The Three Little Pigs

This is a true story, proving how fascinating the mind of a six year old is.

They think so logically.

A teacher was reading the story of the Three Little Pigs to her class. She Came to the part of the story where first pig was trying to gather the building Materials for his home. She read . 'and so the pig went up to the man with the Wheelbarrow full of straw and said: 'Pardon me sir, but may I have some of that Straw to build my house?' The teacher paused then asked the class: 'And what do you think the man said?' One little boy raised his hand and said very matter-of-factly ...'I think the Man would have said -

'Well, I'll be damned!! A talking pig!'

The teacher had to leave the room.

The Space Between Us

Once the realization is accepted that even between
the closest human beings
infinite distances continue,
a wonderful living side by side can grow,
if they succeed in loving the distance between them
which makes it possible for each to see the other
whole against the sky. -Rainer Maria Rilke

We're Going to Cleveland Ohio

We are leaving in a few days for Cleveland Ohio. It's where my husband's family is from.

For about 30 years now I have travelled to this city to visit my in-laws and to get together with my husband's great, big italian family. It's always fun to visit. People often ask me what kinds of things do you do in Cleveland? I'd thought I'd share a few of these things I like to do. Well, you can visit downtown Cleveland, tour the historic Terminal Tower and shop in the stores within the terminal building. We make a special trip to the Italian deli store called Gallucci's: Gust Gallucci's is a complete Italian food market, located in Cleveland's Midtown Corridor, halfway between downtown Cleveland and University Circle. Started over 85 years ago by an Italian immigrant, Gust Gallucci, hungry for the food of his homeland, Gallucci's still sells a wide variety of Italian canned goods, fresh and cured meats, cheeses, wines, and many varieties of olives and a variety of hot foods, pizzas and yummy sandwiches. We especially love the fresh bakes loaves of pepperoni bread.

The Terminal Tower is a landmark skyscraper located on Public Square in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. It was built during the skyscraper boom of the 1920's and 1930's and was the second tallest building in the world when it was completed. The Terminal Tower stood as the tallest building in North Amercia outside of New York City from its completion in 1930 until 1964.

Crocker Park, Westlake Ohio
If you are in the suburbs near my in-laws home you can have a great time shopping and eating out at Crocker Park. This is a place my daughters like to come to spend some hours.

http://www.crockerpark.com/

You can place chess like this...


or like this...

Located on 75 tree-lined and beautifully landscaped acres at the intersection of Crocker and Detroit Roads in Westlake, Ohio. Crocker Park is one of the most exciting developments of its kind in the country. This $480 million project encompasses 12 city blocks and features a mixture of internationally known retail stores, spacious office buildings, great restaurants, luxury apartments, and spectacular homes. It's all in a park-like setting filled with the captivating charm and bustling energy of a traditional downtown main street.

Here's a photo of my in-laws Nate and Lucy. They are 2nd generation Italian Americans. In 2007 they celebrated their 60th Wedding Anniversary. We are looking forward to spending time with them. My mother-in-law is a wonderful cook. She's always in the kitchen making something wonderful.

So you can imagine we will be eating alot of her good home cooking!

Little Italy Cleveland's Murray Hill area

While in Cleveland a visit to Little Italy is always fun.

Frequent stops for bread, pizza, gelato and cannoli's...mmm...the eating never stops.


"Little Italy's Historic Museum" is full of interesting photos about the first italian immigrants

in the city.

Here are some examples of photos you would find there:

New residents of Little Italy in the early 20th century generally married fellow immigrants, such as the couple pictured above.

Rosa and Charles Presti started their bakery business in Little Italy in 1920. Originally located on Coltman Road, the business moved to Mayfield Road in 1938. Presti's continues to be a popular neighborhood meeting place.

Cleveland Museum of Art

Very close to the Little Italy area is an area filled with interesting art museums and specialty art shops. The Cleveland Museum of Art has a wonderful collection of art and they will be opening a new wing of the museum this month. I'm definitely going to make this a high priority on my "to do" list.

Completion of the East Wing marks the halfway point in an eight-year expansion and renovation aimed at giving a world-famous collection the clear, eloquent frame that three earlier expansions failed to give it.

Work started in 2005 with a temporary total shutdown of galleries. Last year, the museum reopened 20 galleries in the renovated 1916 building, which houses art from 17th-century Europe to late-19th-century America.
The new wing adds 21 new galleries with 25,000 square feet of exhibit space for hundreds of paintings, sculptures, photographs and decorative items that have been in storage or on tour to other cities since 2005.
The wing traces the history of art from the 19th-century precursors of French Impressionism to works by contemporary artists who deal with racial identity, sexuality and cultural politics.
Highlights include a glass-enclosed gallery filled with the sculptures of Auguste Rodin, from which visitors can survey sweeping views of University Circle.
In a gallery devoted to Impressionism, a luminous, quasi-abstract panorama of waterlilies painted by Claude Monet holds court over visions of ballerinas by Edgar Degas and a trio of paintings each by Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cezanne and Paul Gauguin.
Further along, the wing salutes Pablo Picasso with a display of nine paintings, including his seminal, Blue Period masterpiece, "La Vie."

