I had known Silvana because young hopeful artists talked about her as "The Gallerist". It was 1996 and i had heard about the DEA association from many people because it was associated with the University. Infact Silvana was working in the university administration but she had been working on her social center for some years and would open galleries whenever she could. I met silvana on and off . Once she had opened a gallery called Utopia in via degli Alfani, and it was run by women. Silvana gave everyone a chance. Once she had paintings by mentally ill people who where there on the spot .... in later years in Paris i discovered Art Brut or Outsider Art but at the time i thought she was being very adventurous in her choices. She had a lot of people from other countries exhibiting in her galleries , but she tried to give everyone a space even brief periods. Her husband Fabio was totally supporting and participating in her interest in providing a social center for the community.
In 1998 i had had an exhibit in her brand new space in Borgo Pinti in the August and September .... these were the months when a lot of people went on holiday. Here i got to know a turkish caricaturist and BD comic artist and Gonul a woman artist also from Turkey who did small bronze statues. I wondered why Silvana had these convictions. He parents came to the center once in a while. She resembed her father a lot because they both had smiling blue eyes. He had worked for the railways .... that , explained a lot of her dedication to the social work she did for free.
I had had my first exhibit in the Spazio Uno cinema. At that point my friends were all the people who studied in the History of Art Library in via della Pergola. I had met Lucilla and Laura who were born and brought up in Florence ... they were both in their mid twenties. While there had been no boys at the language and literature course here there was Marco Testa who wanted to be a painter and talked a lot about his paintings because he had all of Art history to back him up. Another young man was from sicily and was always ready with a good humoured remark. People studying Art History had to know about all the churches and all the art work in them, plus the various layers of history .... it was an enormous amount of work and information. They had to be serious and dedicated. I felt as if i had hit a gold mine of real intellects and Lucilla was a great supporter of my artistic efforts. Some how in this traditional school even being Creative seemed to pass under the male dominion. And I was happy to have a supporter.
I was going to this library because of two exams i had to prepare .... but the friendship of these young -er people had made me hope that i could finally make something out of my real interest which was Creativity and Painting . Lucilla invited the whole group to dinner one night to her parents villa type house just outside of Florence. Here we met her parents, she was an only child and we discovered her mother who was an expert tailor and had worked in the Fashion world and now made clothes for her only daughter. Infact Lucilla always looked like she was worth a million dollars because she had very nice clothes .... that was Love she was wearing. Her parents weren t rich but had this lovely place with a garden around it,
At the time i had shaved my hair because i lost a lot of hair due to the stressful life i was leading and thank goodness i could pass off for a wierd artistic type. Lucilla's mother was nice about it and said i looked trendy ! Lucilla's father was a teacher .... at the time there had been an earthquake in Iran and her parents asked me about it. Earthquakes seem to be one thing that "humble" people in their attitude towards others, that quocient of "the unexpected hanging on life" becomes a wisdom you carry about with you .... Perhaps I should have said that i shaved off all my hair as a sign of mourning for the people in those villages..... otherwise some people would think that i was a sort of Butch woman who was flaunting her masculinity. Infact one of Lucilla's friends who was a very handsome young man came out saying : "you must be gay otherwise you wouldnt do this to your hair!" It is true that i would never have dared to shave my hair off in my own country .....
Marco testa had a girlfriend who was 32 (while he was 26) everyone wondered about it. He had a booming voice and would come out with his theories about art and everything else and i felt "hey something good may happen here! because we have some people who believe !"
In 98 i had met another believer who was called Eric and he was Sarina 's boyfriend from Arizona. A young American with expensive taste, he had an Atelier close to the Santo Spirito square. It was were all the artists wanted to hang out. There was the Cecil Graves Art school which was on via Santo Spirito and a lot of students from the school lived in the area. This was also where a lot of Artisans lived and worked. Sarina lived in a room in an appartment rented by Marco Pardini who was a professional photographer. She lived with him for many years until she bought her appartment in the same area. Eric was a Mormon who had moved to La and SanFrancisco in search of an Artist's life. he had seduced Sarina with speeches about Space ships and interplanetry visions. Eric would have this vision of the future .... it was as if he knew what was going to happen next. i had followed his vision when in the summer of 98 i went looking for an Atelier just like the one he had found. I was having an exhibit at Silvana's gallery in Borgo Pinti and walking in the area, i had found a place i liked near Piazza dei Ciompi but it had been too expensive (and i didnt have money anyway!) . I found a notice on the door at number 34 in via Fiesolana. This was the same place where i had had dinner with Gigi and Francesca some years ago!
The doors of heaven had opened for me and i could now say that i had an Atelier in Florence just like Eric. Fortunately i had sold some paintings at the gallery in Borgo Pinti and Patrizia had helped me by lending me some money so i could pay the first rent for the shop front.
I had spent some time in a tent in the camping and some time at Sarina and Marco's place in Piazza Santo Spirito. It had a window right infront of the facade of the church. Some months ago i had been living in Sesto where Lorenzo had left me the use of his appartment because he was travelling and wasnt there. Now i could move into my own place in via Fiesolana. The owner was a lawyer and he had been generous in his terms of rent. Eventho the place didnt have water, i was overjoyed by finding just what i needed.
