Nourish

(Grazie).

More hugs _ and more *  : : : here.

Deathlove (I) - I Am Your Accomplice (A Draft)

(S'd Love)

The Pangolin: Beauty Of The Armour's Strength

There's a concept of strength very dear to me: the strength of sharing our fragility, and, together with this, our most precious love. That's so much part of the concepts I mean to share through my work, through my life.

It is a kind of lost art, so I feel that it deserves more attention. It is part of the mission of a Rainbow Warrior.

In the last months, though, I had to acknowledge deeply the clear strength of the armour – a type of strength that I had rather disregarded, as it's just the opposite of what I tend to encourage: the armour is a closing action, while my heart hopes for an increasing collective openness.

Yet, yes, the armour does work. I must see this as well. Dangers do exist, and the armour can definitely be a tool. One tool, one of the many we have. There's not one only correct way. I believe in multiple choices and multiple possibilities. I still battle for the flower battle, I still gently fight for the gentle fight, but I do bow to the power of a armour that defends from lion attacks.

Let me introduce to you who shown to me this intriguing technique.

Ladies and gentlemen: The Pangolin.

Oil pastels and waterable pencils on velour paper, 24x17 cm circa

I'll leave here also some sketches made while studying it. The pangolin deserves much study.

* With a delicate eye for pangolins turning 30 on the 19th of May, 2016.

#VideoCallSketching 047: Anonymous Who Requested To Be Described as A Muslim From An Asian Islamic Country

In February I started the #VideoCallSketching project: in 15 minutes, all whispered by my sand timers, I make a portray on a video call. To contact me, the best way is to add me on Skype as etaliparoti, or drop me an email at eta489@gmail.com, or to message me on my Facebook page.

On my website I tell some more about this, and following me online you can see the collection growing. I would like to share more on my blog too, in my mind I type several posts meant for my blog, but I have very little time for this as I'm working a lot on many things and I have no time to follow all the social media, so here I'm reporting only some piece by piece. Also, in all these months I didn't really tell anything about what I'm mainly doing here in Budapest, and I think it's not time yet to do it, but I can tell I've been drawing maybe more than ever, and yet never enough. And that I'm very happy! Much magic, my dear beast, here too.

Anyway, I came back with passion on my lovely and beloved blog pages because I got a very meaningful story to share. Perhaps very little, but still very heartfelt and precious, and peculiar. It came with the 47th #VideoCallSketching; I'm going to copy after its drawing what I shared on Facebook too.

(It might be a story you'd like to share.)

#VCS 047: Anonymous Who Requested To Be Described as A Muslim From An Asian Islamic Country

Is your body the way you express yourself?
Do you feel like nudity is the only way you can actually be who you truly are? Some will think "not all", I suppose, but many may relate, I guess.
What if you live in a place where you might be "stoned to death" or "lynched by a mob" if you are seen even just in shorts?

