Saltworkstudio Florence: Anti-heroic notes

Image | October 20, 2022October 20, 2022 | Suzanne Edminster at Saltworkstudio

First there’s art, love, passion, death— and then there’s gelato.

God is in the details. Surrounded by so many enormous, monumental works of religion, art, culture, and architecture, I want to take time to dwell on the small and particular in my days.

These are not gelato covers, yet a certain theme emerges.

I decided that I would eat my main meal midday, and that I would only eat in places I felt comfortable. Because I’m traveling by myself, the comfort level of the cafes were paramount. Did they smile? I also settled on never eating at a place that didn’t offer a changing daily menu written on a chalkboard, with no actual menus. This means the food is generally always fresh, depending on what the market offered in the morning. It also means I don’t have to deal with much choice: one to four pastas and one to three changing main dishes. This is how the Florentines tend to eat, and they eat early, from around 12:30 on. If you don’t order the pasta, you can get a main plate, generally meat and veggies or all veggies, a classic protein/vegetable dish. A good lunch cafe will run out of the most desirable “secondi piatti” and scratch it off the board, so I’ve learned to go early. My main cafe refuses to speak English at all to me, to help me learn Italian.

Seafood salad with tender calamari and tiny octopus, on a rickety table on the piazza.

A slice of roast celeriac root covered with pecorino, fried sage leaves, and a carrot ginger compote. I started eating it before I remember to photograph it, a good sign. This is from my favorite cafe.

I walk everywhere, so I can’t speak to public transportation. I wear walking boots, over the ankle, all day. They have saved me many times on the uneven, ancient cobblestones and in the needed traffic dodges. Florence is now fairly traffic free in the middle, but you still need to be on your toes walking down ancient alleys.

Size of wine glass versus size of water glass. Priorities.

I avoided tourist places and found three cafes that I liked. In the evenings, I cook at home in the apartment and read, write or sketch, after a walk in the silky Florentine early evening. So I have not done a food tour. I buy premade cooked veggies and food at the supermarket and heat them up on my little induction stove surface in the apartment. The food cooks but the pan doesn’t get hot. Strange!

A home meal: salad, chicken and cooked vegetables, all premade from the supermarket deli.

Dealing with daily life while not knowing the language let you know that you are a little bit stupid all the time. You’re the outsider. It’s humbling. I think that’s why the classic pilgrimage was to a foreign land through unknown places, languages and customs. The humility, or humiliation in some cases, leads you to pray a lot.

Abstraction from ancient stones underfoot, near a fountain so it is foot and water-worn

Learning how to do daily life in a strange land leads you into places you normally don’t see. The apartment dwellers take out their own trash and recycling to well-organized, labeled city bins, often blocks away. Apparently you can sometimes leave out neat bags of paper recycling to be picked up, but I have never seen trash left outside on the sidewalk. One night after a football rally in Santa Croce square, where hundreds of people were drinking outside, I saw bottles and cans left on benches, gone by the next morning. Trash doesn’t automatically disappear here. You have to walk it out and dispose of it. Then you wash the sidewalk in front of your apartment. Thousands of years of tiny acts keep it all clean. It’s different.

Cigarette butts in salt. I bet it kills the odor. You can still walk outside through walls of smoke. In Sonoma I only encounter walls of another kind of smoke

Florence makes things. It hand sews leather and makes book bindings. It still gilds things and makes silk, then fabric, then handmade dresses from the fabric. It’s a busy place with a frenetic energy, probably the least relaxed place in Italy I’ve ever been. It’s been cosmopolitan for 800 years and it shows. I look in shop windows and people are sewing, gilding, cutting, printmaking. It’s all still happening. The hands of Florence are always moving, often making something beautiful or decorative. Or delicious.

Saltworkstudio Florence: I go to some art museums

Image | October 17, 2022October 17, 2022 | Suzanne Edminster at Saltworkstudio

Venus picks lice out of Cupid’s hair— Pitti Palace

Florence forbids selfie sticks in museums. I don’t own one anyway, but I am starting a self portrait series all in reflections: mirrors, glass, windows, shelves. Viewing centuries of portraits, I want to make a few of my own. Because of this cruel restriction on self-documentation, some enterprising soul has started a Selfie Museum, where all you do is take selfies.

