Cristina
cristina costantina Joined: July 28th 2004
Logged in: February 3rd 2011
Logged in: February 3rd 2011
www.cristinapinton.com
Travel Blog Posts
sketchbook 1
My thoughts have been swimming towards the past lately...i've been hovering in warm memories of home in Connecticut, not even of Florence. And because of the holidays coming up, being a new town, new apartment, new life in many ways, I've taken solace in the feelings of comfort and magic that I felt in CT during my childhood/adolescent years. I've also realized that making a home or nest is not as easy as all that poetic rhetoric describes- an honorable challenge. It's not attached to place, as most say, and yet it's the qualities of that physical place that provide the skeleton upon which we add, build, transform our needs and desires into what we can physically and mentally call "home". I'm not there now, not yet. We'd built a small nest of sort in Florence. ... read more
Abandoned shed near road to Tinchi
While we're getting used to the movement of life around here in Bernalda, I took a drive one morning to simply absorb. I brought my flimsy digital camera with me just as a backup and took most of the photos with my faithful film (Pentax) camera (only later to find out that there is no film development here in Bernalda....mind the one place that sends it out to a "manual" lab that then costs 30euro...) and thus must be content with what my digital provided me. Comparing Basilicata and Toscana is entirely unfair. We're talking Massachusetts versus Oklahoma. Each has it's own distinct habits, terrain, cuisine and accent (or dialect in this case). The land here is rugged. The rolling hills and bare mountaineous regions are so very different from the rich green hillsides of the ... read more
forrest near Castelsaraceno- oak then chestnut
in this agricultural region of Italy harvesting or "la raccolta", whether for the current season's mushrooms, chestnuts, olives, mandarin and clementines or cabbage...it's all in the family, not just the local farmers who are out there hard at work...the work of the farmer or "contadino" is the homefront... On a crisp and sunny Sunday morning my husband and I joined my sister-in-law's husbands family (3 brothers and 2 sisters plus a dozen children) in northwestern Basilicata, near Castelsaraceno, for a day of gathering chestnuts or "castagne". Our drive from Bernalda (8 cars worth of family) was about 70 minutes winding roads through the low rolling hills, past roughly plowed terrain, fields rich with local autumn vegetables as well as abandoned stone farmsteads and bridges. Once we reached the forrest protected by the region of Basilicata, ... read more
6 years ago I moved from Boston to Florence with nothing more than a dream inspiring me. Since then I've learned Italian to the point that I'm no longer recognizable as an American, I've re-founded my relationships with my Italian relatives in Milano, Vicenza, Roma, I've taught studio arts at a study abroad program, taught English to some of the major Florentine institutions and local banks, worked in the field of wine tourism for almost 4 years and the cult foodie world for 2, met some truly amazing people, battled many a bureaucratic battle (i'm still waiting for my citizenship) and in the end was able to celebrate our tri-mix of cultures and marry the man of my dreams (the very one I met the second weekend I moved to Florence 6 years ago). And now, ... read more
couples in costume posing for the thousands under the loggia of the Palazzo Ducale
Carnevale 2006 A month before Carnivale arrived to Venice, I was warned by family and the natives alike to avoid the streets and be on the lookout for hords of costumed Venetians and international travelers. I think it may have all been in hopeful expectancy, because as the first days of festivities came and went, news of Carnevale and its famed magnitude were less and less favorable. Historically Carnevale parades and processions were symbolic and plentiful, attracting thousands, including all the Venetians the themselves, to piazzas and campi to watch, jeer, cheer, hurray, drink, dance, chant, make merry and all other naughty things that were normally forbidden. Masks to hide ones identity, costumes to allow the slaves to wear their masters identity for a few days, Carnevale had a meaning and a history, a signifance known ... read more
Litho ink-self potrait entitled "Da giu in Su"
Observations from within an Italian classroom (non University): -There is no rubric for grading. It seems very subjective, if not completely. The last day of my computer design class, half Italian students, half Americans, we lasted 1.5 hours overtime simply because there seem to be no rules. People arrive when the please and the teacher is happy to repeat info (if they start on time) if not wait up to 30 minutes for the rest of the class to show...wasting the time of those who arrive ontime. Now, during overtime this particular day, we were supposed to lay out or final design projects. We, Americans, were also supposed to receive grades, but 1) Italians have no idea what A,B,C ecc mean and 2) have no means to grade, ie no rubric breaking down logical methods of ... read more
Sharing the goods...home baked cookies sent to me...and shared with friends
It is December 5, 2005. This will be my second Christmas away from home. I know this may not mean much to some, or others may realize they, too, haven’t been home in a while, or a few others may never have wanted to be home in the house in which they grew because of a difficult childhood, or even a few others may be questioning exactly what IS a home…but I, I know exactly what I am missing, and it is so very present in my heart that it makes me both terribly sad and overwhelmed with joy that I can feel so connected to my history, my family, that I can… Smell the cologne my brothers where when we get together for Christmas lunch, The paisley shirt, or the hiking boots and jeans, ... read more
Aqua Alta
When Venice flirts with the sea- Aqua Alta Saturday at 8:30 am I heard sirens. Never heard them in my life, but sounded just like they do in the films, only for air raids and emergency situations. I go back to sleep, to wake up 2 hours later. Get dressed and head out to go work in the studio at school. On the vaporetto, however, I noticed people wearing their knee high boots, but stupidly it didn’t occur to me why. Cautious they must be. Yes, cautious. But when the boat stopped at the first of many, I noticed the water not just lapping at the edges of Venice’s stone walkways that ring around the edges of every little island, but aggressively conquering inch by inch of what used to have been firm ground. When I ... read more
entrances
My shoes echo in the alleys, clicks of my heels follow me home. The mornings are often heavy with a thick fog, a huge, dense fog that has fallen upon the city, rolled in by the etched deities that blow the directional winds on the ancient maps. There are no bird songs, but caws and screeches by seagulls and other water birds, even at times during the night. Once in a while, with the girls, I grab a spritz, the classic aperitivo mixed drink…typical that at about 7pm, the bars are filled with the locals sipping orange colored drinks with toothpick-speared green olives, and crunchy snacks. Out door markets, vegetables and sometimes even sea food (all whole, fresh and often alive-YOU do the cutting, deboning, descaling, etc) some even exist on boats that float down a ... read more
The Norwegian, Swedish Pavilion-an ethereal hall of echoes and three beautiful tree trunks.
The 51st Venice Bienniale-International Art Exhibition Steps from my apartment. A 10 minute walk, in fact, to the gardens near St.Elena. During the year, the architectural structures called pavilions, built by various countries decades ago to host their artists every year here in the summer months of the Bienniale, are empty. But these months this very famous international art exhibition attracts people from all over the world. Among the trees and connected by sandy and pebble pathways are the distinctly different pavilions by such countries as Hungary, Uruguay, Romania, Korea, Iceland, Belgium and Russia. (In other parts of the city, in various palazzi and host sites, are countries such as Afghanistan, Croatia, Republic of Armenia, Ireland, Thailand and Argentina.) Each pavilion has the name of the country written on the front and is built in ... read more
