year in review

After a whirlwind year of new jobs, new dances, a new cat, a new tattoo, traveling in Italy, traveling in Pennsylvania, painting, cooking, writing, photographing...a girl needs a break, and time to process the end of the past year and start making plans for the new one. I'm a sentimental sap and have never been a fan of New Year's Eve - save the spumante. And I especially despise the inevitable ritual of "New Year's resolutions": lose weight, eat healthier, save more money, be more positive...everyone makes the same promises to themselves and then breaks them by the time Valentine's Day rolls around. I didn't make a single resolution last year and I don't intend to do so this year. But I can rejoice in a beautiful year well spent full of positive energy, learning experiences, new experiences, love, joy, nurturing old friendships and cultivating new ones. To all of you the five of you who read my blog, I wish you a 2013 full of good stuff, peace and happiness.

Buon anno a tutti!

January, La Veneria Reale, Torino

February, Massimo makes necci at La Panca

April, Occupazione Farsesche, Teatro Puccini, Firenze

April, i bring warmth with Sharon Estacio, Firenze

May, Mr. Winston takes a nap, Firenze

Summer, "English Through Art", Mugello

July, Roberto Benigni Tutto Dante, Santa Croce, Firenze

September, laurel tree courtesy of Joshua Ross at Mind's Eye Tattoo, Emmaus, PA

September, Decameron at University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

October, chestnut season, Palazzuolo sul Senio, Tuscany

December, Christmas with Mom and Dad, Firenze

bite of autumn

Winnie guards this season's harvest

In honor of autumn, a favorite apple recipe.

Apple Spice Cake

Ingredients:
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. cinnamon (or more...I'm heavy handed on the cinnamon)
1/2 tsp. ginger (dried is good, fresh is better)
3/4 tsp. salt
1 cup sugar
1 Tbsp. honey (I used chestnut honey, it's kick ass)
2 eggs
4 apples, diced (Granny Smith are good, but anything locally grown is even better!)

Preheat oven to 170 C (350 F). Butter and flour an 8 in. round cake pan.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and powder, spices and salt; set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together butter, sugar and eggs; fold in apples.
Add flour mixture slowly until just combined (don't over mix - it makes baked goods tough).
Pour into pan and bake for approx. 45 minutes. Cool and dust with powdered sugar.
Buon appetito! Enjoy this little bite of autumn.

divided: an expat's two homes

self-portrait, in progress

Being an American living abroad usually means that every so often, we head back to the "mother county" and pay a visit. I'm due for mine next week. Every trip back gets harder and harder - harder to say goodbye to my life here in Florence, harder to re-adjust to American culture, harder to fit back into a routine that hasn't changed much in my 24 years...it's just hard. 

After two years in Italy, I feel myself a woman divided, neither Italian nor completely American, living in a kind of limbo state. Don't get me wrong, I feel like my home is Italy and this is where I belong. But ever since my love affair with Italy began, about four years ago, I feel like wherever I go a part of me is missing. 

It's no surprise that my only close friends over here are expats themselves - it's obvious, we can relate to each other. We share the frustrations of having to spend 45 minutes in line at the post office, just to send one letter. We can snicker together at the irony of Florentine women, who on the outside look polished in their Ray-bans, high heeled Hogans and Gucci purses but as soon as they open their mouths sound like country bumpkins, cafoni. We hate how Italians will talk and talk and talk and talk about change, and then give up, lascia stare!, and go have an aperitivo. These friends of mine are from Maine, New York, Nantes and Lyon, but they are my Italian family in this mixed up world of "expatriatism"...yes, I just invented a word.

self-portrait, in progress

But I'm beginning to realize that even if I feel divided between two countries, those two countries are my homes. Two homes! I'm lucky really, with two families to love, two sets of friends to visit, two cultures to explore and enjoy, two parts of myself to cultivate. I always wanted to be a "global citizen" and I feel like I can finally call myself one. 

In the end, my home is where I make it. For now, I'll just have to lighten up and consider how fortunate I am to be a woman divided.