Mirror portrait, with mirror flaw on nose. Pitti Palace

My head is in a spinning vortex of art. I am thinking all the time as I view, and it really makes me dizzy. My next blog post will have some of my ideas as an artist on all the art I’m seeing, and some thoughts on ancient art, the Renaissance, and Italian modernism, but for now I ‘m just sticking my toe in the water. I have now been to the Uffizi, Pitti Palace, the Novocento Museum of Modern Art, the Archeological Museum. I’m falling behind on my churches.

I found I really like the Pitti Palace, and the Uffizi. The Uffizi is completely beautiful in its gallery rooms, clean and modern, with 19th century corridors that access the modern rooms. I’ll get serious about the art later. In the Pitti Palace, it’s the old ways. The pile up of paintings creates a deep scrapbook or collage effect. The paintings talk to each other. Often it just gives you visual indigestion, but really, paintings love to be with other paintings. Painting loves sculpture and vice versa. From the Uffizi corridor, or connecting hallway, I viewed sculpture with paintings hanging above, and these irreverent, collage-type thoughts entered my head.

Speaking of pool boys, this city is chock full of naked guy sculptures. I was going to head up a blog post with that, but thought I might get censored. My friend Kalia said that she sort of got “Virgin toxic overload” in Florence. I am experiencing Naked Guys overload. I haven’t even been to see the famous David. I figure 25 smaller naked guys might equal one David. I thought of doing a series called “Florence as Seen Through the legs of Naked Guys,” but soon abandoned it because it was too easy. I did get a few photos, though.

The Uffizi is like an art book came to life. As an artist, you enter a wonderland— down the rabbit hole. I am going three times, so I’ll focus on it later. I got there really early in the morning, for the 8:15 AM opening; you need reservations and advance tickets. I managed to sprint ahead to a few rooms for near-solo time with the Botticellis. The sun rises past 7:30 here so here’s what you see at dawn outside the Uffizi.

3-D Leonardo contemplates renovation work and a 2-D Giotto. There’s an art pun in there

For now, I offer you a candy box of paintings from the Uffizi. See any old favorites? Don’t eat too many. I am making light of this because I feel dizzy all the time, close to laughing or crying. It’s my messed up sleep schedule combined with art flooding and the uncertainty of travel. It’s like I have to be two or three people because I’m alone, if that makes any sense. What a garden of delights. Florence is a treasure house, guarded by the curled and sleeping dragon of jet lag, and the weight of centuries of genius. I’m trying to snatch a coin or jewel from the lair.

I took these photos in front of the real paintings.

Stumbling into Florence

Image | October 16, 2022October 16, 2022 | Suzanne Edminster at Saltworkstudio

I have arrived. Travel is related to art; both involve living on the edge of cliffs. The more you don’t know, the more exciting it is, for better or worse. Lurching into Amerigo Vespucci airport after 3 flights, I felt that molasses-like buzz of jet lag, exhaustion, and stress sweat. It was 16 hours of wearing a mask on Iberia air, which still requires masking in the plane, and my nose and throat were sore from rebreathing my mask air. It was night and there was a long line for taxis outside. I was having credit card problems that concerned me— would I be able to get cash? (More on this later.) And I was traveling alone, so no one was there to share the decision-making burden.

It all started to go right for me when I decided to take the T2 tram into the center instead of depending on the taxi to deliver me to the door. I had small luggage and was mobile, so I could walk to my place from the end of the tram line. Feeling lost, I did a travel trick and picked out an appealing stranger to follow. He was a chubby, friendly man carrying a musical instrument and he was heading toward the tram. He helped me buy a ticket— turns out he was English and I had no idea. He laughed when I told him I followed him. I was able to give him some advice as well. These “angels” are everywhere, but it involves giving up control, using your intuition, and asking for help.

Immediately, I was in lovely laughing Italy. The door closed and the car filled with people talking, singing, shouting, living. I was out of the commercial tunnel of air travel at last. At the end of the line I walked out with my little rolling bag and small purse pack into this scene. Sometimes you have to give up control, then a “flow” starts, and you are in the place, not thinking about it or struggling with it. Do you know what I mean?

This psychedelic setting encouraged me— it was like wandering through a dream. Vendors were shooting luminous fairy lights high into the air and they drifted down the sides of the green and white fantasy cathedral like wired angels. I arrived at my studio apartment, my little refuge for my time here.

Truly a home: books, magazine, a well stocked kitchen

My guardian spirit for this trip is Dante. He is everywhere in Florence, so that’s nice for me, because I want to be everywhere in Florence. I am collecting Dante images. The church of Santa Croce, where the young lovers in E.M. Forster’s “Room with a View” met, is steps away, along with Dante and Very Big Kitties. It was just a brand new suburban development when Dante was in town.

