Last day...Do I really have to leave?

Tonight Beth and I leave for the US again. Pretty sad really. I'm not ready to go... We've had such a wonderful trip!
This past week has been jammed packed. Mark and Robby left last Wednesday, and Thursday and Friday were spent installing one of Beth and my collaborative art pieces. In Halle, all of the sidewalks are made of little stones which were built many many years ago by laborers. Since then, many stones have fallen out and formed little holes. Beth and I decided to create glazed ceramic "stones" to fill the holes with. We were inspired by the HUGE amount of graffiti in Germany which often seems very destructive to the beautiful old buildings, so we decided to make our stones serve as a more productive kind of graffiti that actually helps the town. We made each stone have our initials or logo design and then invaded the city with them. We also laughed about the funny parallels that American art infecting the city has to the way American culture has invaded Germany. Since the installation, some of the stones have even been stolen, which is especially interesting to me. This means now our public graffiti is invading someone's personal home space.
I also installed my clay houses outside over two weeks ago and have been documenting their changes daily. Since I moved them outside, I have not touched or altered their presence and I have been really interested in seeing how other people and nature have affected them. With in the first week one entire house was stolen. Although I was a bit disappointed, it is also really interesting to me. I really wonder where it is now! Maybe my unfired, unglazed, impermanent house is in someone's house! Maybe it's somewhere else outside.... The remaining 4 houses lived through several very heavy rains and although they lost many details, still stood strong. Last weekend someone moved them all for a big festival to honor Handel (who is from Halle), but they were still in the center of the festival and at one point had a choir of 40 singers, a small orchestra, and 20 dancers performing around them! I got so many wonderful pictures of people interacting with them.
After the festival someone attempted to move them back to their original spots in the garden, but in the process two collapsed. Surprisingly though, even the piles of collapsed walls were left and I have seen many children playing with them. This project has really made me realize how much I enjoy public artwork and work that the viewer really has an affect on. I've decided to put all of my images in a book to document the project, and I even have a friend who is going to continue taking pictures for me after I leave.
Other highlights of the week have been Christian (my neighbor from above) driving us around the German country side in his 67 Mustang (...talk about irony), seeing a crazy parade led by a famous German Punk Singer to honor Handel, and sleeping on my roof last night.
One day left...I hope we go out with a bang! But first....packing! Yikes!

I look forward to seeing all of you wonderful people back in the States soon!

Beatles, Italy, and Candy Scandal

out that Halle has a really coolThis last week has been absolutely jammed packed with excitement! Sorry in advance that this will probably be a really long blog entry. The beginning of the week was spent showing Robby and Mark around Halle and doing lots of fun local things. The best part of this was going to some of the crazy museums that Beth and I hadn't gotten a chance to go to visit yet. It turns Beatles museum, which although it was all in German, was very through and has a really wonderful collection of documents, original albums, and other funny paraphernalia. My favorite thing there was a cut out from a magazine that you held up to your head to show your hair stylist how to give you a Beatles cut.
In Halle there is also a chocolate museum that it is one of the oldest chocolate factories in Europe, and probably the world, called Halloren. The beginning of the museum was sorta disappointing, with few visuals and just lots of German explanation of the history of chocolate, but the last 2 rooms made the visit COMPLETELY worth it. Inside there were dozens and dozens of small candy sculptures of people in various poses, many which were quite scandalous! There was also a section of candy people posing as characters in famous paintings which was totally over the top chocolate furniture,. I just couldn't believe it. Totally ridiculous. Then to top it all off, the very last room was almost entirely made of chocolate. Chocolate walls, books, chocolate furniture, chocolate cat, chocolate violin...you get the idea. Quite an experience. I give the Halloren Chcolate museum an A+.

