Following our appearance in Sannicandro on August 18, we had many people approach us with suggestions and offers of support. One of these benefactors, was a informative and helpful young man named Walter, whom I called Wall-E. 🙂 Wall-E told us of an event in his seaside home town or Manfredonia to be held from Thursday until Sunday. Determined to leave for the event on Thursday, I was waylaid by a combination of a dinner party and general unpreparedness;

I had decided to convert the hard top trailer into a display and drying table with a vertical backboard to be used for displaying works for sale. I painted the table top with as many images as I could feel happy with and established hooking points for the clocks and display records to go on to.

Perhaps I was ready, perhaps I wasn’t – tho’ this night would tell. I was expecting a busy night, yet in spite of that, the crowds didn’t draw in and settle and lighting was a problem too. We relocated to the space beneath a floodlight outside a local bank. From then on, we didn’t slow down all night…. till 3.30am!

This first night was hard going for me. I had to attract a circle crowd for every demonstration and, when each was done – I would attract one artist from each circle… so yeah… I painted a lot of records that night, did a lot of work on the delivery of my presentation and found ways to include the audience in with my reality.

My highlights of the evening were one young lady whom returned about 6 or 7 times, painting records for her less courageous associates. I have to laugh to myself at these circumstances – the people paying miss out, and the people doing… really do get to have a go. I can tell they love it, and I love them when they love it!

Early on in the night, one fellow came to me, and asked whether I am willing to paint a stencil image of Pink Floyd’s album cover ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ for him as a present to his father. He also said that he would cut the stencil for me! “So…” he asked me, “what do you want me to do?” I replied that I would like a cutting of the triangle, and that I would work out how how to do the rest as I went along. He returned about an hour or so later with a triangle cut from acetate and held together with staples where the bridges had broken. Sure, I could have made a much better one myself, from better choice of material – yet this was a gift for his father and I felt so proud to be part of that process for him.

In spite of his assurances that he was willing to wait until the next day, he kept coming back all night to see how I was doing, which was good. His presence reminded me to keep picking at the job, especially in between circle shows and when I was fed up with entertaining people at my own material expense. The cool thing was.. that this production process itself attracted as much attention as the record spinning did! By the time the night was done (and he walked home with his clock in hand at 3.30 in the morning), I had taken deposit on two more!

Maria was great. If you’ve ever been to the continent and seen the way establishments have a cashier… this as exactly where the people assumed her to be, and she worked well; making up clocks and telling people about my stencil work and other efforts.

I staggered into bed at 5 that morning, and was awakened in just time for lunch and further preparation. Gawd! I felt terrible! I had arranged to meet some people at around 6 or 7 to make up some clocks for them and to deliver the two promised Pink Floyd discs that I hadn’t even started working on! Ugh! This was going to be a hard one… or so I thought! I took my time, perfecting a production process to make four Pink Floyd discs, to wash my self off, and to hit the road for the one hour journey back to the event location.

Tonight was awesome! The people were a totally different box of fish than the previous night. Where I was feeling beaten and harangued the night before, tonight I was welcomed, supported and encouraged. Within half an hour of setting up, all four Pink Floyd clocks had found new owners. Whilst the crowd was still relatively quiet, I set myself to making three more, and went home with them! Who’s to know what works and what doesn’t?

The highlight of my night was meeting local stencil artist ‘Red’ and his lady Marista. Also the lady who was too shy to have a go – I promised her a piece of my art if she didn’t like her own. She loved her own, and made a clock out of it. One very happy customer!

At the end of our night, the local bar treated us to beer and mint flavoured vodka shots. “You guys did great” they said as the closed their doors and we all staggered home. I had been ready to party into all hours this time, tho’ the vibe wasn’t there at all. We slept in the car and awoke feeling too tired to be sane.. one more coffee for the road and I’m giving the stuff a wide berth for the foreseeable future. I need a nervous system!

I was asleep by 3.30 in the morning and awake at around 8, abuzz with the excited feeling that I had just changed the world. This is how it happened…

Sannicandro is a little town nestled in the hills of the Gargano region of Puglia – or, as I say, “on the North coast of the cowboy spur” of the Italian boot. Having had lived here for 18months at one time, and frequented the place since 1999, I have grown to understand the village in my own way, often referring to it as ‘the land that time forgot’. It’s as traditional Italian as I’ve ever seen and, witnessing the decent of Playstation and internet upon this town and the subsequent change in social interactions between the people – has been interesting to say the least…

On our first day it town… Ugh, did I feel dreadful! We must have eaten something that was not quite right – 3 of us were down with tummy bugs, crawling around behind Mamma at the local, fortnightly travelling market that was unfortunately (for us) in town that very day. Somewhere in the middle of cheeses and t-shirts, little turtles and kitchen wonders, one daughter met the local graffiti artist who said they were hosting a festival (dedicated to a fallen fellow musician and artist) and invited us to the piazza that night for an evening of spraypainting; I was unconvinced – having felt the fool arriving to one of their  painting gigs ready to go without having collaborated beforehand was the social faux-pas I dreaded to repeat; I arrived with arms and legs only, just to fulfil the social obligation and see what was going on.