"I leave you my portrait so that you will have my presence all the days and nights that I am away from you."                  - Frida Kahlo

come on back

Consumed by children, summer camp, a new kitten, a new project, a new painting, The Blue Room has been abandoned for a month! But it's okay...there are pictures to sum it all up.

Sir Winston doing his homework

Sushi dinner in Via dei Cairoli

Mini-Matisse and her mamma

to the fates, of summer

Toes at Riotorto, Toscana

You know it's the start of summer in Florence when the air is so thick with jasmine that you feel drunk, giddily perfumed by the little white flowers. The days are hot and sunny, the nights are crisp and you grab a scarf for the bike ride home. Scarlet cherries, duroni, suddenly appear on the stands of fruttivendoli, and by Friday night most Florentines have evacuated our city, taking to their mountain retreats in the Maremma or to the sea in Cecina.

It's best to start the summer with a poem, I think - a prayer for a season of creativity and new experiences.
_________________________________________________________________

To the Fates

Grant me a single summer, you lords of all, 
A single autumn, for the fullgrown song, 
So that, with such sweet playing sated, 
Then my heart may die more willing.


The soul, in life robbed of its godly right, 
Rests not, even in Orcus down below; 
Yet should I once achieve my heart's
First holy concern, the poem,


Welcome then, O stillness of the shadow world!
Even if down I go without my
Music, I shall be satisfied; once
Like gods I shall have lived, more I need not.



- Friedrich Hölderlin (trans. Christopher Middleton)

site-specificity

Theater is a verb before it is a noun, an act before it is a place.  - Martha Graham

i bring warmth a site-specific dance performance by Sharon Estacio with Lauren MacLaughlin at Palazzo Pitti, Firenze - photo by Alberto Galligani

i bring warmth, Sharon Estacio and myself - photo by A. Galligani

trees in the forest

Among the trees, Monte Asinaio, Toscana

Two years ago from yesterday, I graduated from college. I'm known to be a sentimental sort of person who appreciates anniversaries, relishes in looking back on the past while reflecting on progress made. Nowadays, when universities are more expensive than ever and finding a job in your specific field of study is a job in and of itself, I think many college graduates are prone to take a look at their degree and think: did I do the right thing? Was it worth it? Everyone said, "Get an education and you'll get a good job" - where are those people when I'm up to my eyes in student loan debt and still living with my parents. Etc. etc. etc.
For me, the fleeting thought that passes through my mind is: "Am I wasting my education?"
I defiantly answer myself: "No! How dare you think that!" Four years at Pitt have taught me that post-grad life isn't so black and white.

For me, a college education isn't just a degree and the hope for decent employment or a decent paycheck, it's an experience that teaches who you are and who you want to be (dear reader, sorry for sounding so trite). I think that today, it might be hard for students to see the practical benefits of a college education - those promised jobs, promises for a stable future, a house, a family (the American dream, right?) have all but been dashed to the winds. Call me naive, but what if that's okay? What if we continue school just because we want to know ourselves better? Because we want to learn, to understand the world and relate to it? Is that so bad?! What if we say, "Fuck practical - I'm doing this for myself without ulterior motives for becoming Joe-College-Grad with his white collar job, SUV, wife and kids in suburbia heaven."

I think it's important, more than ever, for the class of 2012 to look forward to all the non-practical benefits of four more years in school: independence, abandoning your comfort zone, learning new things for the sheer joy of it, questioning others and yourself, demanding the truth, ending blind acceptance, making a contribution to the world, living! Living!

One of my favorite professors at Pitt once told me that "You have to see the forest for its trees." Whenever I feel consumed by details, all the small stuff, or like Dante in the selva oscura, "dark wood", I think of his words. So high school grads, college grads, take this advice and don't despair: you aren't wasting your education, you haven't wasted it and you won't, just as long as you see the forest for its trees.

i bring warmth

Click HERE for video

i bring warmth: a site-specific project


Two American expats revisit threads of Polynesian dance (learned in Pennsylvania) as a means of grafting themselves to their Mediterranean abode


Direction: Sharon Estacio
Creation and Performance: Sharon Estacio, Lauren MacLaughlin


Underpass at Piazza delle Cure
By the Arno, under Ponte alla Carraia
In front of Palazzo Pitti
(Firenze, Italia)


details to follow shortly:
http://sharonestacio.com/

impressions

Olive picking, Mugello

I've been living in Florence for almost two years now, but my love affair with this city goes back to fall 2008, when I was a student here. Sometimes I feel like the city throws me into sensory overload, and I wish I had my camera or videocamera to capture my experiences, just so I could take them home, go over them and process. I thought it might be fun to put some of these impressions into words...

