A beautiful day in Venice. It takes me about half an hour to reach the Santa Lucia train station from Treviso. I had paid in advance 5 Euro for the daily tourist fee, but I walk right by the young collectors on arrival. Maybe they don’t see me?
Very quickly I’m in a different world.
I have been to Venice several times before, so to do something different, I have signed up for two different workshops.
One to learn about dry point printing, the other seriography. All new to me, and I’ll only get a taste, but it should be fun. Both workshops are in Venice’s Cannaregio district, at the far north of the city. I stayed here a couple of years back, because it is peaceful and quiet. Few tourists find there way here. Plus the monastery where I stayed had low rates.
The district has many artisan shops, including the Nicolao Atelier, which creates costumes for films and events such as Carnevale. It is closed, or I would drop in just to take a look.
It’s a very warm sunny day. Perfect for drying clothes in the sun.
The dry point workshop is held at the Bottega del Tintoretto where artists come to collaborate and create books printed to their exact specifications.
I am presented with a choice of pre-made designs. I scratch a design of St. Mark’s lion onto an acrylic block. He is one of my favorite lions. It is something like paint by the numbers, but I can see how it could get interesting working on one’s own designs.
It is a messy business to apply the ink.
The printed piece shows my foolish error of forgetting that the print is in reverse. I like my lion anyway.
At the break between workshops, I walk to a busier area and find this wonderful photograph in the window of a wine bar. Why do I love these old photos of Italians? They must strike some ancestral nerve.
My second workshop is with Gianpaolo Fallani of Fallani Venezia. His father was called to Venice from Florence as a young man to work in a well-known printing shop. He stayed on and established this shop, where Gianpaolo continues to create silkscreen prints.
I am happy that, although he speaks perfect English, Gianpaolo describes the process very clearly in Italian, and I understand it!
I create several prints, including this bag that Gianpaolo added as an extra. Of course, it is a pre-designed screen, but I see the process of creating the screen and how it can be done without a lot of fuss.
I decide to cross the Grand Canal in a gondola ferry. I have a little fear about falling into the canal while attempting to embark, but these gondolieri are strong and helpful.
I head to the Palazzo Mocenigo which is home to the Study Centre of the History of Textiles, Costumes and Perfume. Its showing an exhibition on men’s clothing worn in the time of Casanova. I enjoy seeing the incredibly ornate textiles, and how certain men of the time reveled in finery.
This all-suede outfit is tied with a sash of gold thread worked in the sprang technique. The exhibition points out that styles of the time were influenced by contact with Constantinople.
One wall of a room showing portraits of men of that time. I have an immediate negative reaction, due to the man-cave, manosphere vibe of the room. Aren’t they sumpthin?
The museum also contains many objects related to the history of perfumes, strongly influenced by Venetian travels to the east.
All kinds of perfume ingredients are displayed, including this Siberian musk, which comes from a gland in the musk deer’s abdomen. Now perfume makers use synthetic musk.
I head for the train station, passing over innumerable bridges.
The last big one takes me aback. I stop for a gelato to get the energy to cross it, and I’m soon on my way home to Treviso.
A wonderful day in Venice. I will come back in few days to visit some museums.