Another important event of this week's beginning was Wednesday night when Beth and I gave our artist talks at die Burg. The evening began with all of our new friends and faculty having a giant pot-luck dinner outside in the rose garden for us. There was soooooo much delicious finger food. They really went all out for us. It was super nice and Beth and I really enjoyed seeing almost our entire studio in such a nice social atmosphere. Afterwards Beth and I gave our presentations under the giant vine covered trellis in the middle of the garden. I will be incredibly shocked if I ever give a presentation in such a beautiful place again. I think our talks went pretty well, and we got lots of nice positive feedback afterwards. Mark, Robby, and Pablo all came to listen too, so it felt great to have some friends in the audience too. Afterwards we all went and got a drink at a Bier Garden with Hannis and Merium (a student who just got back from a year in the US studying with a potter).
So as if this wasn't a great week already, Friday morning at 4 AM, Mark, Robby, Beth and I ran as fast as possible to catch a train to the Berlin airport to fly to Milan, Italy! We had been planning on taking a trip together all week, but it wasn't until Wednesday that we finally decided on Italy. Mark was able to buy all the tickets while Beth and I worked on our presentations, and everything fell into place.
The trip there was a little rough since we were all pretty sleep deprived and worn out from running and almost missing our train. Then after we landed, we had interaction with several really rude people in a row, and even though I was trying really hard not to judge the city that soon, it was hard to not be a big discouraged. Soon everything changed though. Our hotel ended up being quite nice and that afternoon we walked to the downtown area and saw all the beautiful old buildings. Milan is one of the fashion capitals of the world, so Beth was in heaven seeing all the designer stores and I loved seeing some new architecture. The city was really beautiful, and we got to see the Duomo Cathedrial which is considered one of the most important examples of Gothic architecture in all of Italy. That evening we ate at a cafe and got a good night's sleep to make up for the night before.
Saturday we spent almost the entire afternoon at at the Kandinsky exhibit at the big art museum downtown. It was a really excellent show. It was a really great thing to see with my friends too, since I feel Kandinsky's work is so accessible and everyone can get something out of it. Even Robby, who is legally blind and can see very little was able to really enjoy the exhibit and left saying he felt the most inspired he had been in a long time.
But Saturday evening is when the real fun started. It turns out that half of Robby's family is from Milan and he was able to get some contact information for them. Although I was skeptical that we'd actually beable to get a hold of them, several hours later we were being picked up by Andrea (Robby's male cousin....it's a boy name in Italy) and given a driving tour of the city. We met 2 of Andrea's friends and went to an amazing pizza restaurant on this beautiful canal lined with pubs and shops. Real Itallian pizza is amazing, and we had so much fun talking to our new friends. After dinner we went for a drink at a beautiful outdoor pub that is next to the remains of an old church and we made plans for the next day. Andrea's parents invited us to their house for lunch in one of Milian's suburbs, and of course we didn't refuse.
The next day was the best. Andrea picked us up from the train station, and we were driven through some more modern parts of town and eventually ended up at his family's house (which was really more like a condo). Robby's family was absolutely amazing. Even though they knew very little English, and we knew no Italian, they were some of the most
warm and loving people I've ever met. Lunch was especially amazing. Andrea's mom brought out course, after course, after course of wonderful homemade food which included one of the best pasta dishes I've ever had. The Italian ice cream for dessert was one of the best desserts ever too. And just when I thought the meal was over and we would probably be leaving soon, Andrea's family led us upstairs where Andrea and Robby played piano and guitar and sang Beatle songs. With in 5 minutes everyone in the room was singing along. It was one of the most amazing experiences I've ever witnessed. Even though these people didn't know English, they knew tones of Beatle lyrics. It made me realize that Beatle music is an international language, and it gave me goosebumps to be able to come together with this many people from such different places and histories and have an entire repratory of music to share. This went on for at least an hour (maybe two!) and it was one of the specialist experiences of my life.
Afterwards, we finally said goodbye and Andrea drove us a few towns over to Pavia where he lives and had been attending school to show us around. He insisted that we would really like the city, and said that it was much prettier than Milan. As expected, he was right. The town was amazing. It was almost surreal. Beautiful allies every direction you looked and a stunning church around every corner. After a nice long walk, we ended the evening in another pizza restaurant where we had fun cracking jokes with Andrea. That night he drove us back to our hotel and we returned to Halle the next morning.
Last night Robby and Mark got a taxi to the airport and now Beth and I have only a week left in Germany. I'll be sad to leave.

