Tag: Vaporetto

Leaving Venice

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I suspect that leaving Venice is always difficult. Difficult because you need to haul your luggage, and you may have a lot if you’ve hit those fabulous shops, down stairs, up and down bridges, along narrow crowded streets, onto the vaporetto, and either out to the airport or across to Ferrovia to catch the train. Difficult because you regret having to leave. Just one more week…..or a few more days…..might reveal some magical secret, some idea, some image that you have been searching for. Difficult because you were just on the verge of feeling you ‘know’ something about the city. Difficult because you feel you’ve just begun with Venice.

Angela, Nicki and I left Venice on the same day, but by different routes. We took Angela down to the Alilaguna boat to the airport, where she was catching a plane to Manchester in England.
Nicki and I muscled our way with four bags and a large tube of prints over to Ferrovia to catch the overnight train to Vienna, and then to travel by car to Prague.

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Lost in Venice

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We have porridge! Daphne and Nicki found some fiocchi d’avena at the Rialto. Not the a plastic bag full of rough cut oats, but a very sophisticated tin. It remains to be seen what the contents look like.

Despite last nights experience, I took the wrong vaporetto again this morning, and arrived at the studio late and a bit distracted. Daphne and Nicki arrived sometime later, and both spent some time
on the drypoint I had started. Here’s Daphne working away:

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We had another studio lunch – this time penne with tuna and tomato, and a special lamb shaped Easter cake contributed by Melody, like a panettone. Here we all are:

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Christa, Stefano, Gianfranco, Christiana, Melody, Nicki and Daphne with the remnants of the cake.

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Christa is making a book which includes her drawings and poetry.

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First steps

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Well, we managed to catch the vaporetto with our big box of plates. (Picture tomorrow!)
At the studio, there are printmakers from all parts of the world. At the moment, there is Melody from Mongolia, a Ben from Whitstable, England, Jenny from Ithaca, New York, Chris from Portugal, Christa from somewhere else in America, and we three Aussies………..and Gianfranco, our host.

Melody is printing very large etchings of ballerinas. Her mother was a Russian trained ballerina.

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Jenny makes large woodcuts. She is a keen environmentalist.

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We made more rubbings, cut up some of our new plate, and Nicki and I each started a dry point based on some of the photographs we have taken, while Daphne investigated the fonts available for letterpress printing and made a rough mock up of the book we intend to make. As our first excursion into printing together it worked very well.

Desperate for oats to have for breakfast, we have tested Daphne’s Italian to the limit. No one here seems to understand the concept of porridge. Our local Providore suggests espresso and biscotti is the breakfast of champions. His idea of porridge is that we cook it for ten minutes, then throw it out and go to the cafe for espresso and biscotti. Apparently what we want is ‘farina d’avina’ or perhaps
‘fiocchi d’avina.’ Or perhaps we forget about it and go to the cafe.

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