Now featuring an “Internationally-Shown Artist”

The opening itself was pretty successful. Despite the show being in a place I personally wouldn't have noticed had I been walking by, there was a fairly substantial crowd.

(That's my roommate, Zoe, in the striped dress. She also had 4 pieces in the show and managed to pick up a few commissions as well. Also, I apologize for the blurriness of some of these. I was trying not to use my camera flash.)

There were enough people to totally demolish the buffet, in fact.

That was one of several tables.

The show itself was an interesting mix of styles. There were pieces that very obviously came from Angel Academy (a classical arts school here in Florence), and there were pieces that were very obviously more about commentary than technique. There were Renaissance-looking pieces and installations utilizing Flash. The more classical pieces won more of the awards, possibly due to the fact that there was only one judge, but all of the pieces seemed to be well-received.

The Best in Show went to a self-portrait bust.

This is a charcoal drawing. I was blown away. It was done by a student at Angel. Apparently these take a good part of a semester, and students have to draw plaster casts for their first two years of study.

These four pieces are a sub-series of a currently uncompleted work. My friend, Shai, painted these on random cloth he found and stretched himself. He ended up selling these the first night.

In this photo, you can see two of Zoe's pieces and four from another artist who apparently wants you to plant a tree.

I think the most exciting part of the night, though, was my nametag:

Oh. Yes.

Just a few weeks left in Florence now, and only about two months left in Europe. Where did the time go?

-Jessi