Christina

August 28, 2010

This one’s been decorated with a mouse face:


I met some kitties that are still roaming the streets; most are probably strays, but a few seemed sophisticated enough to have a human companion:


“Wuzzat?” he’s thinking:


Camouflaged behind a door curtain:


See the cat? He’s being all ninja:


Ninja cat up in the scaffolding:


Skinny Kitten:


Skinny Kitten utilizing his power of cuteness to smell a piece of grass (already very skilled at using his powers!):


Skitten Kitten’s brother, Slightly More Fluffy:


Skinny Kitten and Slightly More Fluffy joining forces to execute their ultimate move, the Uber Cute Kitten Photo:


It was fun hanging out in Castelvecchio and meeting its people: human, feline, and canine. I certainly hope that things will get better for everyone here. This town is too nice to allow it to fall apart into obscurity and there’s so much potential, people just need to realize it’s here. If all goes well, the road to revitalization will be started with the help of my school and others institutions, and then everyone will have their home again. Buona fortuna, Castelvecchio Calvisio!

Miao Miao,
Christina
August 25, 2010

Christina

August 24th, 2010

The town center layout was really unique: one main street going straight down the middle of the town, side streets radiating off in lines like lines of soldiers, and all fitting into a tight oval.  Most of the wall that protected the town in medieval times has now been incorporated into the housing, some of the housing on the outside of the oval still have buttresses.

Some views of the center:

This is one of the houses that have been built into the town wall, note the buttresses on the bottom half:

A view through a doorway, you can seen the wooden beams that used to support a floor (now collapsed onto the floor below):

Scaffolding support for the archway into the old town square:

Next is a good shot of typical entrance stairs that lead out onto the street.  These aren’t damaged; the weird cutout parts at the bottom of the stairs are actually intentionally.  Back in the days of yore, donkeys were the preferred mode of transportation, but the streets were a bit too narrow with people sticking their staircases all over the place.  Someone got the ingenious idea to curve the bottoms of the stairs to allow just enough space for a man and his full-loaded donkey to get by.  This is pretty much the only place where this is done.  Pretty cool, though maybe not for the donkeys, they still had to carry stuff:

A view of one of the roads connecting Castelvecchio to Calascio, a nearby hilltown:

Speaking of Calascio:

There it is on the right side of the pic.  Notice the castle topping the hill behind it?

That’s Rocca Calascio, a long-ruined fortress that was enlisted as part of the set in the movie Ladyhawke.  We unfortunately didn’t have time to go visit it and recreate the movie, drat!

Back to you, Castelvecchio!  The town chuch seemed pretty standard and very modest on the outside, the bell tower with the 3 different-sized bells was a neat feature.  The bell tower suffered a bit of damage from the earthquake, but it looks like it’s been fixed up:

The town church used to be down the side of the hill about a 10-15 minute walk, but then after two children died on their way to the church in the winter, the townspeople decided to build a new one right next to the wall.  I didn’t get to see the old church, but the new church (new being a relative term, it’s still pretty old!) had a nice surprise inside:

A very ornate and large altar piece!  It was quite pretty with gold paint highlights everywhere.  A closer look:

It looked to be mostly constructed of carved wood with 4 saints depicted at their moment of martyrdom: San Laurenti (grilled to death), San Cypriane (beheaded), San Ioannes Baptista (looks to be Saint John the Baptist, when he was beheaded and his head given to a vengeful woman),  and San Martinus (Saint Martin of Tours, giving half his cloak to a beggar, actually wasn’t martyred, but still nice enough to be declared a saint).

Most of the damaged buildings were off limits to us, but there were a few that were open that I could glimpse inside:

The interior shots made nice urban decay photos, but it was a bit heartbreaking to see the rooms in such a state of disuse.  People used to live here in the center not that long ago, and the whole place is on its way to becoming a medieval relic unless something is done to bring back some semblance of an economy to support it.  Hopefully our project does something to help spur a recovery.

To your benefit, Castelvecchio, you got some great views.  To the south, Carapelle Calvisio:

To the east, mountains:

And to the northeast, the best valley scene I could find:

Ciao,

Christina

August 22, 2010

But very quickly we discovered how bad the damage was.  Almost every building we saw had some sort of scaffolding support or other support to hold the structures together:

Some buildings had more modern supports in place: construction belts with cinches.  I’ve seen these holding huge piles of uncut lumber logs together on trailer beds.  Apparently they also make very good earthquake supports since they are lighter than steel scaffolding and much cheaper, as well as being a bit gentler on the structure.  There was a whole series of columns that had these belts holding them straight:

Elsewhere, some girder supports for archways:

When the 2009 earthquake happened, a little over 300 people were killed and thousands of people made homeless.  The majority of those people are currently rehoused in government-built housing on the outskirts; ugly, but meant to be temporary.  However, temporary looks to be permanent thus far as the Italian government has been slow in initiating clean-ups.  Most of the citiy’s 99 churches were in varying degrees of damage, some only missing a few pieces, others nearly shaken apart into chunks.  Poor materials and construction seems to have been a contributor to the damage, unfortunately; some of the buildings weren’t built to code.  A large part of the Cathedral of San Massimo collapsed into itself and the Church of Anime Sante wasn’t looking too happy, it had some of those construction belts holding up its facade:

Lots of the citizens were understandably unhappy: being affected by the earthquake was already traumatic, then being moved into temporary housing without the benefits of the local communities that they formed (they weren’t allowed to move into the temporary housing complexes with the people they had grown up with in their local communities) and then having to wait an awful long time for anyone to even start reconstructing their homes… some citizens became fed up and started organizing clean-ups on their own.  A construction fence became their banner of protest.  People tied the keys to their houses onto the wires, sending a message to the government and the rest of Italy: We won’t forget our homes, we still care about L’Aquila, please don’t forget us!”

