The reason I haven't posted on this blog in a while...

... is because I have spent the entire week in our studio working on a book making project.  Our class split up into two groups with half creating giant drawings of Orvieto and the other half writing and designing a book about the city.  The goal was to create a book that is accordian folded so it can be hung vertically and viewed on both sides.  For the text of the book, we used photos of 'letters' that we found outside in Orvieto to make tiny, linoleum print stamps which we printed individually by hand onto the pages of our book.  Our stories had to be 1,001 characters long, so stamping was a very long process. 

Last night, we had an art show with members of the Orvieto community to present our work.  Here I am with my book.  I wrote my story about the cliffs surrounding Orvieto so the one side looks like a giant vertical cliff while the other side has more abstract, layered elements.  It is impossible to get a picture of the whole thing because a) it is two sided and b) it is 400 cm from top to bottom.  

Because the majority of the other students here are art majors, their drawings and other works were absolutely incredible.  Here is a snapshot of just part of our studio with their drawings displayed.  

Since we only take one class per month, on Monday I'll be starting a totally new class -- Poetry and Ekphrasis.  This class focuses on writing poetry that responds to art which will be just as much of a new experience for me as a drawing class.