How cool is this! My sweetheart has his paintings in the front window of the newly opened De Freo Gallery in Berlin. He’s going there at the end of the week to take some more paintings and do a little publicity. I’ve been so wound up with International Poetry Month (which turns into a full time job for at least the first two weeks of February) that I haven’t stopped to talk about what’s going on with him. Now you know! Below are some pictures of the latest paintings and a sculpture; check it out!
Yesterday morning my sweetheart went downstairs to work on (the last) stone curlicue. He was looking forward to finishing and I was anxious that he do so before the nursery school had the big Holiday program in the piazza so that we could relax and do the family on Sunday thing. Robin and I were busy getting our hair shiny for the event when he came back in the door and peeked into the bathroom and told me, “The stone broke. I’m going to have to wait for the epoxy to set.” He smiled at Robin, “Do you want a surprise?” She’s three and a half… there’s only one possible answer. She struggled to keep her eyes closed as her father dragged this 6′ christmas tree into the bathroom and stood it up. She squealed. I think that the tree is her favorite thing about Christmas. They have one at school and she hugs it good-bye everyday as we head home. Now we have our very own, captive in the livingroom. So, we put it up, got the lights on, were covered in pine needles, and decided (despite the scowling protest of our girl) to put the decorations on over the course of the next few days leading up to Christmas eve so that we save the star for Uncle Frankie’s arrival.
After lunch it was time for the ‘festa’. Robin was doubtful about the idea of going to school on a ‘stay-at-home’ day and all of the promises music by the town band, the distribution of presents, and the fun of being in a parade with the other kids were greeted with the skepticism of a 3 year old who’s favorite pastime is playing games that involve bouncing on top of, over, or in circles around her father. She was, at last, persuaded to be sociable. In the end she had fun, and so did we. It was sweet to stand in the bustle of other parents and watch her come down the street in a sea of small children behind a tractor that was pulling a 4 piece band (trumpet, sax, bass, and drums). She was wearing her little Santa hat and waving a pom-pom made of red and white crepe paper. They all stood on the steps of the church and sang a religious song (the text of which and my feelings about are a whole ‘nother blog entry!) Then they walked around to the big tree set up in the part of the piazza where there are benches and sang a song about Santa’s House followed by Jingle Bells; and then HE came. Babbo Natale in person, red suit and a basket on his back filled with packages; red velvet hood slipping over his eyes and white beard and mustache slipping away from his nose, the cuffs of his quilted hunting coat peeking out as he reached with a kind and very grandfatherly, wrinkled hand to pat the cheeks of the smallest and ask their names. A boy of about seven hollered out the name of the kindly local fellow who was playing the part but the little ones weren’t phased in the least. Robin was transfixed, a delighted smile bloomed on her lips, she looked even more beautiful than she usually does. First: red is her VERY favorite colour (though fuscia is beginning to gain ground); Second: I’d been telling her for weeks that Father Christmas (aka Santa Claus aka Babbo Natale) was an imaginary person, like a cartoon character; a figure that people had invented to embody the idea of how nice it feels to give presents. But here he was as perfect as the picture on the holiday sale sheets that arrive in the mail. As soon as the show was over and the distribution of gifts was to begin we plucked her up out of the throng and she looked at me and said, “But look Mamma, Santa is NOT imaginary, he’s a real live person, he CAME!” What could I say to that, to that glowing certainty? The only thing I could think of was to stick to the part that was true, so I said, “You’re right, it was a real person.” Later she wanted to know just where that Babbo Natale had come from. I answered her again, as honestly as I dared: “Honey, I was so busy watching your face that I didn’t notice anything else.”
It’s a relaxed morning listening to Franz Schubert (String Quintet in C major D. 956)…the movement I’m listening to now is about as I am: Allegro ma non troppo. Robin is happily taking a bath. Yesterday was a big day for her; she took her first turns around the rink on ice skates. She started to get the hang of it (which is to say, able to stay up over her skates about 60 percent of the time) at about the same moment that she was to tired to keep going. Matthew went up to Sacro Monte for an appointment and Robin and I along with our friend Fabio (no our Fabio is not theFabio) wandered through downtown Varese and she had 7 go-rounds on the carousel followed by the purchase of a helium balloon of Clifford the Big Red Dog (which continues to make a languid tour of all the ceilings of our house), a bag of roasted chestnuts (the remainder of which I’m munching on as a post-breakfast-of-fresh-bread snack) and a sit down in the bar to have hot chocolate with whipped cream.
Today is a day full of sun and blue sky, Matthew has finished the really fancy cabinetry he has spent the last month working on, Fabio is the kind of dream house guest who cleans the kitchen after every meal and leaves the moka ready to make coffee the next morning, the work that awaits me tomorrow is the review of next half of the english translation of Cesare Bedegonè’s novel “Blaw, Blaw, Blaw” which is like getting paid to read a book that I’d enjoy anyway. Life is good.