There were also For Sale signs from people trying to sell their homes.  One sign we found seems to describe the feelings of the L’Aquila citizens the best:

The sign in green reads:

FOR SALE

A House, Open Sky

No Walls, Lots of Light

Inaccessible, in the Red Zone

L’Aquila

Any takers? Well then, next up is Castelvecchio Calvisio…

Continua,

Christina

August 20, 2010

Another was practicing sleep meditation, which involved sleeping in the most uncomfortable places in ridiculously contorted positions.  The latest position was called the Trash Can Curl:

Last one was a sweet little granny who was very old.  Her kidneys were on their way out, but she still knew how to enjoyed a good chin scratch:

“Standing is overrated,” she said to me.  “Burns too many calories.  Lying down is optimal for the body.”  She demonstrated:

Elsewhere in the city, the words of the band Oasis were being called upon to grace an old unused doorway by the Royal Spanish Academy:

Ciao,

Christina

August 9, 2010

Stuffing

One of several plush baby sea dragons sold at the 2006 RISD Alumni Holiday Art Sale.

Wait a few seconds for the close-ups!

Stuffing

One of several plush sea dragons sold at the 2006 RISD Alumni Holiday Art Sale.

Wait a few seconds for the close-ups!

One of the drawings pieces that RISD requires as part of the freshman admission process.  This particular bike is channeling Salvador Dali through ping pong balls.

Music video created by They’re Using Tools!, run by Melinda Rainsberger

My contribution to the video was a flying streetlight, a happy flying turtle, and a happy fridge (which did not make it into the final edit, but is still happy!).

View the full movie here!

Christina
July 30, 2010

The procession started with a bang, literally!  Firecrackers went off above and a shower of paper confetti rained down as the Madonna statue came out of the church in a decorated canopy with cherubs and two long beams of wood for the team of carriers to rest on their shoulders and carry around the canopy with.

The canopy for the Madonna statue:

The procession headed out of the church through the crowd and started on its journey through the rest of of the neighborhood, stopped at a few churches along the way.  The crowd dutifully followed, singing along with a priest on a mic and yelling out Viva Maria! often.

The crowd follows down a smaller secondary street to the first church:

People peered out of their windows along the procession path and watched or took pictures.   Everybody clapped each time the canopy carriers paused to put down the canopy and take a brief break.  Because the procession itself would actually be a quick 15 minute jaunt around the streets if it weren’t for the fact that the canopy itself was HEAVY.  There was about 16 full grown men carrying this thing around with the wooden beams on their shoulders (and thick shoulder pads) and one could definitely see them using all their strength carrying the Madonna.  The beams even bowed a little from the weight.  The team of men could only go about 100 feet before their leader would ring a bell for them to stop and rest, then the leader would ring the bell again for them to lift the canopy and continue.  So the whole procession took almost two hours.

The men preparing to lift the Madonna:

A close up view of the Madonna del Carmine (nice crown!):

The Madonna statue wasn’t the only part of the procession, preceding her was a party of monks with banners, nuns, some public officials with a troop of carabinieri (pretty much the equivalent of police officers in the US), a big wooden cross carried by a monk, a little metal cross carried by another monk, a full marching band, and a quartet of mounted uniformed horsemen (and horsewoman) leading the way.

The mounted quartet:

A member of the procession with sword and fluffy hat accessory waiting for the canopy carriers to catch up:

The procession ended at San Crisogono, the church right next door to Sant’Agata.  There was more fireworks and confetti:

The horsemen (and horsewoman) were saluting the Madonna, but the fireworks were on the verge of spooking the horses in to bolting and the people behind them were backing up, just in case.  Luckily the fireworks didn’t last for too long and the horses calmed down, then the Madonna was carried into San Crisogono by the men who were probably really glad to give their shoulders a rest.  Bravo, Madonna canopy carriers!

Ciao,

Christina
July 19, 2010

Pen and ink

An ancient race of feline assassins.

Pen and ink

An ancient race of feline assassins.

Pen and ink

An ancient race of feline assassins.

The Torre Argentina, in all its ruined glory:

The blistering Roman sun apparently melts bones and renders cats incapable of standing, thus resulting in laziness:

Hiding in the shade, grumpily:

Inside the sanctuary headquarters, the cats were roaming free except for a few separated in quarantine.  One of the quarantined was a white cat batting around a jingly cat toy and causing a loud ruckus.  He seemed to be enjoying himself, even though he was totally deaf (as some white cats are genetically prone to being) and couldn’t hear any of the jingling that he was causing.

Another was a scrawny black kitten with what looked like a cataract in one eye:

There was one black cat roaming free and visiting his friends in the cages.  He’s pretty feisty, Pandora, he totally reminds me of your best-friend-forever Mr. Todd:

Everybody here has been neutered/spayed and are being cared for by the volunteers of the Torre Argentina cat sanctuary.  Hopefully everybody finds good homes!

Ciao,
Christina
July 8, 2010

“I wish I hadn’t missed that boat,” contemplates the robot.

This man is not having a great day.

An exercise in the aquatinting method of intaglio.

Wait a few seconds for the close-ups!

Pen and ink

Wait a few seconds for the close-ups!

The ultimate hair accessory.

Pen and ink

The correct way to bring Fluffy with you for a walk is, of course, to carry him in a backpack in front of you!

Pen and ink

A little Italian dog

(with an adorable mustache!)

Pen and ink

A portrait of a homeless man begging for change.