Your Random Art of the Day. I won’t attribute, but I saw it. I’ll be sprinkling these through the posts.

The credit card fiasco? I figured it out, but here is your travel tip, Americans… know your credit card 4-digit PIN numbers. No, not your debit card PIN which you use all the time, the ones for your credit cards. No, not your 3-digit secret code which you also use all the time. Scott had to wire me cash with Western Union, which made me feel like I was a teenage backpacker. Even then, I never had money wired to me! The credit cards are fine now, but for the first time in years I am walking around with strange cash in my wallet. On the travel edge, again. It’s beautiful to have cash. The Euro is now the same as the dollar. This lunch “menu of the day” , written on a blackboard in a neighborhood bar, cost me 16.5 Euro/bucks total: salmon, fennel, glass of white wine, bread, espresso and small dessert. 1 Euro tip. Paradise, with some sword-and-cliff edges to get there.

The bread, post-Covid, now comes in little paper bags for less hand-touching.

Gnocchi with crayfish (see the claw crawling out) at a local student cafe, 7 Euros. Dante notebook open behind.

If you want to read more travel writing, and more of the Over Underworld sketch/myth series, simply scroll down, and feel free to comment here, right on the blog, or in all the social media things. It’s nice to know that people are reading!

Over Underworld 4: Dante Begins

Image | March 23, 2020March 23, 2020 | Suzanne Edminster at Saltworkstudio

This is the fourth Over Underworld release, a online art exhibit of paintings and sketches in March 2020. Featured art: Pages from my Dante’s Inferno sketchbook, Cantos 1 and 2.

Since Italy has its first national Dante holiday this year on March 25, I’m releasing Dante sketches instead of paintings for the next few posts. May celebrating his poetry help Italy heal .

We are Dante. The poem opens to a scene of attack and menace. The lion is ambition to rule, the despot. The leopard is worldly luxury and lust, hedonism, consumerism. The wolf of avarice, of greed, is always hungry. After she eats, after feeding, she is hungrier than before, literally insatiable. Dante is lost in the woods, and all is lost.

I choose to see Dante as a guide through Underworlds, the times when we are trapped, in despair, lost, yet we know we are somehow on a journey, a lonely road. We need our guides. Virgil is Wisdom, who guides us through the “arduous and savage”way.

Virgil wrote the Aneied, another epic poem that contains an Underworld journey.

He also calls on his beloved Beatrice, who has died and gone to heaven. She appears with her girlfriends: Rachel, who symbolizes contemplation, and Lucia, who is clear vision, eyesight, and light. They indicate their approval of his journey, and then we don’t see them again for a long time. They are all making a brief visit from heaven. Hell is not their style.

So gather your friends: Wisdom from the past, Light, Meditation, Divine Love. Dante needed his beloveds to help him continually trust that he would have guidance during his pilgrimage . I noted that “Hell is forgetting that there is a paradise.” Keep to your dream-path. It’s actually a Divine Comedy, even if we walk through Tragedy along the Way. Suzanne

Featured work: Pages from my Dante’s Inferno illustrated notes. Not for sale.You may share this freely.

Events in 2020

March 25, Wednesday, is Dante Day in Italy, a new annual national holiday to honor Dante. I will be storytelling from my Dante sketchbook at Saltworkstudio via Facebook Live. See event for more details. FB live times: 10 AM, 1PM and 5 PM.

March-April 2020: Over Underworld: New Work, a virtual art exhibit of paintings and sketches released on Saltworkstudio, Facebook, and Instagram. #dantedi #dantesketchbook #overunderworld #saltworkstudio #divinacommedia

The Greek Gods and Polychromy: The Gods Weren’t White

Video | March 22, 2018March 22, 2018 | Suzanne Edminster at Saltworkstudio

The Greek Gods weren’t white! We just think they were. “The Gods in Color: Polychromy in the Ancient World,” recently at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, was a revelation. Using minute traces of residual colors, historical material from past centuries that documented colored temples and statues, and all the resources of modern science, we now can be sure that temples of the gods in ancient Greece may have resembled a set on Black Panther more than a mausoleum.

“Chromophobia” is the fear of color. It may be wrong to apply it to a to a whole society, rather than an individual, but I think that we live in an era of mass chromophobia. Modernism in architecture and decor focuses on neutrals, greys, browns, black and white- with maybe a daring splash of green from a succulent. But from the earliest times, back to the time of Neanderthal woman, we have sought and ground pigments to produce beautiful, durable colors.

