I am surrounded by history layered back onto itself. But the business of everyday, Italian life fills the streets & plays itself out in the NOW of these stones. Largo Argentina is one of the center stages of this contemporary drama in all it quirks. In this place, a point in time & space where Caesar’s death played out its tragedy, the tram lines collect & deposit folks to & from work while Rome’s cats keep watch in the role of Contemporary Sentinels.
My environment is full of stimulation. I am constantly feeling my mind & body struggle to absorb my surroundings. Every day my sense of where I live changes. It is in the old Jewish Quarter in the heart of the old part of Rome.
Maps are useless. They assume a grid.
My physical experience of the city has coalesced into a sense of a “V” or a pie shape fitted into another “V” into another “V” onto yet another.
A piazza fooled me. It is a rectangle with streets going off each of its sides and corners. BUT most such streets lead to a “V” into another “V”.
Here is an ancient map of the area where I live & one of my favorite places, Largo Argentina. It is here in the Theater of Pompey that Caesar was killed.
It turns out that I stumbled onto the symbol of Italian Fascist power.
My previous sketch is of Fasces on an exterior wall of the Theatre of Marcellus. The image is called fasces and has a history going back to the early Etruscans. An ax head is attached to a bundle of rods using a strip of leather. A longer rod is in the center of the bundle making it easier to carry and handle.
In the Roman Empire the bundle of rods symbolized strength through unity. One rod is weak but many bound together are strong. It symbolized power and authority of Rome, particularly of the magistrate’s judicial powers.
It is used as a symbol in many countries, including in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. However, the 20’Th century, Italian Fascists derive their name from the fasces and it is now strongly associated with them.
So I have stumbled on an image with layers symbolic content. I am drawn to the image but not to its fascist symbolism. Is there some way I can subvert its meaning?
My Daily Sketch from yesterday:
March 26, at 3:30am:
The 6-hour time change has played havoc with my sleep pattern. Ugh! Jet lag is a bear!
I have spent the past week roaming around where I live in the old Jewish section of Rome. I have found the grocery store & have had a wonderful meal at a local Kosher restaurant. I have a large blister on my toe as the reward for my wanderings.
The past week has been an emotional journey of settling into a new place. As I deported the plane in Rome I felt like a flat line as if I were disconnected from my own internal self.
The joy of anticipating the trip became the reality of experiencing a new place. I felt disoriented. Everything is new without any markers to process the stimulation.
I thought of my students’ first week in Savannah last fall.
I wanted to get going on my project. That’s why I am here! But my energy is taken up with finding where the grocery store is located & how to navigate the tiny winding cobble stone lanes that never go in a straight line!
Rome as a sense of place? My body of work for the Sabbatical Grant?
My answer is to draw as a means to visually connect to myself & my surroundings.
Right now it doesn’t matter what I draw, just so long as I am drawing.
Working is my connection, not the product.
Just draw!
On Wednesday I flew from Savannah, GA to Atlanta. All nationalities were eating & waiting for their flight! Here is a young German mom entertaining her son!
And I exchanged $ for Euros.
And watched my jet ‘s progress in the sky on the my seat’s video.
I arrived at the FCO Airport at 7am!
The first sign I saw read, “Creativity speaks Italian!”
Anne Bessac 