_________________________________________________________________________________
Golden sunlight streams through olive leaves. Oxtoa clambers up the limbs like a cat, or better, his cat, Gaston (aka. Mini-Cat).  Our harvest leaves a deep purple trail. White nets are like ghosts. Wine is dark, like our olives.

7am, summer in Via dei Cairoli, windows open and the smell of fresh bread, croissants - yeasty and thick - waft through the screens. Good morning!

Francesca, a Thursday morning wedding

Near the Campo di Marte train station, there is a run-down villa, the color of dirty parchment. The walls are dripping, oozing purple wisteria from top to bottom.

The children in the elementary school behind our house sing and dance to Shakira. The headmistress, a stern old nun, interrupts them for a "pensierino alla Madonna" - "a little prayer for the Madonna"...I guess she means the Virgin Mary, not the pop star.

A stylish gentleman, Saturday afternoon, exits from the Four Seasons wearing beautiful, bright red, leather shoes. He has horn-rimmed glasses.

Antique shop, Arezzo

Tuesday: walking through the market at the Cascine, along the river. Sicilian cheesemongers shove samples in your face. The street smells like fried dough and salami. A baby in a stroller is wearing sunglasses and laughs as his mother tries on yellow high heels. The plant stand is being stormed by Florentine grandmothers; they complain about prices but praise the selection.

The color of black sesame gelato? Light grey. The taste? Sweet and peanut-y. Who knew!

Fields of sunflowers, on our way to the beach. They look to the sky, waiting.

Sara pulls out a giant cheese ziggurat. It's goat cheese. It's beautiful, creamy, white and tastes like heaven. Her friend tells us, "There's a farm in Tuscany where you can adopt a goat." We jump into the ocean.

My bicycle creaks, squeaks, creaks, squeaks down the street on my return from work. White, fuzzy flowers rain down from the trees on the viale.  Just in time to see the hot pink and orange sun set over the soccer stadium.

spring rites

NOW Jamsession, photo credit Illaria Costanzo

Spring is in: Orange ranunculus blooms. Asparagus bundles at the market. Morning sunshine and afternoon rain showers. Dance rehearsal with Sharon Estacio. Bike rides along the Arno. Mutant catfish jump from the river to catch spring sunlight. Almond milk gelato with Camille includes a short French lesson. 

Spring cleaning. Spring fever. Springy, spongey lemony chess pie with strawberry sauce. The hibernating pirate cat has come out of his den, prowling Via Marconi for a spring cuddle date. Catholic school children don their spring jackets and dodge nuns in the playground; I spy on them from our balcony when watering the mint and chives. 

Spring in your step. 

Printemps. Primavera, the first green. Never has there been a more suitable word for spring. 

I dance for the warmth, the first green. 

Spring rites have begun.

if you were a recipe?

Caterina de' Medici - François Clouet, 1555

If you were a recipe, what would you be?


I came across this question while reading a blog by Emiko Davies - a Japanese-Australian food photographer, cook, writer, artist and all around amazing woman who is married to a Tuscan sommelier. She is the perfect example of a neo-Florentine woman, the kind of expat who lives in this city.  


If you were a recipe, what would you be? So this simple question really struck me, especially since in the past year, I've become a bit obsessive about cooking; it's like therapy. I've been delving into cookbooks and cooking blogs, rediscovering old family recipes (like great-grandma Fales's rice pudding) and inventing my own, poaching eggs (thank you Julia Child), rolling out pasta, pickling, preserving... The one thing I do especially well is dessert. American desserts. Huguenot torte. Lemon meringue pie. Apple pie with a lattice top. I make something almost once a week, and usually give 3/4 of it away at dinners or to co-workers (because if not, Alberto and I wouldn't fit into our trousers). I think my therapeutic cooking helps me stay connected to the U.S.