The night after the attacks in Belgium, on the 23rd of March, I received a new request on Skype on my #VideoCallSketching account. That day, once again, I had spent some thoughts about art's potentiality in politics and ethics. I do believe strongly that as far as humanity tries to get better, we'll need art, and I decided to listen to my call, with all my heart. Yet, sometimes, although I know that's a way of healing too, I just stumble upon the idea that nursing might be something more directly effective, for example, and playing with pastels may be limiting. The attack in France, in November, scared me very much, not because of the physical danger it might represent for me and who I know directly, but because, unfortunately, I knew this can increase the fears that become racism, racism towards exactly those very same ones who are suffering more from the ones who are using a religion to kill and have power and money (and all this out of a situation that Western European Countries generated, from colonialism on). So that's what I was afraid of: observing more and more hate around me, instead of love, and openness. Luckily, I feel surrounded by intelligent people, who mostly share my same ideas, and many who volunteer and work, for real, very directly, to change this world; this help me to keep high the hopes, and makes me very thankful. Yet on that day I still had some extra thoughts about what I can do, and what I should do. And then I received this new request on Skype. "Can i ask something bluntly?", this person soon said. I said "Feel free", and I knew, already, this was going to be again someone looking for sex cam – which is something definitely okay and that calls my attention especially because of the vibrant battle for sex workers' rights, and much much more, but… that is not what my #VideoCallSketching project is about, simply. But then this person asked me instead if I could also draw bodies, or if I do only the face, and if in case I would upload this on Facebook. This, this seemed like something else. Also, I had been waiting for someone not posing with a close up, so I immediately answered appreciating the originality. Then this person asked me if somehow we could making the face not recognizable, and if it was okay if he wasn't wearing anything. He did all this very gently, and carefully. I was still wondering if somehow this was his way to arouse himself, but, even so, it looked like we were already in another kind of territory, respectful, positive and organic. Then we tried to figure out how and when we could do the portray, as he cannot stay naked normally where he lives, because nudity isn't accepted in the Country where he stays, and his family is mostly at home. It was late in the night, almost the morning, in his time zone, so we decided that he could hide in the bathroom and that we could work it out despite the not ideal light condition, because he could hardly find a moment with the sunshine anyway. In the meanwhile, he shared with me some more of his story; from now on I'll call him "my brother", because he is (as we all are) – and because he needs to stay anonymous. He also asked me not to tell the specific Country where he's from, because despite the incredibly small possibility for anyone to identify him, the serious risks in his Country are exaggeratedly high. So we decided to name his Country as an "Asian Islamic Country", hoping to bring some more narrative echoes in the title of what I was going to draw. He told me that he's in his 30s, that the political party he's active with is liberal and they are targeted as "terrorists", and that he feels like he cannot share his true self with almost no one, and that this way I was going to be about to 5th person to know him for real.
I had to share about how I feel that the opposite tendency of the society where I live is really bad too and that can be very much forcing people, especially women, to treat our bodies as commercial products and yet not accepting at all the freedom of nudity. But of course, well, fearing to be stoned to death is quite another thing. I had to think of all the situations where I can join the fight to set free our nature, I thought of my beautiful memories swimming naked in a river in Wales in a Rainbow Gathering, I thought of all the contemporary art, the performances, the Rock'n'Roll and all the fervent subcultures through which this f(l)ight took off in the 20th Century, and I got mesmerized by this specific intersection, where this need that I'm used to hear loud in the Feminist environment meets a man who considers himself a Muslim: such a different reality, still aiming for the same, for love and freedom, and peace. That very moment, realizing that, realizing how much we were just on the same track, felt absolutely essential, and it meant that we are just all going in the same direction: very different people from very different backgrounds are waking up, together, and messing up the world, in a way or another. We are doing that. This is happening. This is happening – so much.
I felt and I feel this connection with him on many details. When he got naked, he typed: "Do you see how hairy my body is? Would it be possible for you to capture this in the sketch? I say this because I feel our body types are our physical identifiers and there was a time when I’d shave my whole body but I’ve realized to own the natural character of my body which is it being this hairy because of me being from this part of the world."
And again, I felt stronger this brotherhood, and laughed cheering at the parallel paths: on the other side of the globe, with the pastels ready in my hand, this woman I happen to be is just through the years in which finally learnt how not to shave my armpits anymore, then not to have nightmares on my "unibrow" anymore, and to enjoy those kind of mustache sometimes darker, and then even not to shave anything else anymore below my belt.
(And enjoying also very very much how my Sicilian features do look from an Arabian Country, especially in Hungary, which reacted to the refugees emergency building a fence with concertina wire on its Southern borders.)
It is sometimes very hard to get people understanding my choice even between other women in Europe, and I got used to some shocked reactions (and to the louder winks and encouragements too, thankfully, or just to the most easy and tranquil indifference). So finding an ally on this in him, with such a different story, has been totally a gift, for me.
The connection that we found gives me many hopes. Ideas are everywhere, they run through the limits of our verbal communication, between all our consciousness. We laughed many times on how much our reactions to the cages make us behave oppositely and yet in the same way. Slowly, all the humanity is waking up. One might ignore how to share what is learning with someone very far, but these ideas will travel anyway, and we find ourselves speaking with the same words, in the same and different heart.

