)(( hannah mello ))(

Forgetting the Why. /|

I remember the day in Naples... the day in Modena... I remember the day in New York City that I decided to paint.
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Naples, Italia (Fall 2005): Danielle and Josh Fox had given me a travel case of paints and brushes for my going away gift. I was walking up the steep steep hillside of Via Orazio in the section of Napoli called Mergellina. I was out of breath from the hill and the FAST walk since I was late to teach 10 roudy, spoiled rich kids in a house there. But teaching that one hour in Mergellina every Wednesday was so worth it. THE VIEW. I took photos of that view almost EVERY WEEK. The view of Vesuvio and Castel Dell'Ovo and all the strata of Chiaia and Vomero and the edges of Centro Storico. MY HEART. <>

Anyway :) ... the art part. >> so there on that hill in Mergellina, there were discarded scraps of molding. I put them into my bag. Garbage on the sidewalk basically. Gold to me. :)

Walking home from the train that day, I also found a few great pieces of cardboard-- large, flat, and clean. The art could begin. I did a small work with one of the pieces of molding. Then as a result of, serendipitously, intersecting with an Australian guy named Guy in Assisi that next January, he painted an Australian brush fire on another piece of the molding. One night that Spring, some stream-of-consciousness writing/poetry burst from me. I ended up penning and collaging it out on the cardboard. Art in Napoli. :) Plus, the birth of photography, truly. It all started Day 1 of waltzing around Napoli...

(The photo below is of me and my Aussie housemate Bianca taking in Vesuvio from the seaside rocks days before we departed from Napoli)

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Modena, Italia (Fall 2006): My Italian/British housemate Sofia could tell something was amiss. I had felt restless for weeks and was intellectually and emotionally FULL. We were walking in the tiny tiny tiny streets behind our piazza and found a little art shop. My eyes lit up as I looked at the canvases. What ensued were 2 art pieces on flat, board-stretched canvas.

Somehow I was able to put my intersection with Modena on "paper". And, I sketched for the first time. I sketched the Ghirlandina (the tower of the Duomo) outside my kitchen and hallway windows-- 2 perspectives. Those sketches were in one of the works completed that year in Modena.
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New York, NY (Fall 2007): I was working at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. I had a lot of people time. Walking from corner to corner of the museum lobby talking to each of the different security guards that were rotating on post. Talking about their cultures, their thoughts, their families, their dreams. Sitting behind the desk and talking with Adam and Fanny, Martha and Ashur, and Gerard in the coat check. At night, I would walk to the train, take it underneath the Hudson to Jersey, wait for the Light Rail, take it home to Garfield Avenue and walk up the steep ravine to my Jersey House where James and Nate would be chilling or playing video games or cooking.

I felt so much stirring... The stirring of an understanding. Understanding how Italy and America were tied together in my experience... Understanding humanity and how we all are wired... Starting to see how we're all alike in so many ways. Starting to see the grand scheme of all that I'd trekked through the last 2+ years... And so I found it. Dick Blick. Art Superstore. It was adjacent to Bond No. 9-- my FAVORITE perfumerie that ever will exist. I blogged about it here. (Little did I know that I would live in that very neighborhood 4 months later...!) So, I bought 3 canvases, paints, and an easel and brought them to my little tiny NJ room. I knew that all 3 would be 1 work-- a painting in 3 parts; 3 canvases.

I had never taken so long to paint. I took TIME to layer and think through what I wanted to put to canvas. I moved those canvases and supplies with me to my big and beautiful West Village apartment in the City that Spring. I continued to thoughtfully work on them. I actually hung 2 of the 3 canvases, still unfinished themselves, on the wall above my fireplace. To this day, the work is unfinished. The week before I left NYC, I started the beginning layer of the 3rd canvas... they all 3 sit in a box on my parents' Santa Cruz porch... waiting to be finished. Their theme is symbolic of that however. I'm not surprised. It's right and fitting that it is so.

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Santa Cruz (Fall 2008): Shortly after moving into Carol's 303 Aptos House in September, I found a massive canvas on clearance outside of Palace Arts in Capitola. It was punctured, but who cares when it's cheap :). I started a painting of a tree. It, also unfinished, hangs above my head on the wall as I write this.
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Now (February 2009): Over the last week, I've been working on a graphic design project. It's been invigorating. A non-work challenge. A chance to mess around with InDesign and Photoshop off the clock. A chance to do whatever I want creatively. But it's controlled. The theme = given . The symbols manipulated = predictable.

Tonight, I saw Clint for a bit after work. He has been encouraging me to carve space and margin in my life to do art and music-- discipline that I have been wanting and craving to develop for long-term Life health and balance. I was sharing about how I felt emotional tonight and didn't feel able to paint... being too full of feeling to do art.

He deflected my words back at me in a sarcastic and dry humor tone: "Yeah, cause you shouldn't do art when you could actually communicate what you're feeling. Totally understood. Art should be something strategically planned and thought out. You really shouldn't just sit down and create what comes to you, no, that's a waste of time. You're right."

I always forget. It's ridiculous but true. I forget that why Art is beautiful and needed is because it's an unexpected expressing mechanism. It's just like vocal chords or a pot on the stove. It's a way to put form to feeling. To put substance before the eyes and the senses. I forget. I'm an idiot for forgetting, but I do.

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A toast. A toast to experiences - to LIFE, real life - that provokes emotion, thought, and action.

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P.S. Ironically, the painting that I did tonight (it will be a 2-canvas work) is symbolic of making intellectual connections. :)

posted by )(( hannah mello ))( @ 9:47 PM