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Week 16 - Daily Diaries - We round off our week with an insightful photo story from Ellie

Edited BY


G P Kennedy


Ellie - Milan, Italy

 

Sunday starts in my studio

 

Hello, world! On July 19 of year 1 of the COVID-19 era, being Sunday, the day for me started with some studio work. Today, this was technical, prep work. I am an artist, so this meant that my bathroom became off limits for anything else a bathroom is normally used for, as I am coating cyanotype fabric -- meaning soaking large pieces of cotton muslin in a yellow chemistry ----- that will make the fabric sensitive to light when it dries. This eventually will result in Prussian blue photographic prints, but for that, we will have to wait for another day. For now, it means the bathroom is currently a drying room and I will have to clean the floor with baking soda.

 

 In my Lombard life, the things that have helped me the most to become rooted are succulents. Not sure how it started, but I became fascinated with them and accumulating them. Aren't they such a metaphor for life -resilient and life sustaining - but at the same time, asking for their space? And the most important thing is that they really helped me get connected to other people, 

 I almost never buy them; in fact, they started coming to me as gifts of leaves and cuttings to transplant. Today, I had an appointment with a lady one street over, whom I had never met but whose garden I admired from the sidewalk, to receive cuttings from her prickly pears and aloe. And did she give me a generous mass of deep green dark flesh. I will wait a couple of days before I transplant them, just to give their roots the chance to cauterize. 

 

 We are not going on a real vacation this year. Even though Italy is closed for anything serious in August I’m not sure how this will turn out next month. Borders within Europe are mostly open, but some countries are showing an increasing rate of infection, so the situation is in flux. 

That, along with several other factors, means that we will be taking day trips only in lieu of a vacation. Today, we are going to the nearby town of Albizzate to check out a 14th century oratory dedicated to St. John the Baptist. 

 I can't fail to notice the church-specific graphic persuasion to follow new rules. We are the only visitors and the key to the oratory is held by its next-door neighbor. 

 The story of John the Baptist, in all its tragedy, feels strangely comforting.

 

This evening, we made a reservation at a nearby eatery to enjoy a plate of frogs and a bottle of no-label house wine. 

 Frogs are not exotic fare; they are a staple foraged in the rice fields of western Lombardy along the Ticino River. It is hot.

 

 And it's a day. The last thing I have planned to enjoy today is these monarch butterflies. No, they are not native of Lombardy. These are acrylic butterflies sent by an artist friend from the US, Jane Fulton Alt, for a collective collaborative project. I just need to receive them, place them somewhere and take a picture of them. Butterflies are, among others, symbols of transformation and regeneration. 

Having them here, in their acrylic essence, means a lot. They have overcome the separation of border closures; I release them on the windowsill, among the cacti, and let them spend some time of freedom in the evening breeze. I do as if they were alive, letting them fly if they and the breeze decide, and take a picture of what remains. And I thank them for their presence and promise of rebirth.

 

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