PhammerHead Chronicles

Firenze being the first major trip for the group and also as field trip for professor Michelle’s course, had us on a tour of one of the most wonderful cities in Italy. Not only was the city absolutely beautiful and a well-established place for fine leathers but also remained as a host to one of the most historical museums in the world. How so you ask ? well Florence holds the Uffizi Gallery (or in Italian, Galleria degli Uffizi) which is one of the oldest and most famous art museums of the Western world. Today, the Uffizi is one of the most popular tourist attractions of Florence and when in demand, waiting times can be up to five hours !! (luckily, we went at a time when it wasn’t so busy and reserved our tickets in advanced). Also, Firenze takes host to one of the most famous statues in the world with the statue of David, which is a Renaissance sculpture created between 1501 and 1504, by an Italian artist by the name of Michelangleo (as can be seen in the third picture). It was crazy to see how different a statue looks in real life as opposed to viewing it from pictures. Like for instant not only could you see the impressive curvings made from the stone but also the actual marks on the back of the statue from when Michelangleo wanted to destroy it, thinking it wasn’t good enough and the people had to stop him (which I thought was really cool).

As you can see with the fourth picture, the museum hosts some very amazing and historical art work (unfortunately there was very enforced rule about taking photos in the museum, but I just thought this painting was so amazing that I obviously had to take a quick catch). What impressed me most about this painting was it was by a woman by the name of Artemisia Gentileschi where she was the first known woman painter in the renaissance (which was extremely rare) but unfortunately had been more known for being raped and treated horribly, which you can just feel and grasp in the efforts of her amazing painting.

Also, in the last photo, you will see a picture of us at the Hard rock cafe (which I have never been before) and with the family about to enjoy a really amazing dinner (where I had this absolutely scrumptious burger that filled me up for days lol).

So in this blog, I will be detailing about my schools first big Italian culture project where we would be invited among other artists to participate in decorating a big piece of metal, shaped in the form of a black sheep. The purpose of this assignment was to display to the community what we viewed of the “black sheep” (which is a common reference in Italy for a sheep, person, or thing that sticks out from the others/common norm).

What we decided, was to wrap the metal black sheep in bandage wraps as if the sheep is naturally white and we engulfed the bandages in a fire burning substance so that when we were to light the sheep it would begin to be covered in flames and transform into what would become the black sheep.

The purpose in which we believed is that the black sheep is a representation of all of us, laying dormant inside us waiting to burst out. Ideally, the black sheep is the one sheep unwilling to conform with the others and ultimately ascend past the common normality and stay true to it’s original self. Not going to lie, I thought this was a pretty cool project and as you can see with some of the pictures, many other artists did some pretty cool things with their attempt at the black sheep (but obvs ours was the coolest as everyone gathered around for the lighting of the flames muahah).

Ps. In this event we were also treated to a great Italian dinner and as you can see in the final picture, the “house family” is enjoying a nice Italian rich dinner served fresh with some very fine wine 😉 .