By the time the exibit at Silvana's gallery in Borgo Pinti was finished i had met a lot of people. Paola Antichi was one of the people who had commissioned a picture of her dog Rocco. Like Francesca, Paola too was living in via della Pergola. We spent xmas at her appartment celebrating with her friend. She is one of the first collectors who bought my Ponte Vecchio watercolours. For the six years i spent in my Atelier, I went on to produce many of these "variations on the theme of the Old Bridge ". probably some hundreds which i sold though other shops and my own shop front. In the work shop i had other women mainly Arab women wearing a head scarf and with children who came and helped me during the day. My highest achievement in this period was when Vaheeba who was a young mother would bring her months old baby to work and would say to me that she had been able to put food on the table (from this work) for the family while her husband had been looking for work. Rula too was another assistant who came and stayed in the work shop with her children.
Roberta was one of the people living across the big court yard in a big historical building which gave onto via dei Pepi. This building complex had one door on via fiesolana and another door in via dei Pepi and there was a terrace which connected my window in the courtyard to Roberta's terrace. It had been very nice of Roberta to invite me for a coffee at her gorgeous appartment. She had turned up at the door and was curious about what i was doing .... she told me that she had frescoes in her front hall which resembled those in Palazzo Medici Riccardi. She had invited me to see them. I was very flattered that she had overlooked the way i dressed and had been very tolerant in accepting me as i was .... people were very picky about the way your "look".
I had done a lot of work on the door trying to mpake it look arty. luckily there was an english library selling second hand books "Paper Back Exchange" on top of the street and a lot of young people walked past my shop front going to this book shop.
Roberta taught Italian to Young American students. It was so nice of her to come and visit me in the shop. This encouraged other ladies to come and visit. Some of these ladies would come up to my shop and ask me what i was doing. My Art was not a style they were used to . I called it "The naive Style" and at the time it did have a market. Some of these women who came to visit were about a hundred years old but would still go walking to the shops to buy bread or other things from the fruit and veg market at San Ambrogio. There were a lot of architecture students living in the appartments on the other floors on top of my shop. Then there was the appartment next door where GiGi used to live which was now occupied by two girls from Brazil, one of whom was a dancer. My brother had come visiting me for xmas and new year celebrating the year 2000, we had both wished that we could have rented that space next door, but we couldnt afford it. People used to think that i wouldnt survive more than a year or two, but the shop went on till 2005 thanks to the help of some of the people i knew. My mother who had money didnt invest in what i had created.
I thought i had done my duty to my family by finishing my studies. I had also done an exhibit after achieving my university degree at the "Libreria delle Donne" the women's library and had left a table there for them as a souvenir. Even tho people didnt come up the via Fiesolana unless they wanted to go to the garage infront of my shop front or if they wanted to visit the Jewish Temple i still had clients who found me .
In 1998 i had had an exhibit in her brand new space in Borgo Pinti in the August and September .... these were the months when a lot of people went on holiday. Here i got to know a turkish caricaturist and BD comic artist and Gonul a woman artist also from Turkey who did small bronze statues. I wondered why Silvana had these convictions. He parents came to the center once in a while. She resembed her father a lot because they both had smiling blue eyes. He had worked for the railways .... that , explained a lot of her dedication to the social work she did for free.
I had had my first exhibit in the Spazio Uno cinema. At that point my friends were all the people who studied in the History of Art Library in via della Pergola. I had met Lucilla and Laura who were born and brought up in Florence ... they were both in their mid twenties. While there had been no boys at the language and literature course here there was Marco Testa who wanted to be a painter and talked a lot about his paintings because he had all of Art history to back him up. Another young man was from sicily and was always ready with a good humoured remark. People studying Art History had to know about all the churches and all the art work in them, plus the various layers of history .... it was an enormous amount of work and information. They had to be serious and dedicated. I felt as if i had hit a gold mine of real intellects and Lucilla was a great supporter of my artistic efforts. Some how in this traditional school even being Creative seemed to pass under the male dominion. And I was happy to have a supporter.
I was going to this library because of two exams i had to prepare .... but the friendship of these young -er people had made me hope that i could finally make something out of my real interest which was Creativity and Painting . Lucilla invited the whole group to dinner one night to her parents villa type house just outside of Florence. Here we met her parents, she was an only child and we discovered her mother who was an expert tailor and had worked in the Fashion world and now made clothes for her only daughter. Infact Lucilla always looked like she was worth a million dollars because she had very nice clothes .... that was Love she was wearing. Her parents weren t rich but had this lovely place with a garden around it,
At the time i had shaved my hair because i lost a lot of hair due to the stressful life i was leading and thank goodness i could pass off for a wierd artistic type. Lucilla's mother was nice about it and said i looked trendy ! Lucilla's father was a teacher .... at the time there had been an earthquake in Iran and her parents asked me about it. Earthquakes seem to be one thing that "humble" people in their attitude towards others, that quocient of "the unexpected hanging on life" becomes a wisdom you carry about with you .... Perhaps I should have said that i shaved off all my hair as a sign of mourning for the people in those villages..... otherwise some people would think that i was a sort of Butch woman who was flaunting her masculinity. Infact one of Lucilla's friends who was a very handsome young man came out saying : "you must be gay otherwise you wouldnt do this to your hair!" It is true that i would never have dared to shave my hair off in my own country .....
