New paintings listed on my Etsy shop, Lakes & Lights!

I'm a perfectionist. If I can't do something well, then I get really frustrated. I'm so much of a perfectionist, that I dread having to practice. When I was a kid starting out learning the piano, I hated practicing because I wasn't able to just sit down and play a song perfectly for the first time. It's still hard for me to be motivated to practice and improve, because I admit, I'm lazy and want to be perfect the first time without having to "waste time" practicing.

When I paint, I hate to waste any paper, so if I sit down to paint and it's not right, then I sort of give up for a while and put the paints away. All my best work has come from times when I've been in a class and been forced to practice my technique. Now that I'm out of school, this has been really tricky because there's no professor pushing me to practice, to waste paper, to get loose. I get caught up in making the dimensions perfect, in getting all my lines straight, in getting just the right shade...but sometimes I loosen up, I waste paper, I scribble, and I make paintings that I'm proud of, which gets me going on a roll.

In the past week, I've made two new paintings, and added them to my Etsy shop, Lakes & Lights, that I've neglected for quite a while. There's a lot of room for improvement, but I'm actually excited to practice.

Enjoy!
Rachel

Siena, Italy

Harlem, NYC

La Dolce Vita

     Italy is beautiful. Like jaw-droppingly, let's-never-go-back-home kind of beautiful. Hardly anything beats the kind of happy you feel waking up in Italy with a foamy cappuccino and the sound of birds chirping outside. Just thinking about it brightens up the drizzly, gloomy weather we've been having in Minneapolis this week.

     My first visit to Italy was in May 2011 when I studied abroad with one of my best friends, Amanda, and thirteen others on Augsburg's "Art and Spiritual Practice in Italy" trip for eighteen days, where we learned plein air sketching and about the lives of St. Francis and St. Clare. In Siena, we sunbathed in the Piazza del Campo and enjoyed getting lost in the medieval architecture. We then took on the Apennines mountain range, trekking for three days through the Parco Nazionale delle Foreste Casentinesi on a pilgrimage following St. Francis' steps to his retreat at La Verna, atop Monte Penna. None of us believed our professors when they told us we should train for it, so it turned into a brutal three days, particularly when we had to wear garbage bags during the downpour and thunder on our second full day. This was a full-on shower-like rain, so when we stopped to eat our soaked prosciutto sandwiches, we were so miserable that no one spoke. I think half of us just threw our sandwiches in the trees. Despite being the most physically challenging thing I've ever done, I now have a real love for hiking and would love to go back and do it all over again. We then traveled to Assisi, a small village on Monte Subasio in Umbria, which had beautiful churches and scenery and finished up in awe of the splendor of Rome. 

     I can't wait to see more of Italy someday, like Sicily, Lake Como and the Cinque Terre and revisit the small towns of Tuscany and Umbria, because not much beats the sunshine, wine and pasta of Italy.

Rachel

Hotel Alma Domus, Siena

View from Hotel Alma Domus balcony, Siena

Casa di Santa Caterina, Siena

Piazza del Campo

In the Contrada dell'Oca (Goose) neighborhood, Siena

Lost on the eastern side of Siena

Bird taking a sip from the Fonte Gaia, Siena

About 15 minutes into our 3-day hike through the Apennines

Badia Prataglia, Emilia-Romagna

Proudly wearing my garbage bag in the downpour of day 2

Leaving Badia Prataglia

Resident cat of Casa Santicchio in Chiusi della Verna

Approaching Rimbocchi, beginning of day 3 

"Mortimer", a stray dog who hiked 8 hours with us

Santuario della Verna atop Monte Penna

Art students restoring paintings in the monastery, La Verna

Sketching on the Precipizio, La Verna

In love with a stray cat in Assisi

La Rocca Maggiore castle, Assisi

Assisi

Going to dinner in Assisi

Learning yoga in an olive grove, Assisi

Piazza del Commune, Assisi

Flowers at the Eremo delle Carceri, St. Francis' nature monastery retreat

Assisi

Assisi

The rooftop terrace view from our hotel, Albergo Ancajani, Assisi

The best tiramisu gelato I've ever had, Assisi

Assisi

Assisi

Kara and I waiting 7 hours for a strike-delayed train, Assisi

Colosseum, Rome

Spaghetti and meatballs at Ristorante La Canonica, Trastevere, Rome

View from Il Gianicolo

Trastevere, Rome

Sketching at Ristorante La Canonica, Trastevere, Rome

Trastevere, Rome

Trastevere, Rome

The Pantheon, Rome

Piazza di Pietra, Rome

La Bocca della Verità, Rome

Piazza Navona, Rome

Brittany, Amanda and I with gelato from Tre Scalini in the Piazza Navona, Rome

The Roman Forum, Rome

Last night in Rome

I Left My Heart in Paris, France

     

