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: Botticelli Days

Image | October 19, 2022October 19, 2022 | Suzanne Edminster at Saltworkstudio

Floating into Florence with Botticelli’s Birth of Venus.

We view original art to have a hidden moment with it, intimacy. Like Venus, patron of art, we want to have a relationship, a love affair, something personal. Botticelli was the high point for me. The chance to see so much of his work in the Uffizi was a revelation. Heresy: I like Botticelli better than Leonardo. Leonardo was a techie; Botticelli was a mystic. I write here my own discoveries from looking at the originals. This is an art geek post, so be forewarned. I don’t know if my revelations are unique, but at least they are mine.

There is movement everywhere in a Botticelli painting, but in the atmosphere. The roses are floating down, her shell boat is literally floating in on the tide, washed in on the foam. Venus was “foam born” and if you look at the veils of wave at the bottom of the shell you can see the shell moving. Botticelli mixed alabaster with tempera to add a light pastel opacity to the painting. The sea, with its little waves, has the color and flatness of maps; he was good friends with the explorer Amerigo Vespucci and the families lived close to each other, so I regard the flat sea as another visual pun. Every part of nature is flowing, waving, alive. This reminds me of the movies of Ridley Scott, who often has snow, ashes or petals drifting down, especially in epic scenes.

I found out that Botticelli had probably been trained as a goldsmith after looking at the gilding used as a painterly element. In Venus, the whole atmosphere is that of dawn, and he using stripes of gold on his orange tree trunks— the oranges in bloom with their sweet blossoms to add a ghost of fragrance to the work—reflects that. He uses arcs of gold on the pebbles of the earth bank on the right, where Venus is about to step off. The shell casts a long dawn shadow.

Look at the gilded hatchings on the orange tree trunks, and the map-like land meeting ocean.

There’s a real joy in nature in the paintings. I loved seeing the nearly invisible wild iris in the corner of the Spring painting. And there are visual jokes: in Venus, the Wind is blowing a spume at her… just like the Annunciations, with their lines connecting the angel and Mary. He’s fecundating her. Microscopically fine veils show lines of energy, light moving in waves, and connect visual elements. The veils are like starlight made tangible. About the gilding… I had not seen it used like this, on simple trunks and little pebbles, anywhere else. I saw it used only for halos and sometimes on fabric ornamentation on the Virgin’s robe. Using the gilding on trees and rocks instead of halos makes nature holy. More encoded visual puns!

The Iris. The cosmic veil touches earth and fertilizes it.

I ended up spending more time with the Allegory of Spring. It’s just such an interesting painting. There never seems to be much that’s formulaic in these works. I was alone for a time with the painting; that might not ever happen again.

The leaves overhead are oranges, and Mercury seems to be poking down an orange to eat with his caduceus. Mercury loves to steal things. It is very human. I think Mercury might be Botticelli. His paintings are witty. They have humor.

This Mercury looks a lot like Botticelli’s self portrait.

I can’t say much about the Renaissance, but it was not about the invention of three-point perspective; that’s technology embodied. It’s in the mixing of cultures and the breaking of worn-out molds that the good stuff happens, the brief blooms, like the sixties. Botticelli broke the musty war-and-religion genres of the time with his loud paganism. It’s easy to think that these smooth faces are inventions, but I saw this museum visitor in the Map Room and I thought, oh, a Botticelli face. You think that this radiance is a painterly trope, but then there was this guy walking by. I snapped a stealth photo.

An angel in the Map Room. See how the maps look like the ocean/land in Venus?

What if Botticelli was your interior designer? This wall painting was moved intact from someone’s house. Interesting to see a Botticelli with earthier colors because the medium was different. I had not seen this one before. I would lay odds that the background in the painting reflected the actual background of the loggia, vineyard, and setting of the patron’s house.

An earth-toned Botticelli fresco, huge, with some strange aspects. He visually joins the bed with the landscape, bringing the outdoors in. Also, a bed in an Annunciation scene?

Mary holds an invisible baby, with a strange green pod form on the right. The book is suspended in mid-air from a chain arrangement; the more things Botticelli could float, the better.

The angel, who looks like Botticelli again, has green tree scratch marks, very abstract, on the hill above his head.

Green squiggles again, behind another self-portrait in a painting.

