the main island via Torcello and Murano and finally a circumference of the main island. It was a beautiful afternoon and a perfect way to get an overview and some context.

A few more snippets from my notebook:

  • Stairs leading down into the water, covered with seaweed, red and green like strips of satin floating in the water.
  • Towers and cupolas on the skyline (no skyscrapers in sight), not all the towers holding a perpendicular line.
  • Light reflecting on the black hulls of the gondolas as they buck against their moorings in the wash created by the passing traffic.
  • Seven cruise ships – eight floors of passengers on each -towering over the buildings of Venice and seeming totally out of place/out of time.
  • Doors or grills ending below the waterline – the canal enters the  building
  • On the outer islands, buildings fallen into disrepair/disuse – I feel the urge to jump out and fix them, bring them back to life and love.
  • Pylons and walls show the impact of the water as it gradually works to take everything back into the sea – it must be a constant work of repair and rebuild.

So, I’m back in my room with some prosciuto and cheese and crackers for dinner and another early night planned before I begin in Murano tomorrow. I have soaked in Venice today and I feel like I never want to leave.

Posted on

Downloading

This blog is my way of downloading from my head notes about what I am doing and why, how things turn out and what is inspiring me. If someone else finds it interesting, that’s great: if no one else ever reads it, that’s fine too. At this point, at least, my main intention is to write for myself.

Yesterday I worked on a new project implementing some of the metalwork techniques I have been learning in the online Craftsy classes. In particular, the foldforming and heat riveting techniques. I made a small flower from brass, copper and silver. Despite a burned finger (note to self that drilling metal makes it hot – try doing it in water like I do for glass etc), I am pretty happy with the results. The piece is languishing in the pickle at the moment and I will hopefully antique and polish it next weekend.