Monthly Archives: August 2010

On Campus Poster

As you all happily return to classes this fall, you will be met with the visually-compelling, new poster for Imagining Venice. Let us know where the sightings are taking place. We hope to generate a lot of excitement for our course with our design. Christy Smolenski of the Study Abroad office helped put together the design of the poster. She put up with the two professor artists and their persnickety demands for visual perfection. We ended up with a great poster. The image is taken from four different art images: photograph, comic book style graphic, watercolor, and oil painting. This is the view from the Dogana, or customs house, at the entrance to the Grand Canal opposite St. Mark’s. We look out toward the east to San Giorgio Maggiore. This is an iconic view of Venice, to be sure, and has been depicted by centuries of artists. Will you add to the visual conversation that we intend to present in class and in person from this exact spot?

The image uses a photograph from Paolo de Faveri, a comic style gondola by me and a watercolor by me, connected to an oil painting by Joseph William Mallory Turner. With the poster, we hope to communicate the variety of possibilities for the images of Venice. We also intend to imply that individual artistic responses to the city are numerous and that your voice can be added to what some think of as a visual din. This class is a pilgrimage to a place that has been so ingrained in our consciousness that some will say that it is not necessary to even go there to learn anything new. Dr. Dru and I say that the very act of traveling informs your life in profound ways and that no matter how many times you see an image of Venice, it is not the same as being there. Join us and find out for yourself. Imagine Venice and you!

PS. You can see more of Paolo’s photographs at his website listed on our blogroll.

I walked into our brand-new Swenson Center for the Social & Behavioral Sciences here at California Lutheran and saw our travel seminar poster standing in the lobby!  Yay! It feels great to see this trip slowly coming to life.

This fall we’ll be recruiting students for the course, and in spring we start the actual coursework. If you are thinking about going on the seminar, keep in mind that we’re looking for very responsible, mature students.  We want students who will get up and out of the palazzo on time for early-morning painting sessions, who can be trusted to do their “homework” (journaling, art, museum hunts) during the day when they’re left on their own, and who will show up sober and ready to participate in our evening discussions and/or excursions.  So come introduce yourself to us sometime this semester, and think about which professors or university staff members will vouch for your reliability when you apply for the class!

When I was in Venice for my sabbatical in 2006, one of my friends there, a smart and strong-minded woman named Marina, told me all about a woman who was trying become Venice’s first female gondolier but had been barred from the licensing process by the infamously tight boys’ club. No woman has been allowed into the gondoliers’ association since its founding in 1094.

Now another woman seems poised to break into that club — Giorgia Boscolo, 24, the daughter of a gondolier. She has passed the final exam in a 6-month, 400-hour gondoliering course and simply needs to pay for her license.

Living Venice reported last year about her entrance into the course:

According to the article in the Gazzettino, a procession of gondoliers present at the organizational seat made no secret of their opinion as to whether or not a woman should be allowed into the famous clan. It was the fist of Aldo Rosso, president of the Ente Gondola, slamming soundly on the table that got their attention.

“If you wanted the position reserved only for men, you should have said so before,” yelled Rosso, furious. “I am the one who conducts the admission and evaluation of the substitute gondoliers: according to the law it’s open to everyone, male and female. If a woman passed the test, it means she’s capable. Period.”

Congratulazioni, Giorgia, and good luck — it’s never easy for a woman trying to buck centuries of discrimination. Two other women were also enrolled in the course, but they did not pass their final exams. One can only  hope that they try again and succeed, so that she has some support on the canals.

For the record, the first woman to make this attempt — the one that Marina was telling me about — was Alexandra Hai, a German woman. She failed to pass her exam three times, began private gondoliering for a hotel, was fined for it, but won the case on appeal, according to the Telegraph.

Personally, I’m hoping that the ever-contemplative Commissario Guido Brunetti will mull this over in the next novel from Donna Leon.

Photo Credit: REUTERS