Seeing this exhibit reminded me of the gorgeous color in ancient Roman murals I saw when I was in Pompeii, and other examples preserved in the Naples Archaeological Museum. I notice that the stone pigments have a chalky quality with a kind of depth found in modern pastels today. Yummy!

Girl with Horns, Naples Museum — Rich blues, greens and golds

Naples Pompeii Villa — The famous Pompeii Red. How’s that for dining room decor in your vacation villa?

Naples Archeological Museum Pigment — These ancient Roman pigment sources from the museum in Naples look yummy enough to serve at a decadent banquet.

Look at those pinkish stones! Pink was a popular color in ancient times.

Gods in color pink goddess — A beautiful pink dress.

I speculate that it was hard to get a sort of true blue-red: Red ocher tends toward sienna/orange/ brown, and any red mixed with a white opaque binder would turn pink. “Rhodophobia” is the fear of pink; someone with this affliction would have had a hard time in ancient Greece, because pink tones were everywhere.

A few hundred years ago it was still possible to see traces of color on Greek temples. Pre-photography, you could go out with your watercolorist and his camera obscura and paint from life. There were still traces of temple color documented in the watercolors of Greek landscapes and monuments by the English antiquarian Edward Dodwell and the Italian artist Simone Pomardi.

Gods in color temple.JPG — Greek temple with some color still visible in 1805.

The complex friezes of the ancient world take on a vivid, comic book quality in color.

Gods in color frieze — What we see now vs. the original

Kore 2018 — I want this redhead on my side!

The ancients used all the color available to them. We should too.

Upcoming at Saltworkstudio: “Paleomythic”

I’m pleased to be a co-curator for PaleoMythic, a show opening on May 4, 2018, in Backstreet Gallery. I have long loved ancient art and found inspiration in it. I have joined forces with master printmaker Caren Catterall and three other fine artists to explore our creation of modern myths from ancient sources. I feel like I’ve been waiting ages to do this show… 65,000 years or so! I hope that images recalling the sacred darkness of the cave can dispel some of the darkness rising in our collective souls.

Six Phases of Creativity

April 16, 2012January 11, 2013 | Suzanne Edminster at Saltworkstudio

Original Abstract Acrylic Starts, Greek Series, by Suzanne Edminster, Saltworkstudio — Worktable with 3 “Drafts” for Larger Paintings, Saltworkstudio

Where am I now? What’s next?

I’ve been incubating this Dionysian series for a while. I have three 2 foot by 4 foot canvases waiting for paint to develop these themes, colors, and forms. The starts shown above are meant to act as “thumbnails’ for the next phase of larger paintings on canvas.

I have the best luck with my finished pieces when I am purposely experimental, uncontrolled, and unfinished in my draft paintings. I’m groping in my own darkness when I paint. I don’t want the whole process to happen even before I hit the canvas. I don’t want to pre-paint it in my head, my notebook, or anywhere else.

I found a useful new metaphor for thinking about any creative project, whether it’s painting or cleaning out the junk room. These ideas are from The Path of the Everyday Hero, a book about mythic themes played out in life. The six phases of creativity are preparation, frustration, incubation, strategizing, illumination, and verification (or manifestation).

Dignified, precise language allows us to reframe creative pauses or lapses. It’s interesting that frustration comes immediately after preparation, right at the start. Frustration is the failure stage, the belly of the whale, the so-called “block”. What now?

My friend Karina Nishi Marcus is very clear on the idea that “block” should be eliminated from the artist’s vocabulary. She says creativity is more related to nature metaphors, like “low tide” for the ocean, or “fallow” for the land. It is a necessary part of the creative process.

Original Abstract Acrylic Starts, Greek Series, by Suzanne Edminster, Saltworkstudio (2) — “Noble Bull”, acrylic combined media, Suzanne Edminster

Frustration stops us from action, and makes us incubate our ideas, like an egg. It’s on the back burner, in the nest, warming, passive on the surface but active underneath, mysterious, the seed under the ground. To incubate properly we also need to strategize, to try things that might nourish or warm the invisible idea. Some might work, some not. But the passive time is needed, yin to the yang of action. Paintings can stay successfully in this stage for a long time, even years.

Original Abstract Acrylic Starts, Greek Series, by Suzanne Edminster, Saltworkstudio (3) — “The Great Ones”, acrylic combined media, Suzanne Edminster

The painter or artist may have to go back and forth in the frustration–incubation–strategy realm for a while, then illumination, the “aha moment” strikes, and elevates the venture to a different level, perhaps to completion. The creative round, like the phases of the moon, will start again with a new idea.