Address11150 East Blvd Cleveland Ohio44106
Telephone216-421-73401-877-262-4748 Box Office216-421-73501-888-CMA-0033
Admission Free ExhibitionsTicketed
HoursTues, Thurs, Sat, Sun10:00-5:00Wednesdays, Fridays10:00-9:00Closed Mondays

Rock n Roll Hall of Fame

If you are ever in Cleveland be sure to come here. I love visiting the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame.

Address: 1100 Rock and Roll Boulevard Cleveland, OH 44114
Tel: 216-515-1228

Five floors of fascinating exhibits of music through the ages. Here are some things you will experience:

1) History - lots and lots of exhibits that trace the development of r&r..early blues, c&w, early guitar pickin's (Les Paul), early rock-Chuck Berry-Bill Hailey, thru glam, punk rock, and MTV influence. Provides a greater appreciation of the music

2)Technical exhibits: walk thru the early "garage"projects that resulted in break thru's in recording, amplifying and packaging music. The Les Paul exhibit is truly amazing. Oh yes..lots and lots of guitars!!

3) Fun with Fashion..whats r&r without the duds? An array of fashion-from the "flashy" to the "what were they thinking".

4) Plenty of listening. The moment you walk in..you can spend extra time sampling the hundreds of sound exhibits

5) Read more if you dare. Many of the exhibits include extra readings and postings of lyrics, personal letters from then aspiring musicians (the letter from college co-ed Madonna to a friend was interesting and amusing)

6) Special exhibits.. In 2004 the fashion display of the Supremes (feast for the eyes), and in 2008 a fantastic display of Marty Stuarts' personal collections which included a Patsy Cline performance outfit and Johnny Cash's hand written lyrics to "Folsum Prison Blues".

There is a lot to experience here. Expect to spend at least 3 hours minimum if you are into music and it's history.

John Lennon's passport

Westside Market

Built in 1912, this thriving public market offers fresh produce, meat, dairy products and a delicious variety of prepared foods.
Address: West 25th and Lorain Ohio City Cleveland, OH 44113
Tel: 216 664 3387

So off to Cleveland we go "Ciao a tutti!"

Congratulations ARIA

Photo taken 2008 Piazza della Signoria, Firenze

Aria called this morning to let us know she's been offered the job in Florence, Italy. We are thrilled for her as this is a great opportunity she will have to work with American Students studying abroad.

We are celebrating here and toasting you!

I thought you'd be interested in these "Rules for Students" poster by Sister Mary Corita.

"Italy is a dream that keeps returning

for the rest of your life."

-Anna Akhmatova

Who Is Sheila Hicks

Sheila Hicks is an internationally recognized artist. An American born textile designer she began her career
studying painting under the Bauhaus professor Josef Albers, but when a pre-Columbian textile course captured her attention, he took her home to meet his wife, Anni, a noted weaver. At his suggestion, she applied for a Fulbright scholarship to South America and spent the first few years of her weaving life journeying through Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru and Chile, and back north to Mexico.It was in Chile where she began her passion for working with fibers. In India she worked in a handloom factory producing commercial textiles.

Pages from her wall diary, sketches, inspirations and ideas

Sheila has lived in Mexico, Chile, India and Morrocco

Guerrero Mexico 1964


I first heard of Sheila Hicks during the Spring of 1971. She and many other international fiber artists had been invited to exhibit their off the wall/two and three dimensional fiber sculptures at several venues in the Los Angeles area: UCLA, Pasadena Art Museum (now the Norton Simon Museum), Cal Tech. There were opportunities to hear these artists speak about their work, their inspirations and their individual journeys breaking the two dimensional barriers of traditional weaving and fiber art. Some of the represented artists were Sheila Hicks (an American living and working in Paris), Jagoda Buic (from Dabrovnik) , Magdalena Abakanowicz , and a list of Fiber Stars from Europe and America were in town for this event. To a young fiber artist like myself at the time this was monumental. I was so inspired by this artists work, her independence and her creativity. I admired the spirit in which she devoted her energy to creating art and the various cultures she explored to gather ideas. When I first went to Paris that summer in 1971 I had hoped to visit her atelier where she worked. This was not possible as she was in another city while I was in Paris. That summer however we were able to view many extraordinary fiber sculptures at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. I remember being thrilled and entranced by the enormity of these sculptures and the idea of transforming traditional weaving techniques into sculptural 3-demensional forms. It was the beginning of a new path for me throughout my graduate career. Thoughout the years I have followed her creative endeavors. She continues to live an amazing, productive and creative life.