And so I present my answer to this oh-so existential question: If I were a recipe, I'd be PUMPKIN PIE!


My favorite vegetable, that can go either sweet or salty, is highly adaptable. It's both classically American - almost always associated with Thanksgiving dinners - and was a favorite of Caterina de' Medici (1519-1589) (Florentine native and queen of France - an expat you could say). The smell of baking pumpkin pie brings me back to 132 Kiehners Road, two night before Thanksgiving, when my mother and I would put ourselves to the task of baking at least three pies for the upcoming feast. Strangely, when I eat pumpkin pie as a midnight snack (hey, it happens to the best of us), it always gives me intense, psychedelic night mares. Blame it on the nutmeg I guess. 
So here is the recipe from Pellegrino Artusi's 1891 cookbook - the bible of Italian cookery. 
Buon appetito!


Torta di Zucca Gialla (Butternut Pumpkin Pie)
- 1 kg. pumpkin or squash
- 100 g. peeled almonds, finely ground
- 100 g. raw sugar (brown sugar is good too)
- 30 g. butter
- 500 ml milk
- 3 small eggs, beaten 
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- pinch of salt

Remove the seeds and skin of the pumpkin and grate the pumpkin flesh into a large bowl. Drain the pumpkin to remove its liquid until it is reduced to just 300 grams. You can do this by wrapping it in a dish towel, as Artusi instructs, or over a colander, squeezing every now and then to help it along.

Cook the pumpkin in the milk for about 25-30 minutes or until it is soft. Drain off excess milk.

Pulverize the almonds (if they are not already ground finely) and sugar together in a food processor or – Artusi’s way – in a mortar and pestle. In a separate bowl, add this to the pumpkin, along with the butter, salt and cinnamon and combine. When the mixture has cooled enough, add the beaten eggs.

Pour the mixture into a greased and floured) cake tin so that the cake is no higher than an inch or two thick.

Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C for 45 minutes or until golden on top and set. For Renaissance flare, sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of rosewater. 

Eat with great satisfaction (and save some for midnight snack).

ten commandments

My grandmother painting at SAGA (Senior Adults for Great Achievement), Ambler, PA in the 1990s

When my grandmother, Mary Ione MacLaughlin, passed away in 2001 my family and I inherited an unending amount of artwork. Her artwork. Oil paintings, water colors, pencil drawings, pen and ink drawings, designs for ballet costumes and ballet sets from the 1930s, pastel drawings, sketches, sketchbooks and boxes full of scraps of paper, from magazines to pictures to quotations, all things that she found inspiring. Her home studio was always a bit of organized chaos, so it was a daunting task to sort through everything. As my father, mother, aunt and I tried to make some order out of a lifetime of artwork, we stumbled onto quite a few treasures. Maybe no one else would find them treasures, but since my grandmother was the first person who introduced me to the world of art, the first person to put a paintbrush in my hand, the first person to hand me a book of Monet paintings...I thought that everything she ever created was a treasure. I still do think that. I'm her biggest fan. So here is one of her "treasures"that I found shoved into one of her sketch books. Today, I carry a copy of this list in my own sketch book.

The Artist's Ten Commandments

I. You shall draw everything and everyday

II. You shall not wait for inspiration, for it comes not while you wait but while you work

III. You shall forget all you think you know and even more, all you have been taught

IV. You shall not adore your good drawings and promptly forget your bad ones

V. You shall not draw with exhibitions in mind nor to please any critic but yourself

VI. You shall trust none but your own eye and make your hand follow it

VII. You shall consider the mouse you draw as more important than the contents of all the museums in the world, for

VIII. you shall love the 10,000 things with all your heart and every blade of grass as yourself

IX. Let each drawing be your first, a celebration of the eye awakened

X. You shall not worry about "being of your time", for you are your time, and it is brief

Andrew Wyeth

Andrew (oil on canvas), L. MacLaughlin

"Painting is all about breaking the rules. Art is chance. It's like making love. Hell, you don't have a written book for sex; it's always spontaneous." 
- A. W.

Home is where...

