magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

today's field trip was pretty good, except for the bit when a girl from temple university, beth, fell out of a tree and broke her ankle. which is never good. but she did choose to go to tiber island hospital at the then end of the day.

we saw niki de saint phalle's tarot garden. i had no idea that it was even in italy, let alone daytripping distance from rome. but a few days ago it appeared on the notice board of upcoming events, and this morning we were there. and it was pretty cool. for the sake of the symbology, which of course i'm interested in. for the fact that some of the 'cards' are actually living spaces, although i do wish this was pushed further. seeing an entire community designed along these lines, and how it was actually inhabited, would be amazing. as it is, as a sculpture garden, it's a little dinsey, and suffers some from this. (although it wasn't terribly crowded with tourists, which was nice.)

and then the renaissance 'park of the monsters'. a similar exercise, although executed four and a half centuries ago, and inspired by the symbology and aesthetics of the time. and then lost until the 1950s when it was purchased, cleaned up, and opened to the public. it exists currently in a somewhat ruined, somewhat overgrown, but also somewhat nice-ified state.

back in rome, i once again only managed to finish twenty-five dots before it was too dark to photograph. the fourth of those twenty-five got me accosted by a police officer though. i had decided that i was only going to draw five on this particular street anyway. but as i was finishing the fourth and standing up to take a photo of it, an official-looking man came over to me and asked what i was doing. i gave him my standard answer, 'un progetto di arte.' he asked again. 'i'm an art student,' i said, 'this is an art project.' i was trying to take the photo before he pulled me away from the dot. he was physically tugging on my arm. 'it's an art project,' i repeated, 'i just want to take a picture of this dot.' he showed me his identification, kept pulling on my arm, then put his foot up on the dot.

eventually he did let me take the picture, but with a warning that i couldn't take any more photos on this street. 'this is the only exception,' he said. it turns out that there is some sort of governmental building on the street. and i guess they have to be careful. but really, someone with a camera and a sketchbook drawing chalk dots? actually, i guess that does sound a little questionable.

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while we were out today, during our picnic between parks, i received a text message from er!n, who was accepted to cooper union. congratulations, congratulations, congratulations. i sent her a message back on the bus and called her tonight. voicemail the first time, and she was trying to hail a cab during rush hour in the rain the second time. but, way to go.

in between those calls, i called garth and chris. found my fingers absent-mindedly dialing stef's number once i had dialed the providence area code. didn't even let it ring, but i don't know for how much longer i can keep this sitting back and letting life happen thing.