Finally, on our last night here in Rome i can connect to internet! its been SO frustrating, have been trying to email from Venice, Sienna, and Florence. our reliable email cafe shut down and it has been internet cafe nightmare everywhere else. other places wouldn’t even help me get the computer in English. we didn’t go to visit friends in France, felt we needed more photos for the CAA presentation so have traveled to many places to get photos. its been a wild ride! snow in Florence postponing our ride to Rome, hasn’t snowed for 20 years like it did on our last night Friday. all the free spirits were out, we were out photographing, and heard opera singing so followed the voice... a wonderful American woman singing opera, ave maria, while the snow was falling on us... Florence people- warm and kind to us. Rome today.... photos of Coliseum and Vatican. Rome is a party town but i didn’t have enough time to photo all the ruins i would have liked. Venice - wrote long emails to you and couldn’t send them out. have the best photos from Venice, really beautiful. Don’t’ know how i survived all that we did! the Italians are so lovely and warm. very friendly’, i was very comfortable walking up to anyone knowing they spoke no English and just saying what i needed help with. ran around Sienna looking for Santa Katrina's church. found it and all this travel has brought up memories of being raised catholic. at the Vatican today, what a strange experience. the museum was closed and i was so disappointed as i went there just to photo angels. have kept a journal so maybe we can back track. well, its been sweet being in the Christmas days in Italy. caio caio bella, need to repack again .... kim♦

If you think we wait until a few months before summer to begin planning Friday Night Live at the Plaza you might be surprised that behind the scenes it is already a buzz of activity.

Enhancements for 2010 include plans to produce an event program that will be distributed as an insert in the Cloverdale Reveille a week or so before the first show. This will include a write-up and picture of each band, information on the Cloverdale Certified Farmers Market and other happenings so you can keep it and refer back to it all summer long. We are also hard at work reviewing possible bands, and have already tentatively confirmed 5 bands. It's looking like a killer lineup of excellent music for 2010! We are also lining up our winery sponsors and have 6 of those already confirmed.

Did you know? During 2009 the following First Street Gallery artists received recognition for their artistic talents.
• Beverly McChesney won “Best of Show” at the Plaza Arts Earth, Art & Recycling Show.
• Cher Morris Tice won “1st Prize” in the fused glass division at the Marin County Art Fair.
• Melissa Cox received an “Honorable Mention” at the Watercolor Association of Sonoma County’s show.

In January 2010 work by local artist Frank Miller will be exhibited at the London Art Fair and at the Wolfe Gallery in London.

Talent abounds in Cloverdale.

CAA is bringing The Sonoma County Chamber Singers, one of the premier choral ensembles of the North Bay, to Cloverdale for one performance of their spring concert series. The date is Friday, April 9th at 7:30 pm at the United Church.

The Chamber Singers will engage you with the beauty of classical choral music, an art form
that is participatory, inclusive, and immediately accessible due to its reliance on the first and most moving musical instrument – the human voice.

Admission will be free. This concert is a thank you to the greater Cloverdale community for supporting the Cloverdale Arts Alliance.

Coming Soon to the Cloverdale Center for the Arts – A “How to Listen to and Understand Opera” Course.

For more than 400 years, opera has been one of the most popular performing arts. Opera geniuses - Monteverdi, Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, and Puccini created some of the most glorious operas of all times. Opera is a marriage of words and music. The music is transcendently beautiful.

This course on DVD features vintage photos of great composers, classical performances (no footage of actual performances), along with on-screen translations of vocal selections as they are being played. By the end of the course you will understand, appreciate and even love opera.

Between lecture evenings, three full operas will be show. Discussion after the lectures and the full operas will be facilitated by Bob (opera fan) Jordan and his opera buddy, Joyce Mann.

Watch the Alliance web site and calendar for full details.

well i was so brave today and climbed 476 steps to the top of the cathedral dome across from us just to get great shots for the Florence CAA show! i took a few steps rested and so on and so on. wow, what a feat and you can’t imagine how narrow the passage way got as i reached the top, i was starting to get claustrophobic, suddenly out of tunnel and spiral of stairs i came and i was above the whole city of Florence. the sun was going down so i got some great shots of all of Florence and beyond.

the ceremony of the Biennale was very official and proper. all the jurors and president of the biennale and the artistic director sat at a long red clothed table. then the mayor of Florence (!) walked in with crowds of people following after him, then men in old style (tights and all!) uniform came in marching and playing drums which you could hear long before they arrived. then ambassadors from Chile, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and many European countries were introduced. long speeches mostly in Italian and a few translated into English and Spanish, and then the show began. it was quite an ordeal.
sorry i am back tracking like this, all the way to the beginning, it has taken some time to digest all that’s going on here. as for the quality of the art, most of the art is very impressive, i have taken tons of photos of the artists work to share, some of the work is so so, but that is my opinion and in going to some of the museums here, i see the most simple work that i wouldn’t myself consider much, and see where that same style of work in the Florence show.

tomorrow i will go to Venice to take photos. I am really on the go now as time is running out, want to bring home a very diverse range of photos to share.

i love saying caio caio bella as i hear everyone saying.