I recently heard that a girl I grew up with back in Pennsylvania is making a film about our hometown. Actually, our home-county - Schuylkill County. I'm talking about "Skook" - a nickname that can be positive or negative, depending on how you wield it. This term can be used as a proper noun, i.e. a place name ("Born and raised in Skook") or a common noun ("Our lad's a real Skook, ain't he"); and don't forget the adjective form ("Guers Iced Tea is a real Skook drink"). From what I understand, Ashley plans to praise the place rather than criticize, which is definitely a good thing. The tourism industry needs any help it can get.

So the news comes to me at an interesting time, since I've recently been thinking a lot about my origins. Most successful young people who leave the Skook never look back. They shake the dust of "small town America" off their boots and move onward to bigger and better things. That was my plan when I left for college, and then eventually, for Italy. In high school, I looked down my nose at Skooks (the inhabitants, that is). It was their fault that there was no bookstore, art gallery, coffee shop or museum to even speak of. I hated that everything I deemed important - art, culture, creativity - seemed to play second fiddle to football and alcohol consumption. By now, I'm far removed from the dreary mountains, grey mining towns and flowing rivers of Yuengling beer; it took about 6 years of living on the outside, but I can finally see Schuylkill County in a new light. I can see sweet little mountain towns trying to stimulate outdoor tourism. I worked for the "mad" potter (an amazing woman) who offers summer art classes for kids. I listen to "Gleason's Drift", an area band that tours the east coast and is proud to sing about living in the Skook. I totally dig how last autumn, local brewers got together for a beer festival to celebrate and judge their handmade drafts.

I could never see the positive aspects of where I came from, I only ever saw the negative. Skook was the place I needed to escape from! It was the person that I didn't want to become. But I guess that no one truly appreciates where they come from until they're far removed from it, both physically and emotionally. Now as I survey the rolling hills outside of Florence, with silver olive trees and rows of Sangiovese grapes ordering the landscape, I know that I'm at home here. A Skook in Italy. It's who I am and rather than deny it, I'm learning to embrace it.  "Cripes, I could drink a Lord Chesty."

Check out Ashley Pishock's future film, "Skook: The Movie": 
http://republicanherald.com/news/schuylkill-haven-native-shoots-her-1st-feature-film-in-county-1.1269695

The Coal Region Dictionary - for those who dare venture into the Skook without a tour guide:
http://www.coalregion.com/Speak/speakA.htm

morning protest

Winter mornings lend to that really hazy, fuzzy feeling. The alarm sounds and you just snuggle in tighter, disappearing under the downy mountains of comforter. You rub your feet together and wait for the courage to emerge from hibernation. Winter. In a high-ceilinged, drafty house. Saturday morning are the worst at this time of year.

Now the first (and only) snow squalls of the year have blown through Florence, leaving a white film on roof tops and potted herbs - a film which disappears by noon in this city. During these winter months, Italians are in danger of getting a colpo d'aria (a hit of air). Strange illnesses such as this, whose translation makes no real sense to us Anglo-Saxons/Americans, seem to effect only those of Italian origin. I think I'm immune for now. Or at least until my citizenship comes through.

In the mean time, I'll spend the morning rolling around on the floor, risking torcicollo, in protest of winter and having to work at 9am on Saturday.
Link to video: (click me!)
BLUE ROOM IMPROV 1

Winnie the Pooh chakra

I'm sitting on the magical thinking (sleeping) couch. It's white. It floats like a cloud in the Blue Room. When you lay down/sit down to read, or think, or watch Fellini movies in lingua originale...try not to fall asleep. I dare you.

The magical thinking (sleeping) couch becomes ochre in candle light and blazing gold when the sun splits in around 7am. Yellow implies energy, I mean, it's the solar plexus chakra, so you think the warm color flow would do some good, right? It doesn't matter. The floating white cloud always wins out. I do my thinking here, as the name implies...until the cushions start to suck me in, drawing out every last bit of energy (good bye coffee break, good bye jumpstart morning yoga) and I drift away on the cloud...

"Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?" - Winnie the Pooh

I bet Winnie the Pooh just has one big chakra, and it's as yellow as his honey (oops, hunny). Wait...now, where was I??