Category Archives: Artists

Going back to “Mamma”

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belllucci

At last the movie “La prima cosa bella” directed by Paolo Virzì is the choise of the italian commission to represent Italy at the Oscar Awards in 2011.
At the moment I do not know the title that will be given to it but I can translate as “The first beautiful thing”. It was also the title of an italian song of the latest ’60ies but in the context of the movie by Virzì, the first beautiful thing in one’s life is: the mother.
This director has always been famous for his honest and disillusioned attitude toward nowadays problems of italian society but his latest work is considered as an hommage to the relationship between mother and children across the latest forty years of our history.

Someone can say it could be a modern “Amarcord” (the Fellini’s masterpiece) but I can state that times are not the same.

Today in Italy women have so many problems to manage their lives, to find a job and reach a right distribution of duties in the housekeeping and children care.
Each day our newspapers and Tv news express the worry about the low growth of italian population (I think it would not be such a catastrophe) and that italian women do not have children during their young and appropriate age. On the other hand, there are so many female celebrities: actresses, journalists, sport players who feel obliged to say that, beyond their success, the most important goal in a woman’s life is motherhood. TV Advertising is full of famous female champions and “gold medals”who show how much they are happy being mothers more than being sportswomen.
In my opinion, this is some kind of propaganda that is going to make women think: “I does not matter who or what you are, the most important thing for a woman is motherhood”.

In fact it is not the same for italian male population. I’ve never seen on Tv a sportsman who states that the best thing in his own life is Fatherhood.
So, considering that in Italy it’s quite impossible for a pregnant woman to keep her job or turn back on her employment one year after her pregnancy, I cannot realize why every day there is a beautiful, rich and healthy “celeb” who tells us to become mothers. Maybe the final aim is to persuade italian women to leave behind their dreams of awareness and accept their natural destiny: being mothers and angels of the fireplace. This makes our society going back of about sixty or maybe seventy years, when good mothers and wives were expected to grow young and strong “italians” to achieve “a place in the sun”.

Artists community

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Hello Artists and Art fans.

As you may already know, some of the external services which we have used to support our community have not functioned as expected. Most specifically, the chat room has performed rather poorly– if and when it functions at all. The recent billing problems with the chat provider have convinced us it is time to make some changes.

We are considering ways to fund these upgrades. While doing so, we would also like explore new ideas on how to create a platform which better serves the community.

The Artists Connect Community belongs to all who participate. That’s why we would like your input so we may include features you really want or will be useful to you for promoting your artworks.

Please take a few moments over the next few weeks to contribute your thoughts by taking part in this discussion.

Life on Venus

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First of all I’d like to introduce myself to you all. My name is Katia, I am an artist and a writer and – last but not least – I am italian.
The aim of my presence here is to let you know something more about Italy and what is actually happening here.
Reading the foreign press I made myself sure that you know about italian politics and economy much more than Italians do.
Something strange is going on in our country: media, common sense and art are changing, often worsening. Sometimes I feel like a fish living in a pink glass bowl from where I can see “la vie en rose”. This positive attitude toward everything around is artificial. In Italy the same phenomenon occurred during the ’30ies.
At those times cinema, theatre and arts in general were inspired only by positive thinking.
Movies were just romantic comedies or plots about ancient history with a propagandistic purpose.
It’s what we call the “Telefoni bianchi” [white telephones] Era, named after a particular use of design and aesthetics in movies. The black bakelite telephones were not considered stylish enough, so the director Alessandro Blasetti required to paint the telephone in white to get a perfect delightful scene since the telephone was the only dark element in a room furnished in white. Nowadays, in Berlusconi’s Italy, the “think posive” attitude is turned from an ethereal white into a more fleshy pink. Pink is the dominating colour and female flesh is its perfect backup.
The pleasures of Venus are the main theme of a propaganda created to make Italians think everything is all right. Advertising, entertainment, politics, are carried by the use of female bodies… we will see how next time.
Follow me!

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In the picture: a video still from the ADV of a famous italian drink.

Polish Connections

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February 10, 2010 · Drukuj

Life has been hugely enriched this year at St George the Martyr, because of our developing relationship with the Polish community in Southwark. I was reflecting recently on how this Polish Connection has evolved. My thinking took me back to the first Polish friends I ever made.

They lived in an apartment in the same house as me at Blackheath in the seventies. They were medical doctors, working at a local hospital, with two very gifted children, one who would become an artist and one a writer. more….

Trees

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Trees

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth’s flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

Joyce Kilmer