This is a story it had to be shared.

Thanks so much, Brother, for having given to my project an opportunity to be a messenger of something so fragile and important.

Hi, World, we're "Peace Architectures", and we keep dancing.

Thank you for reading.

Cienfuegos ~ A Dream Reincarnation

 

This morning I woke up because of my own sobs, and despite all the ultra-joy I had the days before. Most of the times this happens to me with laughter, sometimes I wake up with my own laughter, but once in a while I dream of someone dying, perhaps, I cry and I wake up of that, and then I calm dawn, because I realize it was a nightmare and the person is alive, and I realize better how much I want this person in my life. This morning, instead, it has been a bit different: in the dream I was crying because of a death already happened, and waking up I had to acknowledge on a deeper level of awareness how this death is sad to me. When she passed away suddenly, in that motorcycle crash, I had somehow enough "sane distance" to elaborate the loss. I love death as I love life, and I'm maturing a golden connection with the whole cycle. But, as I grow, I wonder about how you could have grown too, how many things I would have liked to share with you, to do with you, to ask you about. What would have you think of this? Would have you liked to join the same crazy ideas I'm exploring in the new pages of my life? Would have you visited me somewhere, in The Netherlands or in Hungary? We would be talking so much again about politics, philosophy, art and love, and I'd tell you how much I feel back in the same hopeful eyes we caught each other when I was thirteen and you were fourteen. You'd love so much to hear that I'm back fighting for a better world, for good, after all those years I had lost much of optimism. I'd sending you all the new Italian progressive rock I'm finding and I'd want to know everything about how you imagine the revolution of our school system. I'd ask you to work together, again. And if we'd disagree, we would have the most tasteful and stimulating discussion!

So, this is missing, I guess, bloody hell. I miss you, my friend, and I didn't know the way I would have missed you, when all this happened, almost four years ago.

But I love the funny way I bumped into you in this dream, this morning.

(Was that an intentional and planned visit, my friend? Shall I thank you?)

I was crossing a bizarre bazaar somewhere, together with some friend, and I could not stop turning my head back to that majestic lady selling oriental piercings, bracelets, pots and carpets, with that nose some like mine, and that elegance proper of the best beasts, with the pride of a crane and the chill of a lazy, cold and indulgent giraffe. I just knew she was not busy only with some selling, I knew for sure that this lady had an adventurous past and was probably feeling her life as a mission – as you did. A burning, mystic and mysterious mission. I could not stop turning my head to this magnetic lady, and I was about to find the words to apologize with my friend and explaining that I had to go and to kiss this lady's hand. And then, then I really saw the hand! Those hands, with those charming gloves and that unique way to address the body on their way, that was you! It was you, reincarnated in this long, long body, confident in your new life as a wise old woman can be, and you were carrying around this beautiful turban just as a supernatural crown. And that's when I started to cry, because I understood that I miss you, and I remembered your death. And then your favourite literature teacher from our Art High School came to me, to console my shoulder. She said, 'She was special, wasn't she?'

Then I told my whole dream to my Great X (someone you'd adore the art from), and I told her that weird, weird thing, that you always asked me to write your biography, if you were dying before me, you did it throughout our teenage till the last time we met, in our early 20s, just before I left Italy, in 2012. And I told Great X that I had never expected your biography to be so short, though, and I had wished to have many more things to tell, as your life would have collected. So Great X said this: that perhaps I should imagine the life you would have had.

Alba

After three years, this time I was again in Italy for the First of January. Which is also my Grandma's birthday. I was with my mom at her home – one of the  most sacred place of my memories – and, as usual, I was devoured by her beauty intertwined with my struggle to let her see it. She was used to be an incredibly beautiful woman, incredibly charming and strong in her firm gaze, dressed in great unique and bizarre style, always walking next to her equally stunning husband. But aging, for her, is anything pretty. She never accepts nor understand all the compliments I and my cousin Mary try to give her – not for kindness, but for our own need: as beauty lovers, we can't handle how she's blind to her own light. Yet, part of her charm totally comes from her severe and constant judge on everything, starting from herself.