They had a stage, sound booth, food and drink gazebo, some body painters and a couple of stalls selling trinkets. Oddly, I felt a bit put out that I hadn’t known this event was on – I felt wanting to, needing to; get some solid disk action happening for the journey. I offered my services without a comprehensible explanation of what it is I actually do and held them all in suspense for the following night.

As the evening approached, I began to feel in two minds, overshadowed by the awe of presenting my soul to the people whom to me, had always expressed themselves as having ‘seen and known it all’ and were thus near impossible to share anything of oneself with, which was always very frustrating when I had come from a different country at the other side of the World with a completely different view of the world (which I ended up keeping to myself, preferring to lock myself away to learn self stencil art instead!). One mind said I would repeat my Parisian experience and cement a reputation as some sort of alien freak, whilst the other mind said their curiosity and complete boredom with the repetitious predictability of their daily existences would overcome their fear and bring them into the new experience with bells on and cannons blazing.

I arrived and set up – bullishly knocking aside demands for an explanation of the incomprehensible installation I was establishing – I had to, for I could not explain what I do, not even to a dear friend who was doing the stage announcements proceeding my start.

Coincidentally, another dear friend happened to be within arms reach right on cue, to become my first Sannicandrese artist – unbeknownst to her until I handed her a can (HA!). She pulled at the painting apron she was already wearing in a feeble attempt to escape, yet alas, the bed was made, the crowd was drawn, and participate she must, and did – admirably. She came back twice more! 😉

The crowd drew in quickly and remained consistently deep until 2.30 in the morning – I managed but one quick nature break during the night. The most notable artists were;
The woman who asked me to paint for her that I managed to persuade to try first – her wide eyes in shock realization that all she needed to do was to put her hands to task and the magic will happen.

The boy who painted 7 or 8 discs, mostly on behalf of the girls who were too shy. The tricky fellow really hit the jackpot – about hero among the girls who had his evening paid for, he even had them paying for his own turns!
The artist who’s eyes popped when he realized the creative inspiration being transferred by the act of being shown record spinning.
And the most amazing of all… A Franciscan monk took a spin. Both the crowd and I were struck dumb as this simple man produced his simple design and left with a smile as wide as the world. I feel certain he is pleased beyond description.

Whilst packing the trailer, I felt like the time had flown! I felt awake, invigorated and probed my memory deeply to investigate where the stimulus had come from… Nope, no coffee in there! Wow! What a buzz!

At 3.15 when bed arrived, sleepiness was missing. When I awoke, I was saturated in the feeling of having changed the world – really. I started to write this blog entry and went out for a celebratory breakfast, hoping that free WiFi would get this growing list of non-posts up and into the world – yet it was down 😦 The pasticcini were amazing, and only fruit juice was fair appreciation of a morning on which I felt so alive.

Sticky fingers washed and account settled, I started walking to a known internet cafe in hope that Sunday trading hours would not apply, and you wouldn’t believe what I saw…

Yea… Last night, I did change the World… and me in it.

Posted on the road via WordPress for Android

Upon arrival into Italy from the north, one of the first towns to encounter is Aosta – a personal favourite. There are many beautiful shops and things, lots of tourism and a breathtaking backdrop of the alpine mountain range.

Whilst walking through the town’s shopping district to procure a bottle of Genepy liqueur – a local speciality made from the local alpine plant Artemesia glacialis (remembering that Absinthe is made from Artemesia absinthium), it came to my attention there is a shop here selling all manner of obscure clocks. Ah HA! So I thought! Here’s an opportunity! So I went back to the carpark and set about making up six clocks to show and offer.

Sadly, upon enquiry, it was learned that Aosta has been experiencing it’s leanest summer in memory. “Just look at the number of shopping bags that people are carrying” said the shopkeeper. “Unfortunately, we are selling our clocks at discount to clear the line and to cease offering clocks for sale”

Bah. Them’s the breaks, tho at least we have six clocks to show off when we get further south!