Marco testa had a girlfriend who was 32 (while he was 26) everyone wondered about it. He had a booming voice and would come out with his theories about art and everything else and i felt "hey something good may happen here! because we have some people who believe !"
In 98 i had met another believer who was called Eric and he was Sarina 's boyfriend from Arizona. A young American with expensive taste, he had an Atelier close to the Santo Spirito square. It was were all the artists wanted to hang out. There was the Cecil Graves Art school which was on via Santo Spirito and a lot of students from the school lived in the area. This was also where a lot of Artisans lived and worked. Sarina lived in a room in an appartment rented by Marco Pardini who was a professional photographer. She lived with him for many years until she bought her appartment in the same area. Eric was a Mormon who had moved to La and SanFrancisco in search of an Artist's life. he had seduced Sarina with speeches about Space ships and interplanetry visions. Eric would have this vision of the future .... it was as if he knew what was going to happen next. i had followed his vision when in the summer of 98 i went looking for an Atelier just like the one he had found. I was having an exhibit at Silvana's gallery in Borgo Pinti and walking in the area, i had found a place i liked near Piazza dei Ciompi but it had been too expensive (and i didnt have money anyway!) . I found a notice on the door at number 34 in via Fiesolana. This was the same place where i had had dinner with Gigi and Francesca some years ago!
The doors of heaven had opened for me and i could now say that i had an Atelier in Florence just like Eric. Fortunately i had sold some paintings at the gallery in Borgo Pinti and Patrizia had helped me by lending me some money so i could pay the first rent for the shop front.
I had spent some time in a tent in the camping and some time at Sarina and Marco's place in Piazza Santo Spirito. It had a window right infront of the facade of the church. Some months ago i had been living in Sesto where Lorenzo had left me the use of his appartment because he was travelling and wasnt there. Now i could move into my own place in via Fiesolana. The owner was a lawyer and he had been generous in his terms of rent. Eventho the place didnt have water, i was overjoyed by finding just what i needed.
By the time the exibit at Silvana's gallery in Borgo Pinti was finished i had met a lot of people. Paola Antichi was one of the people who had commissioned a picture of her dog Rocco. Like Francesca, Paola too was living in via della Pergola. We spent xmas at her appartment celebrating with her friend. She is one of the first collectors who bought my Ponte Vecchio watercolours. For the six years i spent in my Atelier, I went on to produce many of these "variations on the theme of the Old Bridge ". probably some hundreds which i sold though other shops and my own shop front. In the work shop i had other women mainly Arab women wearing a head scarf and with children who came and helped me during the day. My highest achievement in this period was when Vaheeba who was a young mother would bring her months old baby to work and would say to me that she had been able to put food on the table (from this work) for the family while her husband had been looking for work. Rula too was another assistant who came and stayed in the work shop with her children.
Roberta was one of the people living across the big court yard in a big historical building which gave onto via dei Pepi. This building complex had one door on via fiesolana and another door in via dei Pepi and there was a terrace which connected my window in the courtyard to Roberta's terrace. It had been very nice of Roberta to invite me for a coffee at her gorgeous appartment. She had turned up at the door and was curious about what i was doing .... she told me that she had frescoes in her front hall which resembled those in Palazzo Medici Riccardi. She had invited me to see them. I was very flattered that she had overlooked the way i dressed and had been very tolerant in accepting me as i was .... people were very picky about the way your "look".
I had done a lot of work on the door trying to mpake it look arty. luckily there was an english library selling second hand books "Paper Back Exchange" on top of the street and a lot of young people walked past my shop front going to this book shop.
Roberta taught Italian to Young American students. It was so nice of her to come and visit me in the shop. This encouraged other ladies to come and visit. Some of these ladies would come up to my shop and ask me what i was doing. My Art was not a style they were used to . I called it "The naive Style" and at the time it did have a market. Some of these women who came to visit were about a hundred years old but would still go walking to the shops to buy bread or other things from the fruit and veg market at San Ambrogio. There were a lot of architecture students living in the appartments on the other floors on top of my shop. Then there was the appartment next door where GiGi used to live which was now occupied by two girls from Brazil, one of whom was a dancer. My brother had come visiting me for xmas and new year celebrating the year 2000, we had both wished that we could have rented that space next door, but we couldnt afford it. People used to think that i wouldnt survive more than a year or two, but the shop went on till 2005 thanks to the help of some of the people i knew. My mother who had money didnt invest in what i had created.
I thought i had done my duty to my family by finishing my studies. I had also done an exhibit after achieving my university degree at the "Libreria delle Donne" the women's library and had left a table there for them as a souvenir. Even tho people didnt come up the via Fiesolana unless they wanted to go to the garage infront of my shop front or if they wanted to visit the Jewish Temple i still had clients who found me .
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