She is the Empress of her complete, authentic Ruin *

and nothing can change her mind

(so far).

But I can't give up, and I tried to sketch her essence. After my whole life trying to portray her, that's my best attempt. And it finally satisfied me. She also saw herself there, which is not an easy result. I think I got that her so severe gaze, but, at the same time, all that Whiteness I love so much. Her inner child I connect with and I need to stand up. She often wears white, her hair are now white as the snow, with some pale blue fading out, and all her energies have this acid yellow purpose knocking in. It is so tender, to me, to look at this flower of my life. So, so severe, so angry and disappointed by anything nature arranged, yet so sensitive to tenderness in any non human creature she meets, but so, so blind to her own fantastical, tender, sweet, magic-cotton-purity forbidden smile greeting from any curve on her.

There's only one moment when she share her magic-cotton sweetness of spirit nudity: when she smiles. Which is the rare gift I always look for when I'm with her. Talking with her may almost turn in a videogame, for me, where each smile is my score.

But after having shown her this sketch, I actually got one of her best smiles, one of those come together with total surprise and emotion, as something in herself is whispering "hey, perhaps reality is a bit nicer and sunnier than how you see it". One of those smiles which is almost more a wide open mouth with wide open eyes because of that part of herself that is intrigued by starring at magic and yet slightly disappointed by the suspicion of being wrong about finding everything so negative. And that's how I got that smile on her, on the First of January 2016: while drawing her, my shoulders suddenly jumped, remembering out of the blue that as that was my first drawing of the year, my first drawing from 2015 happened as I woke up at my dear friend Jessie's place, on her couch, in the urge of picking my sketchbook and sketch my Grandpa Carmine (as a tree), while thinking of a huge painting to base on it. As I told her this – that she and her husband had been my first drawings of 2015 and 2016, by chance – she got this wide open eyes and wide open mouth.

I'd just want so much

to finally let her suspect a little bit that

"the Universe is a conspiracy on her behalf",

 

and not the complete other way around.

Her name is  Alba .

and it means :

Sunrise  * * * *

I'll be back on this.

________________________________________________________

* Ma la vecchiezza è una Roma senza burle e senza ciance che non prove esige dall'attore ma una completa autentica rovina.

Andrea Pazienza che cita Boris Pasternak, Pompeo

Seven years of flying fish

Just in time! It's not midnight yet, I made it home before, it's still the 9th of October! Happy 7th birthday, my dear little blog!

Thanks so much to all the people who shown some sweetness for it: much much love to all of you!
A special thought to Lu, for the very meaningful day she had today and shared with me, to Lidia, who wrote me this afternoon and have lots in common with Lu although they never met, and to Lu's friend who recently left Budapest for Austria, Palestina, Nepal and Spain, keen to help people.

▲ ▲ ▲ Cheers to the process of clearing one's vision, "as they say in Findhorn"
(as my thoughtmate says ♥ ). * * *

Just made, coming home, from the bus glass: the gaze which always I find traveling with me…

Argh, not in time: publishing the post at 00:01 of the 10th. Shit, sorry my sweet blog. But: you do know I've been thinking of you, and you know very well my little issue with time, don't you?


PS. And also: Happy Birthday, PJ Harvey!

Warming Up at Wembley, in Budapest

I was used to say that we have to train the wonder – and while saying that, somewhere in myself I always had this whisper laughing at my prudence, «you'll never stop to wonder, stupid Eta», instead my prudence was wiser, because I found myself in the position of getting used to the most spectacular things and needing to actively call for my attention and my ability to still see the beauty.
That's not why I started to yak on that, but Queen certainly can light my most sacred fire even when I feel empty. Lately I weirdly feel a bit lost about what to listen, which is extremely strange, for me, and I only feel like going to my oldest and most classical musics, like the themes of my childhood or the first discs that I bought myself. So Jethro Tull, Angelo Branduardi, Lucio Battisti, Gentle Giant, Frank Zappa, Janis Joplin and definitely Queen are being my great supporters while working in (look-at-how-I-say-this-like-nothing-happened-and-this-is-not-at-all-like-just-the-fuckin'-first-step-towards-one-of-my-personal-biggest-dreams-possibly-coming-true) an animation studio in Budapest, where I moved a few weeks ago.

