Mid summer's night has come and gone here in the Sibillini mountains, a night when a strange and fascinating ancient ritual is repeated, where young men climb up to the top of Mt. Sibilla for a rendezvous with young maidens,whose beauty is a wonder to behold and whose powers of enchantment and seduction are befitting of the fairies or witches (which they secretly are).
And thus follows a night of revelling and love which leave our young men in a delirium of exhaustion, waking at sunrise to find that their beauteous maidens have vanished from the mountain top.
Legend has it that, unbeknown to the young men, the maidens were in fact fairy creatures, half human and half goat, with goats legs, and that this is why they disappear before the break of day, to avoid their treachery being discovered.
And that they, before the coming of the following summer, give birth to girls with goats legs who almost immediately, magically, grow to maturity and beauty to then practise their fairy like powers readying for the next mid summers night revels.
The old Nature religions still flourish in this part of Marche and I could tell many a tale of healers who would be first call for folks with wounds or sickness; amongst even doctors, judges, caribiniari, builders, farmers, whoever, even those who had a curse put upon them (myself included)
I write this, not because I want to scare you, but because I want to send a tingle of awe down your spine to prepare you for Cittadella our creativity playground beneath the majestic mountain of Vettore; to inspire those of you who are searching for that artist within which has been yearning to be reawakened, or indeed, for practising artists who might like the idea of working with others in this extraordinary part of Italy: And maybe to look at their art and life in a fresh context.
https://www.michaeleldridgestudio.com/workshops/
On the site above you can also find pages about my work and dozens of blogs I've written over the years of living here in Italy.
At the top left of each page there is a translation button to switch to Italian, should you wish
Sul sito sopra potete trovare anche pagine sul mio lavoro e decine di articoli che ho scritto durante gli anni trascorsi qui in Italia. In cima a ogni pagina รจ presente un pulsante di traduzione che permette di visualizzare il testo in italiano.
The workshop seminars and instructions are in English with a translator on board to translate simultaneously into Italian
I seminari e le lezioni si tengono in inglese, con un traduttore a bordo che traduce simultaneamente in italiano.
