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”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”
Another update from Cortona under quarantine, late April – mid May.
Continue reading “Saluti da Cortona, part II”We’ve received dozens of messages from our friends and the UGA Cortona family, urgently asking for news about how this much-beloved city is faring in the time of the Coronavirus.
Continue reading “Saluti da Cortona”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.
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.
On the Frecciargento from Venezia to Firenze
