SICILIA


We came back from our 10 day tour of Sicily Sunday night. It was a 10 hours bus ride from Rome to Calabria, the tip of the boot. That night we stayed in a hotel and caught a ferry the next day to Messina, Sicily. We stayed in towns Siracusa (Ortigia), Selinunte, Trapani, Palermo, and Naples.

ORTIGIA

 You can see Mount Etna steaming more than usual in the distance.

My favorite place in Ortigia. There were these monstrous magnolia trees and I swung on the roots that were growing downwards. 

We were invited to the home of Jim Fowle, the former EHP coordinator. He had these 2 balconies where we all ate pizza and chilled for a couple hours. The house and views were incredible. 

We made friends with two little boys named Matteo and Leonnardo. They kept riding their scooters past us tying to see what we were drawing. We then offered to do portraits of them. We gave them the drawings.

In front of some Greek amphitheater...

 "Oreccho di Dionesi"

This was a cave carved in 6th century BC until 3rd century BC. It took 12 generations to build.

It was an acoustic chamber, and so unbelievably tall. It is an artificial limestone cave.

SELINUNTE

 Here we also had the fanciest hotel because this place is in the middle of nowhere and the only people here are fisherman.

The Acropolis, 6th-5th century BC. Temple built by the Greeks.

GIBELLINA AND POGGIOREALE, 7 March

Gibellina was a town destroyed in the 1968 earthquake. A memorial was erected by the designer Alberto Burri, entitled, "Cretti." What was amazing is that the ruined town was essentially paved over with concrete, like a cemetery for the ruined buildings. It is also at eye level, so you can see over all the city blocks. Everything is to scale of the old town. I thought it was very strong conceptually. The people of the town decided to erect "New Gibellina" about 20 kilometers away. We took the bus into New Gibellina and we were all dumbfounded because there were no people or places to buy food. It was essentially a ghost town. Apparently the people who moved there after the earthquake did not like the new town. The architecture was extremely modern, and so much different than the Old Gibellina. It is understandable why all those people moved out. Meant to be a thriving artist town, it was fatally built  in the middle of nowhere.

Gibellina Memorial

Drawing on the Gibellina memorial.

Poggioreale

Poggioreale: A surprisingly intact staircase in a rotting building which some people actually dared to climb.

A horse or cow skeleton.

PALERMO: 9 March

I really enjoyed the puppet museum (Antonio Pasqualino Museo, Internazionale Delle Marionette). So much so, that it has inspired me to make a puppet of my own. It was really one of my favorite things we did all week. I sat in the museum for a couple hours drawing the puppets. I would like to construct a puppet of my own out of found materials.

Some of my puppet friends. After the museum we got to go to a puppet show at the "Opera dei Pupi." The show was called "The Great Duel Between Orlando and Rinaldo for the Beautiful Angelica's Love." None of it made any sense to us whatsoever, because the plot was nonsensical, and it was also in Italian. The most impressive part to me was that they made the puppets that they used in the show, which were absolutely gorgeous wooden and metal plated soldiers. They manhandled these things on stage however, slamming them against each other and into the walls during battle scenes. The best part was when the puppet got it's head chopped off. It was made with hinges so it kind of just popped open. Other puppets got their torsos split open. The sets were also hand painted, and Nino Cuticchio's (director) son played the piano di cilindro. The men who held the puppets also used their voices for the puppets and background noise. The piano was so appropriate for the puppets. I loved how authentic the experience was. The only real technology was the lighting. 

Puppets from Mali, circa 1950

Puppets by Anthony Burgess 1990

1935 puppet from Milano

Cappuccini Crypt.
I went to the crypts to draw well preserved mummified corpses dating from the 1700's until the 1920's. The craziest part of the crypt was a little girl named Rosalia Lombardo, who died in 1920. She was injected with a substance and is literally so well preserved she appears to be sleeping. I have many more drawings but here is one... 

I also spent the week sketching the beautiful mosaics in churches.

This was our beautiful room in Hotel del Centro, Palermo.

Cattedrale di Monreale cloister (12th century). 

This cathedral is known for its lavish mosaics. I was very overwhelmed with the intricacy of the designs all over the floors, columns, and walls. It was magnificent. 

NAPLES

Cheese...

The Raffaele Rubattino

We took an overnight ferry from Palermo to Naples, which allowed us to cut down the 10 hour bus ride. The boat was very nice, complete with an arcade, movie theater, library, restaurant, etc. Since we are hip art students, we just sat in the library on our own time and critiqued sketchbooks. The seas were quite rough, but it felt like the boat was rocking me peacefully to sleep. 

When I arrived in Naples, I had a croissant at this lit-up cafe. 

Silly picture of our group outside of the Archeological Museum. Last time I was in Naples, I went here, and really enjoyed it. Our coordinators gave us tickets to a modern museum this time called Museo Arte Donna Regina, which in my opinion was only "ok". It was all fine though, because I had the best pizza of my life beforehand at a restaurant called Pizzeria Decumani. 3 euro for a personal margarita pizza, and I ate the whole thing, finishing first. It is true that Naples pizza is the best. We also saw "The Veiled Christ" statue by Joseph San Martino, and "Disengano" by Francesco Queirolo, both of which I found very beautiful. Then we drove the 2.5 hours back to Rome!