shanah tova u'dolce vita

"E importante no essere sola per la festa." It's important not to be alone on the holiday, Nadia told me as she met me outside the Cenci at 10:00 this morning. Nadia is the woman who cleans my building and we have coffee together every morning at 7 am. I get up early because I like the quiet before the Cenci turns to madness and she likes to sit with me and talk..I think. When I told her I was Jewish, she immediately invited me to spend the holidays with her. So she pulled up this morning on the back of her husband's moped and they parked near the Jewish ghetto. Of course services started at 9, and it was already 10, but first a coffee! So we went to Bon Bar and then headed to the Synagogue.

Though grand and beautiful, it's impossible to hear anything inside the big synagogue. After 10 minutes, we went around the corner to Nadia's little synagogue. Nestled in the upstairs of the Jewish hospital, this synagogue was beautiful and intimate and exactly what I wanted. Her grandkids came running in yelling, "Nonna!" and we arrived just in time for Haftorah and the shofar. Like all good Jewish families, Nadia's son and daughter go to different synagogues and she goes to both. So we left the little and went back to the big to meet up with the rest of her family. The piazza outside was packed with Jews, loud and chatty. I thought everyone was just socializing, but soon I understood why we were all standing there. Nadia motioned me to the steps of the shul, this grand synagogue ingrained with so much history, and I was pulled under her family's tallit for birkat hacohanim. The piazza fell silent but for the voice emerging from within the doors. It was over as soon as it began and I joined Nadia's family for lunch at her house. It amazes and inspires me that the whole Jewish ghetto was emptied 60 years ago and fully packed today. Nadia told me that her entire family was sent to Auschwitz. Somehow, her mom ended up in Rome again, but I didn't catch that part of the story.

Shouting Shanah Tova out the window, we drove away to Nadia's house. Lunch consisted of fetuccini instead of chicken soup and all of the other traditional Rosh Hashanah foods. We ate too much, laughed at my broken Italian, and played cards. All too soon, I found a bus back to a different reality.

By far the best holiday I have had in my four years away, I wonder what creates community and a sense of home. In light of the international tension, what connects people and what separates them? I didn't speak a word of English with Nadia's family, yet somehow we transcended the boundaries of language.

My yoga teacher had a nice closing thought at our class last night that seems appropriate for the new year. He said that there is a reason why yoga is called a practice. There are so many things we cannot do in life. But there are an equal amount of things we can do. We can practice at being calm when it seems unlikely. We can practice mindfulness and patience and acceptance and education. We may not naturally excel at certain things, but we can certainly practice. Being with Nadia's family today, who without hesitation brought me into their home, reminded me of the uniqueness and importance of community, tradition and openness. Here is to a year filled with all of these things and more, and lots of practice.

Shanah Tova from Roma.

I was also in Florence this weekend, so here are some photos:

On Ponte Vecchio

Waiting to see the David with Claire, Steph and Jess

Brunelleschi's Duomo

Florence from the hill

Making

Like most things over the past three years, I should have known studying abroad with RISD would be different. No matter how much I heard about college before September 2009, I found that RISD did things differently. The Architecture department the following year - a little quirky. And now a semester abroad in Rome: unlike most abroad experiences I've heard about. But it is precisely these differences that remind me each day why this is right for me.

 The biggest difference I have noticed over the years between RISD and other art/design schools, and most universities in general, is the emphasis on understanding and processing through making. I have spent the past week exploring monotyping for my individual project (printmaking). I am generally interested in the systematic overlaps of agriculture and economy, both historic and contemporary stories in Italy. On one side of my desk, I have very numerical, fact-based word maps regarding land usage and communal impact over centuries. On the other side are experimental prints of abstract shapes and marks, of time and space. I intend to eventually compile a big fat book of the two, illustrating my harder lined research with abstract prints. I am contemplating how to juxtapose image with text in order to best convey my argument.

Monotype Prints

Word-Mapping

Regarding the argument, only once I began making (prints and other visual models) did I begin to understand what I was trying to say. The fact-based, analytical research was fine, but it left me saying...so what? Those thoughts become meaningful when they are contextualized and visual. Only then do I begin to care more about them, and consequently others here do, too. Then I have invested some part of myself in the research.
I am exploring a sort of information architecture, a world where facts and images collide. And behind all of the facts are millions of stories and lives that have existed over millenia that require consideration and acknowledgement.

Now for a little tangent, but I think it relates.
Paula Scher, the first female principal at Pentagram, says, "Design isn't quite that simple. You don't just make something, have people go 'Ooh!' and you're done. What generally happens is that the reason you have to make something at all comes from some very complicated problem or issue that involves lots and lots of people that are afraid and jealous and suspicious, so before you even get to make the thing you really have to suss out the lay of the land so you can get everybody over all the stuff that's upsetting them, so they can be prepared to get excited about it."

I am still in the sussing out stage. However, the prints are beginning to resemble things I have made in the past and I am able to make old connections as well as new discoveries. From all of this, I am aiming to compile an anthology referencing the social architecture of agriculture and green economy in Italy. Italy is in the midst of a historical transition between localized farming and a larger, mono-plant system; my goal is to set up a way to understand that transition and thoughtfully respond to the contemporary changes, informing the future shifts the region will take.

My daily life in Italy is informing all of this work. In art history we recently visited Ostia Antica, the main port city of ancient Rome. Today we ventured to explore Medieval and early Christian Renaissance work, and next weekend we head to Florence. Here are some photos from the week. Enjoy and thanks for reading!

Ostia Antica

Villa Borghese

Kevin Walz studio visit

Basilica dei SS. Cosma E Domiano, c. 500 CE