Original Abstract Acrylic Starts, Greek Series, by Suzanne Edminster, Saltworkstudio (4) — “We Have Purposely Kept It”, acrylic combined media, Suzanne Edminster

These paintings are not done, but after some months of incubating, I am strategizing. The notebook helps keep me on track. When you find your way through an art dilemna, the solution often seems absurdly simple. Still, it took time to get there. The cycle may play out in one painting, or in series spanning decades.

The Dionysian metaphor is one of unbounded spring growth and ceremonial theatre, among other things. Perhaps I should drink a glass of wine to Dionysios, and return to the paintings. A flash of lightning, a sprouting vine, or a Greek chorus might illumine the way to the next act of painting.

Mythic notes: The Dionysian mystery cults tried to loosen the bonds between the worlds through sacred intoxication, theatre, dance and ritual. The Pompeii Murals, with their glowing Pompeii red, were thought to have depicted aspects of this.

03-05-03/42 — Pompeii Murals, probably showing Dionysian cult ritual

Pompeii Winter Day with Toy Cameras

February 10, 2012February 12, 2012 | Suzanne Edminster at Saltworkstudio

Pompeii, December. We stepped off the train from Naples into the first rain of the season, Vesuvius wreathed in fog. The ancient wagon ruts filled with water, but we could still use the stepping stones in place for two thousand years. It’s a large city, a grid of named streets, fast food counters, offices, fountains, floors, stores, a harbor, rich and poor homes, bread ovens, baths. Interrupted business is everywhere evident… those businesslike Romans! Wild dogs slept sadly on the cold stones. We bargained for a 10-euro umbrella for two. The rain worked to our advantage; we had a lot of the site to ourselves. It was a day for ghosts and images brought in on rainclouds and reflected in puddles. Pompeii!

Myth Notes: Pompeii is a web of Greco-Roman mythology, with a dash of Isis from newly-conquered Egypt. It was wine country (Dionysius/Baccus/Silenus) and was on the coast (Posiedon/Neptune). I think the Romans would have been appalled at how we got so much information on Roman culture from Pompeii; it was a hick commercial village far from the centers of power in Herculaneum and Rome.

Studio notes: I’ve done Holga, Lomo, and pinhole toy photography for many years. We chose to take the Lomo Fisheye and Lomo Sprocket Rocket with us, as they used 35mm film rather than the more awkward– but more fun– 120 mm film. At airports now , many security guys have never even seen film. I hand-carried it in a ziploc bag without film containers. It always caused consternation and dismay in the security lines. What the heck is film?

Happy Couples and Girls with Horns: Archaic Art Friends from Rome and Naples

January 15, 2012February 2, 2013 | Suzanne Edminster at Saltworkstudio

This is my image of true love: looking into the light of eternity, together.

The Etruscan “Happy Couple in the Villa Giula museum in Rome used to be painted and draped with fabric. They had wine glasses and perfume bottles in hand and were reclining and eating at the same time– wonderful. She had her earrings and jewelry on originally too. This is the most famous of the tomb sculptures and is still incredibly moving for its feeling of affection and love. Not to mention the great “dos”, his and hers.

Then, the Romans invaded, and everyone started thinking about money, real estate, commerce. Look at the new portrait of the married couple, Roman-style! Brood, worry, and scheme… not much trust there. And no more damn reclining in married portraits.

When not buying something or conquering someone, in their spare time the Romans loved their soft and ahem, harder , images of sex. This is a sweet one from the Secret Cabinet of Pompeii, a collection of erotic/ironic art in the Naples Archeological Museum. We did get in, though the guidebooks report this is often dicey. It was deserted. I think there’s a basic misunderstanding about what was erotic and what was common during the height of the Roman Empire. Phallic-shaped signposts, lucky charms, and house decoration: common and boring. Wall-painting series of “menus” showing different sexual activities you could choose in the brothels, especially if you’re illiterate: interesting, erotic, naughty, not boring. She’s light and he’s dark, showing the power of the guy, or something; this painting convention continued through the Renaissance and later in erotic scenarios. It’s Pan and his goat, but she seems happy.

Girls with Horns! What can I say? You can check my Mythic notes at the bottom for more ideas. Here’s an Egyptian version of girls with horns. They seem to have water buffalo horns, an image seen still in Naples because of their wonderful water-buffalo mozzarella cheese. You buy it from the deli, little balls swimming in a salty sea, and carry it home in a tied plastic bag like goldfish from the fair. Mozarrella alone is a “secondi piatti”– main dish– in Naples. It’s grilled a bit, served with bread, and that’s it.

