GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING

When I was living in The Netherlands, the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague organised a major Johannes Vermeer Exhibition: 23 of his painting showing all together in one place. Many called back for the occasion from other collections and musea around the world.
Too good to be true. 
It lasted a few months, between March and June 1996 but tickets sold out so quickly I could not find one single opening and could not go.
What a disappointment that was. 

Now that I am back in my home town at 1283 km from The Hague, I was expecting everything but the opportunity to see Vermeer work arriving on my door step -well, kind of.  And yes, the Girl With a Pearl Earring will be showing -among other masterpieces- at Palazzo Fava. Exactly the painting I wanted to see so many years ago (not just that painting actually). Tickets started to sell very quickly again but this time I have booked one for me and one for Mr T. Yay!
I love when life surprises you like that.

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VERNICE

Hi! Here above some pictures of the exhibition where 6 works of mine are showing until tomorrow, at the Mediateca. In the poster I designed for it you can read the names of all people exhibiting with me, including my friend Stefania.

I take this opportunity to thank Mr T, my parents, my little one and the friends who joined us at the fine Vernissage and the ones who could not make it that evening but visited the show later on. Well done to all the others taking part to this, and a big thankyou to the photographer Simone Martinetto.
If you don't know his beautiful work yet, have a look here. I love his personal projects as well as his movie's backstage photography and the way he portraits actors. A lovely and interesting insight into the world of cinema I adore.
I am by the way happy to tell you I am joining Simone's next photography course, starting at the end of february.  

Here following 2 works exhibited from my series The absence.

*2013

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I AM A CHILD AGAIN {part II }

On my passion for Japan and a new world found.

It's 1978. I just came back from school, did through my satchel somewhere and rushed in front of television. I am waiting for my favorite tv serie, capable of making my heart pounding fast in my chest and touch my feelings.
At this very moment, nothing counts else than being here, not my skates, not my friends waiting playing in the court yard. If you could have a peek in my dreams, this is what you would see: I desperately wanted to be on a space flag ship called Arcadia.

It's a fact that all we are is made by our past experiences. In the same way, I believe our aesthetics sense it's created -slowly building up during the years- by all we have seen and liked, thousands of images, imputs, objects, films, places and things to which we are exposed to.
The passion for Japan I feel today runs deep. It originates a long time ago, maybe it started when I found a special book as I wrote here. Surely it also began when I fell in love with Captain Harlock, a fictional character created by manga artist Leiji Matsumoto.  

So imagine myself as a 11 years old girl, in a city in northern Italy, march 1968.
In those years it was no possible to get your hands on a real manga-a japanese comic.
But something else very interesting happened at the time: many series of Japanese animated film were broadcast on national television. Something completely new for us.
Initially -due to lack of understanding- Japanese cartoons, now called anime, were introduced as children programs but they were indeed stories written by adults for adults. As a result, parents often judged them too violent for kids and forbid them to watch it.
Anime were even considered poorly drawn by an audience who confronted them with traditional animations by Disney. What superficiality!
First of all it was no point to compare tv animated production with cinema productions (think of different budjet and technique). Most importantly though, the deep sense behind that apparent violence was not caught. 

Generally created in about 52 episodes, Japanese anime were meant to be broadcast 1 episode per week and last for one year. They treated subject matter to which young kids were not normally exposed to. Subjects much more complex, interesting, compelling than the ones of the american cartoons of the time. Japanese anime depicted the difficulty of life, of growing up, relationship with fathers and sons, relationship with school, tutors, with society in such an new language that it had an enormous impact on young ones like me.

That is how I got to know about values such as lonelyness, courage, honor, respect for the enemy, the value of sacrifice oneself for a good cause or for a personal goal, things that I could not find such strongly explained -if at all explained- in other kids programs of the 1970's. As a matter of fact, the misunderstanding of the complex nature of these japanese animated series and consequently their daily massive appearance in kids tv hour, shaped me and many other kids of my generation. Japanese anime of the time became extremely influential for lots of us and definitely a major sources of inspiration for myself, for my drawing style and my aesthetics sense.

I used to watch nearly all Japanese animated series showing in those years. I remember distinct genres like mecha (robot machines controlled by people from the inside) and its Super Robot sub-genre such as UFO ROBOT GOLDRAKE, GUNDAM that I liked a lot. Or the series about the escapades of master thief Arsène Lupin III. This list could go on and on. My very best one -as the one of you reading this earlier post know- was CAPTAIN HARLOCK, the space pirate stoically fighting against totalitarian regimes.

