The Muse House

Since in this blog I will like to share the process and concept behind my work, it seems only natural to start with the description of the place, where I retook my pursuit as a visual storyteller. I had originaly explored it at Rhode Island School Of Design, RISD, doing photo-portraits of my dear friend Steven B.

For most of the 22 years that I lived in Italy, I did travelled a lot to the Italian region of Le Marche for work. There I made great friends.

Well off the tourist radar and on top of a hill in Le Marche, rises LaPedona, an 18th century town, with a population of just a bit over 1,000 people. Built with a defensive function, it still retains its original structure of a medieval castle surrounded by walls. It has a great view of the Adriatic Sea.

Within, it lays “The Muse House”, with its distinctive inspirational atmosphere and its undeniable ability to entertain not only people, but new ideas. 

Since I first arrived in this unsuspected oasis, I was swept away by a hedonistic new pattern of activity.

• Practice the state of not being awake until 11AM.
  

• Have breakfast in my favorite kitchen corner or in the tower. Usually right after, Silvana did arrived with the ingredients for her daily cooking of a genuine Italian home cook meal - some of her own produced olive oil, fresh eggplants and zucchinis (gifts from the neighbors that cultivated them in their nearby farms), fresh cut meats, fresh pasta, and a bouquet of fresh flowers for decoration.

• Work - first lay down chaos in the office area and then be industrious. 
  

• Have a light lunch in the main terrace (there are 3).
  

• Hunt or ponder upon ideas, while taking a nap or strolling around town to discover grandmothers in aprons making pasta by hand, front doors that haven’t been locked in a century, a countryside splashed with wildflowers in spring and sunflowers in the summer or a particular niche of color. 
  

• Play - After dinner, great burraco tournaments usually until late at night, combined with delicious Cuba Libres, that I was happy to introduced.
  

Santa Maria della Rocca in Offida

Frescoes in Offida

• Weekends- visit the great surroundings: Urbino, Fermo, Monte Conero in Ancona for  great seaside restaurants, Offida for its bobbin-lace work, in the summer Macerata for some world-famous open-air opera or the different nearby cities in Umbria.
  

I guess what I found so engaging about life in LaPedona, it is that it is full of oxymorons - vibrant relaxation, inspirational routines, peculiar everyday goings-on and luscious nothingness.

After letting fantasy followed the rules of its own making in this astonishing setting, magic did happened. Having always being an observant in life and a seeker of pleasure as a driving force, I started taking photos and began exploring again my passion for the study of characters.

P.S. The Muse House is currently for sale. The owner, my friend Annamaria, has moved to very small island in Greece, where in one of her walls hangs my first commissioned portrait “Tropical Reverie”.