Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Messages from Led Zeppelin

The artistic capacity of the city of Florence amazes me. Every Monday I have painting class until 8:30 at night. I thought this was pretty sweet at first but I’m always irritated by the time class is over, now. As much as I love to paint, painting for six straight hours really sucks. I can handle painting for one or two hours at a time. Six straight hours of being frustrated at myself for not being able to channel my inner Michelangelo perfectly is too much for my brain to handle. Walking home has thus far been a miserable experience after this class because I'm always really pissed off. I’m always lugging along huge canvases and lots of paint so I can continue working on the paintings I hate at my apartment. On Tuesday nights I'm there til 8:30 again. As you all hopefully understand completely from my various posts about it I absolutely hate my drawing class. I wind up walking home twice as pissed off as I am on Mondays. I suck at drawing and have no patience to pretend I don't. Mondays and Tuesdays always suck when I walk home. Recently, though, my walks home have changed and I almost look forward to them. I took a new route home the other night, deciding that instead of taking the short route home I would take the scenic one. I walked through the Piazza Signorina where the David copy stands because I felt like seeing my boyfriend. He and I have been dating since my arrival in Florence. I normally hate going this way because it is crowded and for some reason smells like manure, but it was around 8:45 and freezing cold so I figured not alot of tourists would be brazen enough to stand out in the square. As I made my way up Via de Neri and into the square I heard music and my heart skipped a beat. I hear American music here all the time; Italians go nuts for the Black Eyed Peas. I'm an oldies girl, though, and a man was standing next to David playing a song on his guitar: Stairway to Heaven.

I love hearing guitar all by itself and this man was playing a song by a band that most Italians don't really appreciate. He was standing underneath an overhang and somehow the music managed to carry all the way throughout the Piazza. For someone to be standing in one of the most famous Piazza’s in the world playing Led Zeppelin-a song so difficult to play that in the original Guitar Hero it was the last song to unlock-really turned my soul to gold. Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run there’s still time to change the road that you’re on. And it makes me wonder...why I changed my path that night?

Painting class left me exhausted on another night, as per the usual. I’ve been painting, drawing, and sculpting pretty much all day, every day, and I have to admit I'd been feeling a little bit tired of making art. Who says that? I’m in Florence learning and practicing something I love and I feel tired of it. These classes force me to work so hard and I feel like all the energy I contain has been drained from my brain and my body by the time Thursday comes. So after painting I again went to see my David. I needed some sweet boyfriend lovin' to cheer me up and he always poses so nicely for me before we really get into it. What should I hear as I approached the Piazza Signorina but the same musician, singing and playing away. “Working from seven to eleven every night really makes life a drag. I don’t think it’s right...” bounced off the walls and I was serenaded again by some more of this man’s sweet Led Zeppelin. The music, yet again, reverberated straight to my soul. How this one musician had the ability to play the exact right song during both of my walks home baffled me thoroughly. I decided after that walk that I was going to take that route every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday night.

We have midterms coming up for all of my art classes and the theme the art department chose to have us work with is driving me a little insane. I tried so hard to come up with a good idea for my project; I was excited and announced it in front of my whole class. I thought it was spectacular and that everyone would be impressed. We have to create works based on the theme Timeframe. Boring. So I thought hard about this because I wanted to do something cool. I really like working with images from nature and energy in nature because I really fucking love trees, as my dedicated readers know already. My idea was to show how energy flows through nature. How does this relate to Timeframe? I felt so smart when I thought of this: energy is the only thing that transcends time. My teacher shut it down immediately. I was upset. So I sat in class and stared at my canvas because I simply couldn’t think of another idea that worked for me. I left class early and made my way towards the Signorina. I was super angry that I still hadn’t come up with an idea I could be happy with. The only idea I’d been happy with was the one that I had originally and I kept thinking that I should just go for it anyway. I needed to ask for Dave's advice. I figured I'd find answers in his unproportioned nakedness. I walked up the street scowling and yet again I heard a song that seemed to be sung just for me, wiping my ugly frown right off my face. “Sometimes I grow so tired but I know I’ve got one thing I’ve got to do... Ramble on! And now its time the time is now to sing my song.” I smiled and decided I would run with my original idea right then and there. This guitarist, who has clearly has an alarming Led Zeppelin addiction, is totally my soul mate. Sorry, Davey-poo, but this guy really gets me. I think we need to break up.
Arrivederci, for now.
Love, Gabby.

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