I still own my old days black notebook completely filled with Harlock's self-adhesive stickers. One of my youth treasures I still like to browse from time to time.

{ images from 1 | 2 & 3 }

URBAN JUNGLE BLOGGERS #5

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|||                   || | | |||               |||                 |||||      ||              ||||||||||||||   Welcome to URBAN JUNGLE!
This year I am going to join Judith and Igor who decided to start this new Urban Jungle Bloggers year with a lot of fresh #urbanjungle inspiration from around the web. 

Today -like they did- I will also share the bloggers that inspires me, hoping in turns to inspire you as well.

+ BELLE FLEUR DE LIS  Lotte is a talented lacemaker and crocheter from Antwerp, who's love for plants is very inspiring to me. Every time I have a look at her blog, it's like entering a beautiful world where delicate flowers and beautiful plants are ever so present, taken care of and truly part of daily life. Wonderful green aesthetics that touches and stimulates my green heart.

picture from Belle Fleur de Lis

+ PIA JANE BIJKERS is stylist/photographer/author. Nature beautiful finds from the garden are so much part of her aesthetic. I loved her idea of an ever evolving wreath, that changes through different seasons.

picture from Pja Jane Bijkerk

+  In STRING GARDENS I found the most beautiful suspended greens. I wish I could have this fantastic jungle at home, don't you?

+ In STUDIO MEEZ among very beautiful things many plants make lovely appearance. Its a lovely and super inspiring blog.

picture from studio meez

+ In there I found this post and this one about a beautiful plant and stationery wonderland: pots and paper.I wish I could go there and swap some plants with t; Sanne Delcroix > Our Strange Nature  < Studio Meez > Lisa Kinoo < Hermine Van Dijck > Merlijne Marell.

Picture from Lisa Kinoo

This is all for today dear people.

Hope you enjoyed this voyage with me. Thank you Judith and Igor for having me on board and see you all next month with urbanjungle#6.

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Urban Jungle Bloggers is a monthly series initiated by 2 bloggers: Igor [Happy Interior Blog] and Judith [JOELIX.com]. Every month we share ideas to create an urban jungle through styling ideas, DIYs and green tips & tricks. You can find additional inspiration on our Urban Jungle Bloggers Pinterest board. Want to join? Use #urbanjungle on twitter and instagram. Or let us know and we'll send you a mini-kit with all details. Let's bring some green into our homes and blogs!

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EXHIBITION COMING UP

Hi everyone.
I'd like to introduce a photography exhibition showing the pictures taken in Simone Martinetto's photography courses. I have the pleasure to have designed the exhibition's invite/poster [you see above] as well as being one of the people exhibiting.


The exhition will be held in the Mediateca of San Lazzaro di Savena-BOlogna. If you are local, you are very welcome to pop by and say hi. 
It will be also a great opportunity to meet Simone himself: at 20:00 he'll have a brief talk about photography and show his great work.

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THE FOREST

I could not resist sharing few more pictures about our walks in the snowy pine tree forest of last week. Everything was so quiet, calm, sounds so soft, the air so fresh and crisp it cleared my thoughts. 

Can you spot my friend Stefania walking in there? It could well be Little Red Riding Hood's territory, don't you think?

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TODAY I AM A CHILD AGAIN {part I }

I am super happy as I am about to see Captain Harlock -the movie- with Mr T.
It will surely be an emotional|nostalgic moment for me, in facts Harlock was my favorite manga as soon I discover it, as a child, on television in 1978. 
Anyone in love with this fascinating space pirat out there?

I guess next movie friday appointment must be about him. Stay tuned.

{ images from 1 | 2 }

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WELCOME 2014

Christmas is over, time to put all decorations away in their boxes -something I don't like much, even though it signs the start of a new year/new times and this I do love.

I am in for a new fresh start. Hope the new year will bring exciting things along.

Happy 2014.

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INTO THE WOODS

Hello there! If some of you are wondering what happened to me, I did spend a great week with friends in the Apennines. We happily slid into the new year. I love winter, walks in the woods, nature and snow, so I felt very happy and lucky to be there.

Wishing you all lovely time and meet you again soon in january.

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