Sheila Hicks is one of the innovators who revolutionized fiber art in the 1960s.

Sheila was part of the textile revolution of that decade. She, along with other fiber artists, is really responsible for taking textiles off the wall and giving them a sculptural dimension.

Born in Hastings, Nebraska, 1934, Ms. Hicks is Internationally known for her role in the so-called fiber revolution of the Sixties that sought to transform textiles into a three dimensional contender as an art form. She studied painting at Yale from 1954-59, immersing herself in Josef Albers’s color courses and absorbing a passion for the ordered relationship of hues. (She taught his approach, in Spanish, at the Universidad Católica in Santiago, Chile, during a Fulbright year there.) Before taking up permanent residence in Paris in 1964. she studied weaving techniques in Chile and Mexico.

Working with her assistants in her Atelier in the Latin Quarter of Paris.

"I found my voice and my footing in my small work. It enabled me to build bridges between art, design, architecture, and decorative arts." - Sheila Hicks

We refer to woven materials as textiles, although many textiles are not woven. From the Latin word textilis and the French word texere, both meaning "to weave", textiles may actually be constructed by any number of methods including knitting, knotting, bonding, tufting and felting. -Sheila Hicks from Weaving as a Metaphor

Rue des Marronniers, Made in Paris, 1973Alpaca and Silk, Collection of Monique Levi-StraussSheila Hicks Biography
b.1934

Born July 24, Hastings, Nebraska
1957 - 1958

Fulbright Scholarship to Chile
1954 - 1959

Yale University: Painting, B.F.A. 1957; M.F.A. 1959
1959 - 1960

Fribourg Grant to France
1960 - 1964

Lives in Mexico: paints, weaves, photographs
1964 - pres

Lives in France

Selected permanent collections and exhibition venues:Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York (Wall Hangings); Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York; Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois (solo exhibition); Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; the Israel Museum, Jerusalem (solo exhibition); Museums of Modern Art, Tokyo and Kyoto, Japan; Lausanne, Switzerland (International Biennials of Tapestry); Museo Nacional de Historia Natural, Santiago, Chile (solo exhibition).

"I’ve come to think of myself over the years as on a quest – not a religious quest or a spiritual quest, but a search for meaning in my life. Oscar Wilde said the meaning of life is in art. Maybe what has happened is I have found the meaning of my life – in art. "

-Sheila Hicks

What I'm Wishing

image courtesy of Candi @http://www.slowtrav.com/blog/candi/

May you be blessed

with all good things,





May your joys,


like the stars at night,


be too numerous to count.





image by ashtapot




May your victories be more abundant


than all the grains of sand


on all the beaches


on all the oceans





May lack and struggle

only serve


to make you


stronger




And may


beauty, order


and abundance


be your


constant


companions.




May every


pathway


you choose


lead to


that which is


pure and good


and lovely.




May every doubt and fear

Painting by Suzanne Onodera

Be replaced by a deep, abiding trust


as you observe evidence


of a Higher Power


all around you.

And when there

is only darkness

image by Karen Harvey Cox

and the storms of life

are closing in

image by Mikael Kennedy

May the light

at the core of your being

image courtesy of AnnieNC @http://www.slowtrav.com/blog/annienc/

illuminate

the world

May you always be aware

you are loved beyond measure

and may you be willing

to love unconditionally in return

image by buntekuh's flickr

May you always feel protected

and cradled in the arms of God

like the cherished child you are

Painting by Joel Bedford

And when you are tempted to

judge, may you always be reminded

that we are ALL ONE.

And that every thought you think

reverberates across the Universe

touching everyone and everything

And when you are tempted

may you remember

that love

flows best

when it flows

freely

image courtesy of Annie NC@http://www.slowtrav.com/blog/annienc/

and it is

in giving

that we receive

the greatest

gift

May you always

have music image by Dan Bush

and may a rainbow

follow every storm

May gladness wash away

every disappointment

every sorrow

and may love ease every pain

May every wound

bring wisdom

and may every trial

bring triumph

image by Karen Harvey Cox

and with each

passing day

may you live more abundantly

than the day before

May you be blessed

and may others

be blessed by you

This is my heartfelt wish

for you

image courtesy of jdeq@ http://jdeq.typepad.com/

"May you be blessed"

- all words by Kate Novak

image credits given when possible