kim

i am taking lots of pictures for the caa presentation. writing seems to be impossible with my brain being absolutely exhausted still, but thank god i can walk around and document everything with the camera and fill in the information later. you can really tell which artists came from far away to participate. they have a glazed tired look in their eyes and many are saying they are sleeping 9-14 hours a day to catch up on the time change. me, i am trying to get out as much as possible and photograph all that i can. my sprained ankle is healing and i have kept walking all these days, thank god i brought some bottle of essential oils which has helped with the healing.

backtracking the Florence Biennale, an honorary award was given to a Chinese artist and he unveiled his latest art piece which was a huge ugly image of Arnold Schwarzenegger. an Italian woman spoke up and said that she was quite offended, and what would have happened to him if he had done this same image with one of the leaders from his own country. he didn’t really answer the question...
awards will be given to all categories of the arts. there are 74 American artists here i believe
.
in front of the Uffuzi Museo there are incredible mimes that dress up like old statues and when a coin is put in their box they move very slowly, amazing, and a little scary! it took awhile but i finally went up to the angle mime who gently kissed my hand, he was so ethereal and beautiful! fantastic sculptures in front of museum also of famous influential artists, musicians, scientists, botanists, etc. beautiful sculptures!

i walked early morning around the city when it was still dark photographing the city, very quiet after the big weekend which brings in thousands of tourists. the Christmas decorations are modest but adds additional charm to the already beautiful city.

its an exciting day here as the president was attacked yesterday, an Italian threw a milan duamo statue at him and hit him in the face. it was all over the news last night on the television and today in the news papers.

they love American music, movies and jeans here, they love Abbott and Costello movies, the never ending story and the matrix. those movies keep being played over and over on the television late at night.

well, i must get out of the city to a small village Fiesole before it gets dark, i hear there are Etruscan ruins.

caio caio, kim

i have recovered from the lost luggage drama and all is well at the Florence Biennale.

did i tell you that the apartment is on the fifth floor of a 6 story apartment building built over 1600 years ago and we look down on the piazza Duomo; the cathedral walls are right across from our windows. the walls act as an echo chamber and we hear all the people below. there seems to be a constant flow of people below at all hours of the day and night.

the woman next to me at the Florence Biennale is from France. she speaks very little English and i no French at all, but we managed to communicate very well, especially about art. i love her art, she is like a sage, a storyteller, a communicator of myths. i told her that looking at her art influenced me deeply. you can look her up at plaindoux-peintre.net. i don’t know how her art will show up on the website versus her original pieces.

another artist here that has become a life long friend is from Canada, an Irish woman named Danielle, you can also look up here work at www.danielleoconnorakiyama.com. she shows her work mostly in New York and in London and has given me lots of tips about showing internationally.

yesterday i had to get away from the Florence bustle and the ambulance clinic right across from the other side of the cathedral so we went to a small village outside of Florence named San Gimignano. i was in awe from the very first step i took into this medieval city, which was built in the 3rd century. the main road was the road from Rome to France, and the city all built around this road. the creative instinct set in and every where i looked was a photograph. there are 3 large towers left, at one time there were over 80 towers in this village. i climbed to the top of one of the towers, and the view of Tuscany was breathtaking. i will have many images to share with you. i did not want to leave!

yesterday at the Florence Biennale there was a tribute to Japanese film making, the day before was a tribute to the arts in India, a lecture and slide show of current works going on. a woman who is participating in the show made films of herself creating her work, very expressive and a new form of art, i cant even describe what she did as i have never seen anything like it. today an award will be given to an artist from Yugoslavia who is quite daring with her art forms and brings knowledge to people about the poor condition in which many people live.

the show's main focus is to bring international knowledge of the arts. as the director said at the opening ceremony "may there be only one language spoken here today, the language of art". i know i am skipping around in my communication to you, bear in mind i am exhausted from the time change, and hobbling around on a sprained foot, but can't seem to stop, as there is so much to see! more later, i hear it is cold where you are! later.

caio caio ....kim

where do i start! we arrived last week, no painting at Florence B., our luggage lost in Paris or Rome, all my email contacts, clothes, meds, etc. in our luggage! HP computer seems to be having a hard time in the internet cafe we found. . you can image how stressed i have been. fred has been very grounded and keeping me positive through it all. one night i sat on the steps of the cathedral and cried and cried! (Note: Fred is Kim’s husband)

good news, painting showed up Friday morning and we had it up just hours before the show opened and the opening ceremony started. finally we able to go to the Florence airport Sunday to get our long lost luggage. Mama mia! It’s been SO stressful. so now i can relax a bit, everything o.k. need to build up energy to get creative with the camera. have taken lots of photos of the Biennale show, trying to get in the mindset of what will be a good presentation for when i get back., meeting artists, etc. over 78 countries represented this year. we meet a wonderful artist from Norway and a couple from Canada.

he good news is the Chianti (!), really quite enjoyable and the prices of food not bad at all. the people are very friendly and so many people speak English. already have a few priceless photos with stories behind them.

the apartment is across the Duamo Cathedral. wow, tomorrow is the holiday of the birth of the virgin Mary, SO many people are out tonight and the bells in all the churches are going wild.

Ciao, Kim

Kimberly Howland, Cloverdale First Street Gallery artist, by invitation is now exhibiting at the prestigious 2009 Florence Biennale, a partner with the United Nations in their program "Dialogue Among Nations". Kim’s Biennale painting, "Peace My Beloved", is Kim’s vision of a painting representing many nations. The representation of an angel or a winged ethereal being is an idea that shows up in many different cultures across the world.