So here we are having a fun day in the snow. Robin and Matthew do most of the playing and I do the filming. Later in the day things turned into a splatter fest. First it was the hot cocoa that I was whipping up with one of those battery operated milk frothers…hot chocolate making spin-art across the table, everything on it, two chairs and the far wall. Later it was grapefruit marmalade which is almost always delicious but splapy in the later stages and somehow seemed extra so today. Lastly was the can of tomatoes with the pull ring that broke…I was prying it open with a parmesan cheese knife; when I actually succeeded (all too well) there was tomato on the wall, the telephone, the counter, the stove, and the sleeves of a hand-me-down wool cardigan. The center of the tomato eruption landed (of course) on the brand-new-this-winter cream coloured cotton turtle neck that I special ordered from L.L. Bean and had my mother ship to Italy. I’m hoping that the combination of cold water and sapone di Marsiglia followed by Napisan (Italian oxy-clean) will restore it to its original creamy newness. Mostly I’m feeling thankful that I wasn’t using power tools today.
Today is Thanksgiving but not in Italy; at least it’s not a holiday here. I think we’re planning to have onion soup. I miss the food and being with my family and hanging out in the kitchen talking about food; but, I don’t miss being irritated at the pile of people huddled around the TV watching football. Now, don’t get me wrong, I LIKE football, I just don’t like it when it’s an excuse for some people to zone out on the couch while everyone else cooks and cleans up.
That said, it’s funny that it’s just a regular work day here. I went this morning and bought wood for the woodburning stove we use to heat the house. Something that I never had to know as a Texan: when buying wood choose the pieces that are light for thier size they’re drier and cheaper. After that I went to the grocery store; the’ve just started the Christmas merchandising here. No big bin of turkeys in the meat section, no piles of sweetpotatos and bags of fresh cranberries in the produce section…just business as usual.
I came home, had lunch and then went to work with Matthew on finishing these:
I wonder how many years it will be until no one knows how to do this work in a first-world country? Today I’m thankful for my wonderful family, that I got lucky and found lots of dry wood at the woodyard, that I live in a beautiful house in a beautiful country, and deeply thankful that there are still people around who are willing to buy something that they can’t pick out of a catalogue.
Today there is sun! Though I saw Monte Rosa full of snow this morning as Matthew and I were driving from Gemonio to Castello Cabiaglio where he’s painting a the living room of an antiques dealer. I was tagging along to finally see the house where Matthew has done quite a bit of work. Amazing, same era as the one we live in (end of 19th beg. 20th cent. here the style is called Liberty). Unlike ours, his is furnished with beautiful stuff of the era or older all in amazing condition. Like ours, his house has a zillion windows facing south that are paned with the glass of the era, full of subtle bubbles and ridges that make a room full of light look like you’re standing underwater. Every shadow rendered aqueous.
The antiquarian has a huge Venetian chandelier from 1780(ish) and a few of the glass bits were broken. Last night, Matthew brought them for me as a present. There is something amazing about holding a piece of hand blown glass that is 250 years old, something that says one shouldn’t throw it away even if it can’t be used for its original purpose. We have plans to make a steel structure gilded with white gold leaf to hold up these two pieces of glass that make the shadow of fire look like water.
I would I were a wingéd thing
And these white stones not bruised my feet.
From half sky’s arc this groundscape see;
Like girasoleil and moth at once.
Face then Gomorrah’s candled sun,
And false to God like Mrs. Lot
Turn arbre-form in Halite caught;
Qualcosa utile, quotidienne.
Ground down and lightly sown across
Unrisen flower and fragrant oil;
Then in the mouth of Adam lost
Mineral dust to dust returned.
poem copyright Bonnie McClellan 2009
“The eye comes always ancient to its work, obsessed by its own past and by old and new insinuations of the ear, nose, tongue, fingers, heart, and brain. It functions not as an instrument self-powered and alone, but as a dutiful memeber of a complex and capricious organism.”
– Nelson Goodman from “Languages of Art
This poem is one in a series that I am currently writing that takes it’s inspiration from the rhythms and subject matter of sacred texts varied and sundry. It is also the fruit of my continuing struggle as a poet to reconcile the three languages that jostle for position in my work as I am searching for exactly the right word. This particular piece is inspired by the rhythm of the Latin Hymn “O SALUTARIAS HOSTIA”. The content inspired by conversations had with the Artist, Matthew Broussard and the film director, Michangelo Frammartino about Pythagoras’ four states of being: Human, Animal, Vegetable, Mineral. The concept of the observed walk as a transformative experience is also inspired in part by the work of sculptor Richard Long.