And now some Pompeiian paintings of girls with horns. The “encaustic” they used included wax, but the paint actually used soap (lye-based) as the “caustic” medium binding the pigment to bond with the walls. These are not frescoes– the plaster was dry. These are wet, slippery paint layers. They then used the hot wax to seal the walls as a varnish on top, which they could buff to a high shine. The first girl definitely has horns; the second may be more of a crescent moon, perhaps Diana.

Horns or crescent moon? What say you?

For the last happy couple, Scott and I, the morning after our arrival back, at the IHOP at 6AM. We are not reclining and eating, like the Etruscan couple, but you see a soft upholstered booth, coffee, empty plates and cups, books, and happiness. Good enough.

Mythic notes: I saw a lot of images of Europa on the Zeus-Bull. She was taken to swim on Zeus-Bull’s back through the Straits of Bosphorus– Bosphorus means ox-crossing– dividing Europe from Asia/Turkey–in other words, the Straits of Istanbul. Europa and Io merge women with bull or cow, and then put them in water– a river or sea. They might be a holdover from a more ancient cow -goddess, or metaphors for mass migrations and settlement of cattle people, but I just thought that the girls with horns were cool. The Romans idealized the Nile as a source of fertility; Roman matrons would buy vials of Nile water at the local Isis-temple and douse themselves with it to increase conception.

Book notes: The Social Animal by David Brooks was a great buy. It’s trending sociological research, carried by his made-up, somewhat borg-like characters named Harold and Erica. The characters provide a framework for reporting findings from everywhere. Intriguing. Many are saying that the creative/artistic mind is the big money earner in our new world. Well, let’s hope. He lets Erica do art after she retires, and there are a few pages on the latest social research on music, painting, and other arts. Recommended for a rousing non-fiction read and a juicy idea source.

Studio Notes: I’ve done large paintings of both Europa and Io as abstractions.

My Marble Buddies: Hanging with Sculpture in Rome and Naples

January 14, 2012February 12, 2012 | Suzanne Edminster at Saltworkstudio

Three weeks in Italy! I felt like I was dipping my toe into a river of souls. It was a time of borderlines and thresholds: old year to new, marble to flesh, ancient streets filled with modern people, and classical beauty in the faces of people arguing, eating, buying stuff, driving Smartcars. The ancients seemed to live, and the Christmas crowds of elegant Italians seemed temporary flickers haunting the alleys. Meet some of my marble buds.

The Capitoline Walls… this guy is great. Is he a David figure? To us he looked like he had 400 years of saying “Hey, Sailor” to his credit. Cocky. Just sayin’…

An achingly blue winter day, and I couldn’t tear myself away from the brilliant negative shapes against the stone. Youth and horse… stunning contained force, and a tremendous face. I like the entire Capitoline hill, and this museum piazza was designed by The Big Mike, Michaelangelo.

Capitoline Hill, sunset from the museum cafe terrace. Murmurations of starlings, kinetic. The whole Hill was formerly a nest of state oracles and seers. They liked the elevation so they could interpret flights of birds. Nowadays the seagulls have invaded. Oddly, they fly at night in the city, shrieks and white forms soaring in the darkness, a bit ghoulish.

Classical sculptures are virtually all knockoffs—copied from ancient Greek sources, now lost— or propaganda for the ruler du jour. Some mighty bodies were made with removable heads so the next Caesar could just screw his own on. The head of Constantine below is 5 feet high, so the whole sculpture, with pedestal and base, might have been 50 to 70 feet or more. Statues of this mass can so easily verge on Facist architechture. But they impress. Think of Lady Liberty!

What has that flawed eye perceived in its time? Think, too, of paint and decoration, fabrics and jewels originally draped around the sculpture. The marble we see now is more a bone structure. Ripped from their original colored and decorated context, they become evocative collage pieces. But some still shine. I felt that it wouldn’t take long to develop a real relationship with them. The more we like them, the more they come alive, like any so-called “object”, I suppose. I’ll miss hanging with them.

Next: Happy Couples and Horned Gals: More Archaic Art Friends from Rome and Naples

This is the fourth Over Underworld release, a online art exhibit of paintings and sketches in March 2020. Featured art: Pages from my Dante’s Inferno sketchbook, Cantos 1 and 2.

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Upcoming at Saltworkstudio: “Paleomythic”