More green squiggle marks behind him in another Uffizi painting

Movement, bringing real nature into painting, and starlight made visible. And the faces, and the wit. That’s my Botticelli, the one I met in person through the originals. We might need him again as our world turns back into increasing darkness.

Saltworkstudio Florence: Perfume and Pigs

Image | October 19, 2022October 19, 2022 | Suzanne Edminster at Saltworkstudio

The Officina Santa Maria Novella, aka oldest pharmacy in Florence, since 1221, now a world class perfume shop with original scents.

Non perfume-people, you have to read through this this to get to the pig! This place is pure magic. You enter through cascades and garlands of flowers. I am already enchanted, walking in a dream through clouds of scent. It was formerly a 12th century church, so that’s a nice storefront. Inside, women wander with looks of bliss and men with looks of discomfort— except the Italian men. I will generalize here. Italian men are comfortable with animated shopping for fashion, shoes, perfume. They’re well trained; after all, this place has been open 800 years. It was originally a hospital, where the monks gave you cures: rose water against the plague and so on. And then they made the perfume for Catherine of Medici, Queen of France. Through her, perfume was introduced to the French Court in 1533. Yes, Italy invented perfume as we know it! I have a small sample of that perfume. Whooof!

You can see the perfume ranged on the sides

You lift the ceramic funnels to sniff. Elegant

The scents are strong; they are based on the herbs, the monks’ noses, and hygiene needs of the past. It’s a three part process to choose. You sniff the perfumes you like in the funnels, then get them spritzed on cards. If you still like them, you choose one only to have applied to your wrist by a young, beautiful Italian woman. It took me over an hour. Reader, I bought one. They smell very unusual, and the cologne lingers as long as a modern perfume would.

The Museum attatached to the perfume shop

After all this ethereal scented beauty, I decided to visit a famous pig. Pork is big in this city; it’s a meat heavy cuisine. I am not going to try the Florentine beef steak. I am always let down by European steak. Yes, even the French kind. I grew up in Western cattle country. You call that a steak? It’s like me being proud of my pasta. An Italian might have a few things to say. Giant sides of beef and pork hang in windows.

Il Porcellino eats the coins of visitors who rub his snout for luck. Forget all about the art treasures of the Western world. The Boar is where it’s at. Pietro Tacca, 1654, sculpted the original, but no one remembers him; the artifact eclipses the artist. It’s magic, hilarious and a very fine sculpture. I didn’t feed him a coin, but I might before I go. I did rub his golden snout. The place is thronged. People are laughing and screaming with joy. The coin drops from his open mouth either into a little grate (desirable and lucky) or to one side (not as lucky but hey you tried).

The sculpture is excellent and I enjoyed it. It was easy to enjoy the beautiful swampy base filled with snakes, frogs and toads. I have noticed this about painting and sculpture. We only get screwed up when it comes to humans. People have always made naturalistic, gorgeous animals, birds and plants, no matter what the religious and aesthetic dictates of the time. Even the Egyptians made perfectly accurate bird and animal paintings when freed from having to make the pharaoh and his god-court in a certain sideways style. We marvel at Donatello, who, gasp, made the first naked guy statue since the Greeks, un-damming the flood of Naked Guy Statues. But animals have always been pure and vigorous, and joyful.

A lovely toad. The bronze rubbed to a golden sheen is glorious.

Italy Travel Sketchbook “Flow Charts” and Doodles

February 17, 2012February 17, 2012 | Suzanne Edminster at Saltworkstudio

Scott and I kept a 5″ x 8″ travel notebook in Italy. We worked it almost daily as we traveled, finding time in cafes or on benches. But we had the most fun with Travel Flow Charts, illustrating certain common travel situations. The first one concerns travel with a partner.

It’s amazing how the other person becomes reasonable, and sulking silence vanishes. The next two charts are pieces we tried to fit in to a larger diagram, but couldn’t. They’re self explanatory.
I know some of you out there have subsisted on strange food during gaps in travel. Scott sucked on hard barley balls while walking around Annapurna. Crackers, the new hard tack. And now on to address exhaustion:

We didn’t spend all our time making charts.

Here’s an Etruscan boar I drew in the Villa Giulia in Rome. I named him Oinkos.
We did get analytical with this Venn diagram. We wanted to do as many things as possible that we couldn’t do at home, and to appreciate the strange world in front of us, like live eels.
But is it art? Probably not, but is certainly is travel.

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.