I don't know yet what can be told about this project I'm working on, so I'll keep silent, for now. Anyway, the  sweet, shiny fact is: I'm spending my days animating, animating, animating.

Today I had my very first chance to draw on a Cintiq graphic tablet and, oh, well, how, how, how feels good!

While animating, sometimes I wanted to warm up a bit, or to break doing something completely different and spontaneous; on another monitor I was letting myself being pleased by Queen's Live at Wembley, so Brian May conquered my fingers. I drawn it quickly and I worked a bit on the colours afterwards; maybe his eyes aren't alike, but it was ages that I wanted to satisfy my lines with his face, so I just went with the frenzy.

Ah, emh, if someone wants now to make up a conspiracy between Brian May being Marge Simpson, because of the yellow and the blue, feel free – or just remember that the live at Wembley happened in very 1986.

Hope you drooled on his lips and destroyed your device,

Eta

Great X's Evil Twin

The legs of this lady are hard to be forgotten. However, her beautiful comic art and illustrations are a Great way to offer something else to your eyes.

(Little tribute to my beloved friend Q.)

Space Pirate ( Vendeta )

If you're around in Bolivia or Chile these months, watch out for this gallant foe traveling the world: that's not easy to spend much time with him, so make sure you are not wasting it being sad for his early departure, because you're already being very lucky * and because even the smaller life drops that you can take from a minuscule moment with him can inspire you for life. If you touch his freedom, you'll learn that you can only wish him to be free – and you'll learn you're free as well.

This post is my vengeance after he partly shaved his gorgeous curls (that you can see below).

He doesn't like many attentions of this kind on him, so I'm sure all this will work out as a terribly, infinitely, evil, horrible, unbearable, tremendous vendetta.

(I love that, bwhahahahaha!)

⊙

⊙

Spider Eyes

La cosa più importante che vorrei dire insieme a questo disegno è:

TEA, SEI UNA FIGA!

Ciao.

****

Integral version with über-sweet-lovely-note

More December Sketches

Playing with colour for new artworks, random sketching, random writing out of my mind and memories… Or not so random perhaps…

Here some other sketches from my current carnet, they all from December.

The first three are from a very cool musical gig at ACU, on the 12th. The definition from the website of the artist, from Poland, does fit:

Bajzel [meaning: mess] is the purest definition of "one man show" and "one man band". He is a band. He is a musical chameleon tap dancing on pedals, live-looping guitar, bass and beats into virtuosic alternative art-rock exhilaration.

 

The followings are stolen from a very warm and free party in Den Haag (The Hague) at my sweet friend Dorotea's new place.

Dorotea taking a picture

Dorotea, Johannes, Marilù, Stefano (who incredibly resembles a schoolmate I had in my art academy and who now lives in Australia (oh ciao Peter!))

Dimitris

On my way to portrait Dorotea, for some reasons something very challenging to me: I gotta do it with colours, she's too shining to add a black unreal outline to her skin…

Random, from my fantasy

Lovely Lynn

Random strip coming back home on the train…

And again…

And then a portrait made during a video call with my dear friend John, Gianvito, or however you want to call him. I'm very glad of this one. He said "Eta, by now you see everything in your way, did you realize that?"
He's usually very right about me. :)

There is also a digital variation of the colours…

Enough for now.

Much to do, here – I want to keep updated my post by showing some glimpses of what's going on around my nails, but not much time to tell and write. Soon I'll scan also my sketches from the Cremonapalloza Rock Fest, the X edition!

Little Eta's musical gift if you made it till the end of the post: check out this band, The Peanut Butter Conspiracy, related to Jefferson Airplane.

Stay positive, folks. Even this January. Especially this January.

"You must do beautiful dreams, Grandma!"

Even more than usual deeply antifascistly yours,

Eta

#EmilioResisti!