Candles in the Duomo

Robby's family's kitchen in Italy

The ceiling in the subway station in Milan

Robby with his "girly pop" icecream on a paddle boat
(girly pop comes equipped with a glitter make up tube stick)

Candy scandals

Beth caught in the middle of a pillow fight

Friends!

There have been quite a few changes in life since last week. One of the biggest started last Tuesday when my neighbor Christian (who lives upstairs and is very very good with English) knocked on my door and said “May I present you with Pablo! He’s from L.A.” At this point Beth came speeding from the other room and we both stood with our mouths wide open. Up until this point Beth and I were convinced that we were 2 out of MAYBE 5 Americans living in Halle, so to find out that an American was going to be staying directly above me for several months was extremely surprising. It turns out that Pablo is 28, a poet, grew up in an artist commune just outside of LA, and even has dual citizenship between Germany and America because his father is German. He’s a pretty interesting addition to our English speaking posse. That evening they invited us out for Italian food and Christian’s official tour of the city, which was really nice since no one had really told us much about Halle’s history and it’s individual buildings. The next day Pablo went to die Burg with us to see the castle and helped us make a big stir-fry for dinner that evening.
Saturday Beth and I had to take the train up to Berlin to pick up my friends Mark and Robby (good friends from TN) from the airport, and since Pablo and Christian wanted to go too, they shared train tickets with us and we all spent the day together until Mark and Robby’s plan landed. It was a beautiful day to be outside, and we had a lot of fun helping Christian show Pablo the highlights of the city. We also got to see some new places that we missed on our first visit to Berlin, like the Reichstag and the Jewish Holocaust memorial. The Reichstag is one of the main government buildings in Berlin, and it was fun to see, but my favorite sight of the day was definitely the Holocaust memorial. It consists of rows and rows of large stone rectangles, but the ground is somewhat wavy, and the rectangles very in size, so while some are only a foot or two tall, other parts soar far above your head. It was a really amazing experience to literally “get lost” and sucked into the monument, just like getting lost in the huge numbers of lost victims. The stones were cold, and plane and they reminded me how the Jewish people were stripped of their own personal identity and given the same cruel fate. Quite a powerful experience.
That afternoon we ate at an AMAZING Indian restaurant, and then parted with Christian and Pablo to go meet Robby and Mark. Needless to say I was quite excited to see my friends. They had been traveling for several weeks throughout England and France and are staying with me for about 12 days before heading home. Our train was a bit late getting to the airport, but we met up just fine and spent the rest of the evening giving them a taste of Berlin before we caught the late train back to Halle. One of the highlights of the evening was stumbling upon an outdoor public opera being held in the large square across from Humboldt University. They had even closed off one of the most main streets in Berlin to allow more room for the opera and there were tons of people in the audience. It was the perfect temperature, the perfect setting, and the perfect sounds. I really enjoyed staying to listen for a bit, and was quite impressed that the city had gone to so much trouble to have a free public opera. It says a lot about the importance of the arts in Germany’s culture.
Sunday was spent giving Mark and Robby a walking tour of Halle and relaxing in a café downtown sipping gourmet hot chocolate. Then we went home, made an amazing dinner, and sat on my roof listening to Mark and Robby’s wonderful travel stories.
This week Beth and I plan to finish up our ceramic projects and hopefully this weekend the four of us can all take a trip together…perhaps to Milan if our travel plans work out right. Beth and I have been asked to give artist talks on Wednesday night to the ceramic department, which should be quite the adventure too. I have never had to give an official artist talk before, so though it will be a great experience, it is a little daunting since my audience members don’t all know English. I also plan to sneak out late tonight and put my houses out in the park so I can start documenting their decay tomorrow. Hopefully everything will go well and I will get good results. Wish me luck!

The Opera

Some modern German architecture

Pictures from my roof.