Another update from Cortona, winter 2020-21. This shit is getting old.
Continue reading “Saluti da Cortona, part IV”Saluti da Cortona, part IV
Category: News
Vita longa, ars brevis
And after everything, they decided not to build the parking garage at all.
Aminah Robinson Artist Residency
My friend Jane Acri in Columbus, Ohio, alerted me earlier this year to the wonderful fact that Aminah Robinson’s former home in Columbus would be preserved for use as an artist residency space for African American artists, thanks to the good work of the Columbus Foundation, the Columbus Museum of Art, and the Greater Columbus Arts Council. Now, the renovation is finished and the house is ready for its first resident, artist Johnathan Payne.
Continue reading “Aminah Robinson Artist Residency”Saluti da Firenze
I needed to carry some documents to Florence on Thursday – it was the first time I had been on a train since the beginning of March, before the lockdown.
Continue reading “Saluti da Firenze”Saluti da Cortona, part III
Saluti da Cortona, part II
Another update from Cortona under quarantine, late April – mid May.
Continue reading “Saluti da Cortona, part II”“A Street Called Home” Mural Is Demolished
Back in August I posted an article about how “my mural” was to be demolished. On September 16, 2019, the tear-down actually began, and a few days later some local residents and the media figured out what was going on, and finally then there was an outcry. Not enough of one to save the mural, however.
“A Street Called Home” Mural to be Demolished
I left my teaching job at the Columbus College of Art and Design and moved away from Columbus, Ohio in 2013, to take the position of Associate Director of the University of Georgia’s Cortona Studies Abroad program in Cortona, Italy. I have lived full-time in Italy for almost six years now, and have drifted out-of-touch with the goings-on in downtown Columbus. It was therefore a shock when my friend Fred Fochtman, a painter and art conservator who helped me restore the mural in 2013, messaged me to share the news of State Auto’s decision to demolish the warehouse on which the mural is painted, in order to build a parking garage.
Moving to Italy
After twelve great years at the Columbus College of Art and Design, I’m making a big change.
This summer I and my family will move to Cortona, Italy, where in August I will begin my new position as the Associate Director of the University of Georgia’s Cortona Studies Abroad program.
(Image copyright 2010 Kristine Schramer)
This position is the culmination of my longest-held professional goal: to work in the field of international education, where I can blend my knowledge of Italian culture and language with the making and teaching of art, and help young Americans realize their responsibilities as citizens of a larger world.
Italy has been my second home ever since I was a young child. My father, then an officer in the US Navy, was stationed in Naples twice, and my family resided there for a total of eight years. I have visited Italy regularly since then, and I am elated to be returning now as a permanent resident.
I have been committed to the transformative power of the study abroad experience in higher education since I was a student at The College of William & Mary, where my undergraduate studies included a life-changing summer in France. As a graduate student I participated in Indiana University’s Florence Program during the summer of 1996, and the following year I again traveled to Italy as an Associate Instructor of Drawing in the same program. I returned from Florence certain that in my career as an art educator, I wanted to be involved in international education.
As a faculty member at the Columbus College of Art & Design, I served on the Study Abroad Committee for many years, and in the fall of 2006 I led a group of CCAD students to the Italian island of Sardinia for the inaugural semester of the Institute for Italian and Sardinian Studies. There I taught Landscape Painting and Drawing and Independent Studio courses, and worked with the Institute’s directors on issues of student adjustment, housing, and health. During 2010 and 2011, I designed a two-week painting experience in Cortona, Italy for CCAD’s Continuing and Professional Studies program, in conjunction with the Centro di Studi Internazionali Baldassarre Castiglione in Arezzo.
My new position as Associate Director of the UGA Cortona program is the perfect confluence of my personal history, my professional experience, and my love of art and Italy. It is literally my dream job, and I can’t wait to begin.