Agri Tourismo Italy
Favorite Activities: Volleyball, music, theater, politics, playing the piano and guitar, singing, beating people at Scrabble, making a scene, drinking copious amounts of alcohol.
Me and Abdul at MBA prom
Favorite Music: Hippie music, jazz and rap…. including by not limited to: Miles Davis, Stevie Wonder, String Cheese Incident, Ben Harper, Journey, John Coltrane, Aretha Franklin, old-school Madonna, Dre and Snoop, Digital Underground, Prince, Rolling Stones, CSNY, and whatever decent R&B/rap/pop is in the top 40…
Me and Jena after my first half-marathon
TV Shows: Family Guy, The Office, Flight of the Conchords, bad reality TV, The Price Is Right, specials on Discovery. I watch the real news but prefer the fake news on Daily Show.
Playing in the snow!
Movies: Princess Bride, High Fidelity, anything Quentin Tarantino, Igby Goes Down, The Piano, Transamerica, Fargo, Zoolander, Lost in Translation, Y Tu Mama Tambien, The Boiler Room, Apollo 13, Little Miss Sunshine, No Country for Old Men
Mike and me!
Books: All time favorites: A Prayer for Owen Meany-John Irving, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius-Dave Eggers, anything by David Sedaris, White Teeth-Zadie Smith, The God of Small Things-Arundhati Roy, anything Robert Hass or Anais NinRecent decent reads: American Nomads-Richard Grant, Freakonomics-Steven Levitt, A Million Little Pieces-James Frey, Saving Fish From Drowning-Amy Tan, The Glass Castle-Jannette Walls
Me and Jena!
5 things most people don’t know about me: I used to work on a go-kart pit crew, I’ve run two half-marathon, I was the bassist/lead vocalist for an amazingly mediocre all-chick band, I am terrified of ladders, and I used to play rugby – grrr!
Beau and me!
Things to do before I die: Run a marathon, compete in a triathlon, get my MBA, travel to Asia and Africa, become an astronaut
Me and Amanda!
Favorite vacations: Sailing in the BVIs, houseboating in Dale Hollow with the girls, ski trips and VEGAS!
Me and Alex at the Rathskeller beergarden!
Things that make me happy: Hanging out with friends, a good book, sleeping in, playing the piano, getting fancy pedicures
Me and Matt at Kacey's weddingThings that make me unhappy: People who walk slow
Go-Kart Pit Crew!
For about a year I had this growing feeling I really needed something to kick me in the ass and get me to a new level of technique and experience. I needed a group of highly motivated artists and a different learning environment. When I have a problem to solve my default mode is to research and read. At my local Little Professor's book store I found a copy of American Artist's Workshop magazine, Spring, 2008. It was filled with workshops to and beautiful photos. Just what I needed. At home in the evening reading about this workshop and that workshop I got to page 104 and there was the picture of a an artist painting the Tuscany landscape. All the way up to page 117 the article and picture captured my attention and interest. Two American artists, Maddine Insalaco and Joe Vinson had for the past 13 years ran several plein air workshops in and round Tuscany. The more I read and looked the more I became convinced that this was the one for me. I checked out their web site, http://www.landscapepainting.com/, sent them emails with lots of questions. This was a big decision for me. To leave home for about 6 weeks, pay a lot of money that I really couldn't afford to do, get involved with people I didn't know, perhaps make a total fool of myself and waste everyone's time and my money. Doubt, indecision, late middle age crisis, it was all there. But I did it anyway. I enrolled, sent money, bought plane tickets, got new paints, brushes, canvas board and push my way along. I made it. Other than a slight jet engine malfunction flying over France (it shook like a washing machine that is in spin cycle and out of balance). Got to Florence, took the train south to Buonconvento and found my hotel. I had dinner with Maddine and Joe the next evening and it was great cooking. I found out that in addition to teaching art during the spring and summer, they run a gourmet workshop in November when the white truffles are gathered. After tasting Maddine pasta I could see why it was always full. After all this is Tuscany and food and wine are king and queen here. The next day we picked up my fellow students at the train station and went to our bread and break farm, an agri tourismo, called La Ripolina. It a working farm estate, with sheep, vinyards, fields for crops plus lots of surplus peasant cottages. These beautiful field stone cottages dated from the 17th century and were also storage rooms, workshops, and stables. The manior house dated from the 15th and the abbey across the road from the 6th! This was where the first workshop called Open Air Fundamentals would be based out of. Here we would have our breakfast, sleep, evening art lectures but dinner would be in Buonconvento at Mario's. From Saturday on their was no let up. It was up at 7, breakfast at 8, painting by 9, lunch from 12 to 1:30 (it was gourmet too with fresh cheeses, fruits, salads, meats, and wine) back to painting till 5, rest till 7, lecture, than dinner, finally and gratefully sleep. Two to four works per day were expected. No scrappers or wipe out accepted. Everything was critiqued in the evening around 5 pm. Tough love and good advice. First we did value studies in charcoal, next in monochrome in oils with a knife. Then we went to compostion of the landscape in pensil and in oil, values and atmospheric perspective, lectures in the evening about Nature as a subject in Western Art and Technical aspects of landscape painting. The palette was limited to zine white, burnt umber, ultramarine blue, alizarin crimson, cad yellow light, chrome green, yellow ochre and burnt sienna. Landscape followed landscape in a blur, we got a break on Tuesday by a field trip to Siena to see the frecos of Ambrogio Lorenzeti in the Sala dei Nove at the Palazzo Pubblico. No pictures can be taken inside so be happy with building itself. Next day it was painting as usual. Maddine and Joe teaching style is a short demo and than go around observing and offering advice. They never took the brush from my hand and did it themselves. You learned to squint down, nail the values, simplify the composition. By Friday afternoon I was whipped but we got a break. A field trip and lunch in Montalcino. A mountain side town famous for its wine.
