Archive for October, 2011

For cat lovers.

Cortona is crowded with cats!

I’ve seen
cats on rooftops,
cats on top of cars ,
cats underneath cars (sleeping),
cats in shops,
cats in churches,
cats in my garden,
cats in the park,
cats on window ledges,
cats at the kindergarten,
cats in restaurants,
cats in bathrooms,
cats on kitchen tops,
cats on office desks
and
I think I saw a cat wandering around in the local museum,
I’m also pretty sure I saw the ghost of Emily, my ex cat.
I once caught a cat giving me the evil eye,

but the best ever
was the faithful one:

Jesus, Mary and the cat..

 

 

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Tourists and Locals.

Lately I keep noticing the difference between tourists and locals:
the first walk with their heads up, the second heads down.

But we should always look up!
There’s always something new to discover, even if we’ve been in that place a thousand times.

Curiosity is life.

Cortona...up above.

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The art of shaping.


Antonio Massarutto is an artist from Northern Italy.
An all-round sculptor, he moves easily from one material to another. Lines and forms play a crucial role in his universe.
But his true inclination is to investigate materials, whether stone, marble, wood, clay or metal, in order to reveal their hidden soul.
This quest has brought him to Tuscany, the cradle of man’s cultural heritage and an area with a centuries-old artistic tradition,
and so an ideal place to pursue his art.

In the vicinity of Cortona Antonio discovered ideal locations for finding materials to sculpt: the numerous local pietra serena (sandstone) quarries, travertine marble near the spa town of Rapolano Terme, clay in the nearby Siena hills or Crete as they are known, and noble marble from Carrara. His knowledge of three-dimensional arts has inspired him in creating stunning jewellery.

In Arezzo, one of Italy’s major areas for gold working, he began collaborating as a designer with major companies, at the same time learning the latest goldsmith’s techniques. In a short time Antonio had gathered the secrets of the great Arezzo gold working tradition of ancient Etruscan origin. From lost-wax casting of metals such as gold, silver and bronze (a technique very similar to that used by the Etruscans in ancient times), the designer creates forms and concepts that are closer to artworks, particularly to contemporary sculpture.

For your special gifts, the artist’s showrooms are located in
via Nazionale and in via Guelfa, Cortona.

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Scents and scenes.

 

Piazza della Repubblica. Cortona.
Late September morning.

I walk through the square,
sunny stone all around,
chatty tables outside “Bar Cristallo”,
the clock tower  is watching over:
our old men
sitting on benches
talking about weather and bones;
tourists walking, admiring, taking pictures, laughing…
they have the “I’m so lucky to be here” look over their faces.

Suddenly:
an amazingly strong scent of red wine pervades the square.
Deliciously unexplainable.
A dream?

No, in the middle of the square I see
a man picking up the rests of three bottles of wine
from the ground.
(Cheeky plastic bags!)

With a big smile and an “I don’t mind, because I’m happy” look on his face
he elegantly reaches the nearest trash can
holding his wasted “souvenirs” he had just bought in the Piazza.

Life is a play.

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