[E se siete in Italia e per caso leggete il mio post, considerate di unirvi al corteo nazionale, sabato! O di crearne uno nella vostra città, ci sono vari presidi contemporanei già in altri luoghi. Mai come ora vorrei essere in Italia. Mando tonnellate di sostegno virtuale. Trasformiamo le lacrime in nuova energia.]

3voor12/Utrecht presenteert ||| [On]zichtbaar in Utrecht ||| Fotoboek met 10 jaar Utrechtse popmuziek

I had almost forgotten to tell it!
[On]zichtbaar in Utrecht made it and, after the successful crowdfunding, it has been published and presented on the 30th of November, at Tivoli Vredenburg.

This is a little fast double sketch I've done during the presentation (from this lucky carnet).

It's really an awesome book, collecting a wonderful selection of the photographs made by 3voor12/Utrecht in ten years of music reports of the pop scene from this lovely town.

I volunteered in the team a few times but it has been always very interesting and, unexpectedly, one of my photographs has always been selected for this book. It's really really tiny and it's on the last page, but I must say that it's a pleasure to watch it together with all these other beautiful pictures. When I finally had the chance to browse this book, I was really impressed. 3voor12/Utrecht made a very remarkable work, making all this book and, of course, during all its history of reports.

My photograph, the third one from left to right on the left page, is from a Kodiaks concert at dB's.

Thanks to 3voor12/Utrecht, to who joined the crowdfunding and congratulations to all the ones who run this project!


CheeriO

Just a regular John

Random sketch.

A regular John is always good for a random sketch.

Charming expression and specific source from: a Jul's photograph.

I adore how one of the most orange people I know has these default dramatic features.

(If morphopsychology turns you on too, well, do not miss iioo project and all the research its creator Andrea Riboni is now carrying. John himself is also very curious to see how he'd look into a iioo portrait. Can't wait!)


PS. The quote was unconscious, I realize it now, afterwards. I don't tell it. I'll send a kiss-thought (eh, i miei vechi bacipensieri…) for who will get it first. I know I can count on at least two of my readers. Go! Guess it!


PPS. I'm getting closer to the magic day when I'll publish my post number 666. This post is kinda special too, it is the number 666, on one hand, but only considering the drafts too. I'll do something for the number 666 between the published ones.
Just to make sure you know that when I'll burn away, even my dust will feel like Rock.
(And also because this kind of things excites my cousin McA.)

I adore when I immerse myself forward into my childhood to warm up my little hands and then I make very unexpected things, CIAO VICTOR CIAO PAOLA ho cinque anni, anzi 3!

Once again, approaching a new work, especially if it is a commission, first my hands decide by themselves to do something totally different, like that first they have to get rid of any previous spot and make sure they are clean and ready to immerse into a new world. At the same time, somehow this way they listen better to what's going on here into my inner seascape, to potentially pick it up as style, technique or mood for the coming work.

This time the new work I'm going to do the front cover for the novel The Grand Tour by Victor Lorandi Iturrieta. This story is part of The Red Universe (“not only one book, but a series of stories told within one existence without barriers” – here also on fb).

The automatic spontaneous and pretty uncontrollable stream of drawings I made to warm up my hands happened on the new sketchbook I just bought. I must say that I'm very happy with these pictures and I love how they show, I believe, how healthy I feel. The way I draw is so much my gauge!

Now I just terribly wish that the way my ritual looked sane and unstoppable will be as happy as the actual working session for Victor and that this preparation will somehow turn useful to my illustration for him. But I know it will (and knowing it, finally knowing how my creative process works, is an extremely huge satisfaction and joy).

See you soon with much more: the cover for Victor and a bunch of other things exploding in my hard disk and in my room!

Cheerio

Etita

PS. The way I matched the colours here comes from what my body learnt in Iceland the past year. What impressed me the most has definitely been the new way I could see the colours there: the strength of some pastel colous and the elegance they can have next to some acid shades. The greens and the light yellows and the way pink is not a gender symbol but perhaps a psychedelic liquid echo. Oh yes. And how beautiful to find myself buys again with wax pastels?! That's a news of this fall, it was ages I wasn't using them this way. Like seven years ago, during my dinosaur obsession making flyers for Sydrojé (scroll till the bottom here to see)! How fun.

