Monthly Archives: May 2010

We have made a deposit on our palazzo in Venice! See the link to get a virtual look at the place. Dr. Dru and I have dibs on the upstairs with the balcony and the spiral staircase I have already walked from the backdoor of “Angeli” to the Accademia bridge and then to the Rialto bridge and then on to La Fenice theater and home again on the City of Venice virtual tour on the Resources page. I was procrastinating when I should have been grading. My apologies to all my students waiting for their grades! I have until Friday at 2:00 pm to complete that task! The virtual tour is pretty cool but I think something is missing. Maybe we need “smello-vision.” No, I think there will be a tremendous amount of learning and just plain adrenalin rush that comes with the shared experience of traveling and looking for images either to paint or photograph or to incorporate into writing. The “Angeli” is located just off Campo Sant’ Angelo, which believe it or not, is the scene of one of the paintings in the Ken Howard video that has been recently added to the CLU library collection. It is called “Visions of Venice in Watercolor.” So when you have a moment and want to see where we are going to stay for ten days, check out the place.

Palazzo Degli Angeli

Even the Doctor thinks Venice is a pretty amazing city! Of course, much of this episode wasn’t actually filmed in Venice, but, hey, enjoy the footage that was.

In this scene, the Doctor expounds on some of the same reasons Terry and I think it’s worth taking a class of students to La Serenissima. Students, note the history and check out the famous view of San Giorgio! Of course, Terry and I don’t owe Casanova a chicken. Dare we even speculate about under what circumstances the Doctor came to owe Casanova a chicken? If he were Cpt. Jack Harkness, we might hazard a guess, but….

At any rate, our class will try to avoid running into any vampires on our trip. Although Venetian vampires do fit well into the “Venice as dying” and “Venice as immortal” themes of the course….

The CLU library has a new addition to the growing collection of all things Venetian. Richard Ormond and the Yale University Press are compiling the complete works of John Singer Sargent and this volume, the sixth, is Venetian Figures and landscapes. It contains full color photographs of every painting done in Venice. The paintings are shown with contemporary views of Venetian piazzas and canals taken in 2005. It is gorgeous and the perfect guide for planning and imagining working at the sites frequented by Sargent. While comparing Sargent to Turner, I notice immediately the difference in point of view between the two artists. Turner views from afar and loves the vast distance of space. Sargent views from below, as if sitting in a gondola and looking up at the buildings bathed in his captivating light. Those two points of view will be the primary differences that we try to emulate while painting in Venice. It will be up to each of you to determine which speaks most to you of Venice.

In the meantime, good luck getting a peak at this book before fall. I’ve got it out until Aug 13th! E-mail me if you are eager to get a glimpse of it.

New classes need to be advertised well in advance, if you want to guarantee that students take them! Of course, travel trips to Venice, maybe not so much as courses on copyediting, but still….

Terry and I really wanted to design a poster that combines one of her paintings with a professional artist’s photo, a classic watercolor, and a comic panel from the graphic novel Giacomo C. We’ve obtained the artist’s permission to use his photo, but we’re still waiting to hear from the museum and we’re having trouble reaching someone at Lizard/Rizzoli to get permission to use the panel from Giacomo C. (If you happen to have friends there or know Jean Dufaux and Griffo, let me know!).

So in the meantime, we’ve cobbled together a little image combining one of her paintings, one of my photographs, and some Photoshopping! It’ll work until all those permissions come through….

Oh, in other news, it looks like we may be about to make reservations for the palazzo in Venice that we wanted to get! It’ll be a fabulous place to stay — so much better than a hotel! — and we’ll post all about it once it’s been confirmed.