It was two weekends back, in fact the weekend of the changing of the light, although you would have never have guessed it. For weeks beforehand I had imagined sunny skies, and Italian weather forecasts promised just that, but instead.........it rained......and rained
When I was a kid I had a sort of
conceptual dyslexia. I must confess that I have never ever heard of
such a condition but I had it, have it still sometimes.
Examples.You can't have your cake and eat it' my mother would say. And I
would look at a piece of cake and eat it at the same time and just
didn't get it. and 'Save your pennies and the pounds will look after
themselves' lost completely there. Riddles were beyond me so I guess I sunk
myself instead into the mystery of imagery instead as a way of confirming my frail existence
Oh, and worst of all 'It never rains
but it pours' that threw me too.
Still does.
So, two weekends back I ran a workshop in
Venice entitled Photography and the Creative Mind' Yes, it was about
exploring simultaneously the labyrinths of this wondrous City and the labyrinths of the human creative mind. Heady stuff you might say and I'd get the
joke.
I watched the weather forecast daily during the week beforehand and what was promised as a 'sunny weekend' went from 'occasional shower's to 'heavy intermittent showers', to 'overcast with rain and occasional sunshine' And neither of these eventuated. Ok, it's true, if you know anything about Italian weather forecasts, you'd know they are Ceaușescusque. And the whole weekend turned out to be what Californians call a weather bomb. 96 hours of not stop rain. In other words it rained and it poured (with rain).
I watched the weather forecast daily during the week beforehand and what was promised as a 'sunny weekend' went from 'occasional shower's to 'heavy intermittent showers', to 'overcast with rain and occasional sunshine' And neither of these eventuated. Ok, it's true, if you know anything about Italian weather forecasts, you'd know they are Ceaușescusque. And the whole weekend turned out to be what Californians call a weather bomb. 96 hours of not stop rain. In other words it rained and it poured (with rain).
A disaster you might think, but not so. The fact was that the City was practically washed clean of tourists, and
it glistened. The light was a pure photographer's light and our night
time photography ventures produced some remarkable images. So, I might
dare to say that 'Every cloud has a silver lining' (and I think that means
that there is always something good to find even in the midst of a
seeming disaster).
Does it?
Does it?
So I was happy with the weekend and
encouraged by the way the participants worked on their imagery (they
all brought their laptops) and whenever we returned to base, they shared
their work and encouraged each other. And this is why am including photography in our next workshop in May in Assisi, combining it with painting and poetry to see what happens. And want happens, you know,
is always unpredictable and thank heavens for that.
This workshop, by the way is entitled 'The Tango of Creativity'
An unusual title for a somewhat unusual
workshop.
We ran our first one last summer is Assisi, Italy, where
Michelle Rumney and I organised an explorative weekend in image making, one which included all sorts of side shows and tactical diversions,
such as Ci Kung, Haiku, playful mind games and sorties into the
beautiful surrounding landscape and into Assisi itself to open our
eyes and minds to the work of Giotto.
Our simple objective was to empty the
chattering minds of our participants and guide them gently into the
Realm of Creativity, to see, hear, feel the reality of the moment
of now, where of course our creativity awaits us.
And we produced a massive amount of
paintings, wrote Haikus by the dozen, and this year, as I have
mentioned above, we are going to put photography into the mix too.
There! That's what I mean by unusual.
And the Tango?
This just happened serendipitously.
One of the participants, Mauro
Magrini (he's Florentine, a photographer), after our sumptuous dinner one evening put on some
Argentinian Tango music and started to teach us the steps. I can't
explain why, but we got hooked and soon were sailing around our
beautiful studio to these haunting sounds.
I think it has something to do with the
fact that learning the steps are the key to the door of a temple of
dance; that maybe all forms of creativity are like this, that the accumulation of skills runs simultaneously alongside creative
expression, that they are not in any way separated.
Our venue is La Casa Faustina, a remarkable place.
It is only 7k from Assisi, in the hills to the West of the city. It
has the most beautiful huge studio and bright clean apartments, a
large swimming pool and a brilliant chef who sustains us with her
Italian vegetarian cuisine
And we welcome you to our next workshop
weekend in May 11 to 15
You can read more about Assisi here
Michael
