I Am Finished

An hour ago, I finished my schooling here in Rome. At the end of four months, all I can remember now, after about an hour of slipping away, is that the painter Caravaggio killed a man and spent his artistic career on the lam. That's a fact you don't easily forget (neither did the authorities, who hunted him until he died at 35, immediately after being pardoned). However, all other knowledge not tied to interestingly colored anecdotes have passed away, lost in the swirling edies of unconnected thought - no, my mind isn't always disjointed, but it is on most occasions double jointed.

The point is, I've spent a semester learning a trade that I'll only remember by tidbits and fun facts. If I ever return to Rome, I foresee a future staring at various buildings and art pieces, knowing that at one time there was a place in the very back section of my brain, a section cubicle that held all the information pertaining to the art and artisan, yet I'll draw a blank. I will have previously spit out all the pieces that slowed me down and distracted me from distraction. But I guess that's what blank spaces really are: areas of information which we threw overboard in storms, to try and make our heads lighter and concentrate on the things that really interest us, like Caravaggio's off color life. Now that's entertainment.

I haven't lost it all; I have some records, notes and notebooks of what will seem, in a short while, jibberish, but which involve mostly all that I've learned. I've also my sketchbook, which I had to keep for the architecture portion of the program; I had to practice sketching one building and then the next, expanding my understanding of arches and supports and flying buttresses and such (there's something I will remember: the flying buttress. I won't remember what it did, but I sure will remember it).

I had to turn in twenty of those sketches as a part of my final. All the other students, who have been so sketching going on at least four years now, came off with sheets that I would hang on my walls. I cam off with some odder things.

This comes from Hadrian's Villa, in Tivoli, south of Rome. As you can clearly see, Boba Fett was there, flying over the main wall of the courtyard.

These are the apartments of the Garabatella, which people were put in when Mussolini demolished their neighborhoods to make way for his nationalistic boulevards. And yes, that is the Hamburgler there, on the balcony.

This is the view of the Tate Modern in London, from the Millenium Bridge. Honestly, this is as good as it gets. And you may say, that's not a true likeness of the sun, but, have you ever tried to sketch the sun?

And yes, I did turn these in as part of my final grade. Pity me, I dare you.