     Yesterday, I woke up in Paris. Today I woke up in Minnesota. It's a strange, strange transition. I ate three croissants at my terminal at Charles de Gaulle, and pulled the Brioche Dorée receipt out of my pocket while sitting on my bed at home. As I literally watched the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe fade away under the clouds and Minnesota come into view looking like a Life game board, with neat, geometric streets and full of trees, and hearing loud Minnesotan accents in the customs line, I was having- and am still having- reverse culture shock. When ordering from Pizza Hut for dinner last night, I caught myself asking for a margherita pizza and wondering why we had no red wine on the table. My bedroom is a whole other story. I have a Paris et ses monuments map on the wall,  an "original" painting from the Place du Tertre and about fifty little Eiffel Towers (People's go-to gift for me) scattered around the place. After having lived there, it all seems rather silly. There are also my suitcases that I refuse to open.

I hate goodbyes.

My favorite skyline

      I've spent this morning looking up jobs, internships and graduate schools that could lead me back to Paris sooner rather than later, but I know I won't be able to return until this time next year at the earliest. It's exciting to throw around ideas and not know what career I'll have or where I'll live and it's especially exciting to imagine I could be back in France in the future. I know for a fact that I need to go back one day as a resident again, and not just as a tourist. I think four months gets to you deeper than a Paris Visite pass. Even though I already miss France, I know that it will always be there waiting for me, and above all else, I will miss the people I met there who really account for the bulk of what made this experience so special to me. This semester was absolutely the best time of my entire life and I'm grateful I was lucky and privileged enough to make my dreams come true.
     I spent the last week or so traveling through Tuscany with my mom, our two family friends and a total of eleven pieces of luggage, making stops in Siena, where I spent a bit of time last year studying abroad, and Florence, which was completely new for me. We visited the Chianti Classico winemaking region, stopping at the winery Colle Bereto and a smaller, privately-owned vineyard up in the hills. I could easily have spent a month doing it. In Siena, I got to show them some familiar places like the Duomo, the Piazza del Campo, the Pinocoteca Nazionale and the Casa di Santa Caterina and see some new things, like climbing the 400 steps to the top of the Torre del Mangia and the ancient hospital Santa Maria della Scala that was Siena's primary hospital until the 1980s. I also never get tired of the food and drinks in Tuscany, like cinghiale (wild boar), pici (thick, handmade Sienese pasta), gelato, prosecco, limoncello, grappa and tiramisù.

Under the Tuscan sun at Colle Bereto winery, Radda in Chianti

View of the striped Duomo from the Torre del Mangia

Enjoying a Peroni while admiring the Torre del Mangia like it's the Eiffel Tower in the Piazza del Campo 

      In Florence, it was nice to not have so much pressure to be the tour guide and translator and just relax and marvel at the beautiful architecture. I know we didn't see even close to everything, but it was fun to take it easy, shop, eat pizza and pasta and drink wine to our heart's content. We spent our last night- my very last night to go out in Europe- gazing at the Florentine sunset atop the Piazzale Michelangelo and eating a late dinner of to-die-for food on the Arno. I love Italy, but I was ready to come home since I knew it was inevitable and it wasn't exactly a cake walk carrying my ridiculous amount of luggage through the airports and bus stations. I still secretly hoped that somehow my plane ticket home wasn't booked properly and I would have to stay. No such luck.  

Santa Maria dei Fiore

Watching the sunset from the Piazzale Michelangelo

      I could really go for a croissant right now, so I have the catering menu for one of the only passable French bakeries in the metro area in another tab. But maybe, just maybe Ladurée or Maison Kayser ships? Fingers crossed.

Rachel