VIA GRAMSCI

There is so much stuff floating around in my head, visual memories, experiences, tastes, and of course, inspiration, it will take me some time to let it all settle and make sense to me. I will have photos to share as soon as we can get them from Patience's computer to mine. In the meantime, I have a few sketches to post, along with some remarks taken directly from my sketch book.

I am sitting on marble steps just off the small piazza in Castelnuovo in order to get this quick pen, ink, and pencil drawing.



"I can project so many dreams onto this village with its tiny streets of houses and shops. A fantasy for every street. How easy it is too imagine the past, the present, and the future all coming together here, where I can immerse myself forever. It offers what Rome and Tuscany could not, the history of my grandfather and my father, and, in some very small but significant way, my own.

There is none of the false veneer of sophistication seen in the tourist laden villages of the Chianti country. Although they share the narrow streets and old , tired buildings clinging to the hillsides, simplicity is the providence of the towns of the Mezzogiorno, seen in the homes, the gardens, the food, and most elegantly, in the people."