Every few days there is rain in Serra San Bruno; this is not good for the filming. Most of the movie takes place out of doors where the charcoal burners are working. There is lots of expensive equipment, including a camera that costs as much as two houses which needs to stay clean and dry in an environment full of wood smoke, charcoal, and rain. In sum, this is not an easy combination for getting things done on schedule. Today the wind was so fierce that half the film crew came back black-faced from the charcoal smoke.
Papa's Sticky WoodMatthew Broussard
The structures built by the charcoal burners (or carbonai) are incredible, they look like sculptures by Andy Goldsworthy and seem more beautiful being constructed so of necessity rather than invention. The movements, the decisions, the rhythm of constructing these “scarrazzi” (in english this translates as a ‘charcoal clamp‘ are intuitive for these men. For the film Matthew needs to make some pieces of wood to be used in the construction of the centre of one of the scarrazzi appear very white and as if the bark was trimmed off by hand…so he’s trimming it off by hand with a big machete. The wood is fresh pine and exuding resinous sap, Robin calls it “Papa’s sticky wood” and is very excited to see the capo of the carbonai, Artemio, using a chain saw. In general she likes the men in their black dusted clothes and faces and remembers all of their names: Artemio, Bruno, Zeno, Salvatore.
Scarazzo (or wood clamp) being built
The smell of woodsmoke chases through the town on the tail of the hard wind like the ghost of a warm fire searching for a place to sit down. I am unsure if it’s smoke blown down the long river bed from the charcoal burner’s works or from the cumulative fireplaces of Serra San Bruno, long and narrow; clustered along both sides of the river like Lancelot and Guinevere on either side of Arthur’s sword. Robin and I go out and take our walk in the wind and smoke…amidst the baroque granite landmarks remains the rest of the town, getting on with it’s normal life in the south:
There is a store that sells real fruit and fake flowers, the sales woman inside is wearing her winter coat and a hat, the small heating stove is off, we are the only customers I have seen in this store in a week of passing by the door twice a day. The saleswoman will not take my money, she gives Robin an apple for free. This is Calabria.
Corner in Serra San BrunoSide of a house facing the river Serra San Bruno
We keep walking and pass by facades of ridged brick both holding up and falling down, the sad leftovers of Mussolini’s vision, shoving up against both the slender, solid granite posts of the old houses that support gracious granite arcs as well as the concrete walls of apartment blocks made to ward off both earthquake and beauty; battened down with corrugated steel that sends streams of rust enriched rain water down into the flaking plaster of the house next door.
Brick Facades Serra San Bruno
What a place. And next we’ll be going to another paradoxically beautiful and squalourous Calabrian town, Caulonia.
Matthew is anxious to get back to Caulonia because there are many other things that need to be worked on there. On the one hand, it’s been a real break for me, staying in a hotel; there are other people doing the cooking and cleaning and lots of big spaces for Robin to explore as well as lots of new people to make friends with. Still, I think we are all ready to be in a place where we can wake up in the morning, make our own coffee and drink it in bed. So we’re looking forward to being in Caulonia where we can stay in an apartment with a kitchen.
We made it to Calabria about a month ago. Robin was wonderful on the airplane; she sat on my lap for the whole flight without much wriggling at all, ate chips, drank juice, and looked at the Easy Jet magazine. It happened that there were lots of other kids on the plane and the older ones ran up and down the aisle paying her occasional visits complete with kisses and games of peek-a-boo.
We arrived right on time and Matthew was there about 2 minutes after we walked through the exit door. Robin was very excited and we were all very happy to see each other. We went immediately for a slice of pizza because it was 1:30 by then and we were beyond starving! Then we got chips and hot water to go and packed ourselves into the van.
As we started down the road Robin talked to her dad while I ate a huge orange (one of several that were in the car). This part of Italy is orange country and this is the season for them. People give them away by the sack full and this one was really delicious. I had forgotten what spring looked like. Up north we still had snow in spots and frost on the fields every morning where standing water was dull with ice. Things had just begun to turn that hopeful shade of gray that presages green the week before we left. Here, in the far south, there were lush swaths of green grass poking up around olive trees as big as live oaks. It was a pleasure to see these trees again, two and three hundred years old they dwarf the smaller olive trees of Tuscany and as torqued as the trunks and branches are it is easy to imagine them as more than trees.
Bobbie eats cookies
In Serra San Bruno Bobbie and I took a walk every day. First we would stop at the piazza which is closest to the hotel. There is a church façade covered in scaffolding, some benches and it is here that we stop for cookies. Then Robin goes up and down the steps of the church, occasionally stepping inside the door where she’s been heard to say (unprompted): “No more church for MY daughter.
Our next stop is the “Lion Fountain” where Bobbie can put her hand in the running water and beep the noses of the lions that are not spitting water. On the way we pass this lyrical baroque church façade carved surprisingly in unlyrical granite. The contrast of the form and the material is pleasantly diverting to the eye.
Bonnie McClellan-Broussard 