PPS. AAAAND… Happy Birthday, Victor! ;)

These two panthers didn't make it

The one who made it will be in my next post, with the flyer for the 10th Cremonapalloza Rock Fest.

These following two have been some of my sketches.

All was based on another drawing I had to use as reference. The first drawing is closer, while the second is more influenced by an actual photograph of a panther, which I needed to use anyway to better understand the panther's face before elaborating it.

I can't wait to see the final poster, with the graphic designed by McA, as in our traditional collaboration for the Rock Fest. It will arrive probably tomorrow!

My letters on "Püe"'s skin

One of my greatest distraction taking notes at the High School was my own handwriting: I was definitely taking notes, and rather well, but my mind wasn't totally there, somehow I was studying my own font, all the time.

Once, at the Art Academy, my classmate Lorenzo asked for my notes from Aesthetics Philosophy (there I was always fuckin' focused, instead – our teacher was a way too brilliant mind) and he returned me my book telling me he couldn't concentrate because he was getting lost into the lines and curves of my handwriting (sorry, Lorenzo, haha).

Well, my dear friend Giulia "Püe" has been on the table next to me during the last three years of the High School, right when I was gradually feeling more and more incompatible from the "school system" and more and more into my own life and interests – therefore, also when I was so much more into that daily passion of drawing by words.

However, while now, once again, I have some bookmarks on my browser to finally do my own font (I'll make it, it will take a while, but I really want it!), hereby I'm glad to share a couple of related tattoos of Giulia: she wanted words on her skin and she couldn't avoid to think of me, which is a very sweet gift for me as well. We've always been very different, one the opposite of the other, really, we've been very often surprised by how, exactly, we anyway ended up feeling so closed. But we do and we love it. And we love how we are still so affectionate despite the long time passing by between every time we can meet (consider also she wasn't on the Internet for many years).

Also, she's who started to call me "Maleta", that in Italian sounds like "bad Eta" and that, by chance, in Spanish also means "luggage".

We know each other since the kindergarten, but at the time she was… errr… she was pretty much a fuckin' little bully, heheh, and I was the perfect target for her and another kid. After just one month of kindergarten, I decided that the other kids were…less interesting that my Grandma's home, where I could stay while my mother was working, playing with the wonderful dog La Cucciola Monella (it means "The Rascal Puppy", article included, thanks), climbing the apricot tree, watching cartoons, sometimes at lunch with my beloved cousin Carmine too, browsing art history books (yep, my Grandma has a plenty of them and that was my sacred joy), drawing all the time (what else?) and, of course, saving the world with my invisible friends (please, note: by saying they were invisible, I'm not saying they didn't exist: I'm just saying you, everyone else, couldn't see them – yes, guys, I still think of you; by the way, may you tell Invy that I'm still really sorry for breaking apart when we were 8? Did he make it in making up a new life? He never updated me anymore about his life, tell him I wish him the best and I trust he could enjoyed these years and all the future ones…). Ooeps, what I was saying? Ah, yeah, Giulia and the kindergarten. Well, we had our very first moment of connection (the "click") when we were 13 and we realized that we were gonna be in the same class at the artistic High School, indeed. We were very different, but physically also relatively easy to confuse: for Carnival, when we were 18, we dressed up like I was her and she was me, counting on the same height and the same hair length. A lot of people actually got in the trap and thought, at first eyesight! It was so fun!

Ok, alright, I'm blabbering, pardon, the point of the post was to show the pictures!

This is her last tattoo, just done yesterday, as tribute to her little nephew Anna:

That's a little portrait I made of her when we met on September 2013:

And that's the tattoo she made out of some music lyrics, the past year:

Much love to you, Giulia, my lovely first bully! :D

(No, she's not bullying me anymore.




…Maybe.


(How may anyone make fun of me?! Right? I'm not that type.))