CALL TO ARTISTS: Amerigo Vespucci and Travel at Colori del Levante Fiorentino Online

Recently we got an intriguing email from a small non-profit community center for the visual arts in Italy called Colori del Levante Fiorentino. I have corresponded with Annalisa Bati, their president, and it looks like a good idea born of enthusiasm and with no money involved. Here is her original email communication, followed by a more structured call. Their language is Italian, so everything going back and forth between us has been filtered through Google Translate http://translate.google.com/ She sent her query in English, and, to be polite, I translated my response into Italian (with the English underneath) to send to her at coloridellevante@libero.it I hope some Vermonters will want to get involved in her project. I think the idea is that they will put up images on their website and in their gallery, and she would be happy if someone here would do a corresponding online exhibit (which should be easy enough in Blogger or on Wordpress...). I am willing to be a point person for a bit, if you want to copy me at janetvanfleet @ fairpoint. net in your correspondance. – Ed.

FIRST COMMUNICATION
We are a small non-profit association of painters, near Florence, Italy. Some of us are also plein air painters (most nonprofessional, amateur). During 2012 we want to organize an event about 500 years from the death of Amerigo Vespucci, the Florentine who gave the name to America, who died in Sevilla.

We would like to ask painters to express themselves on this theme, particularly on the theme of exploration and travel. We would like to find an association in America which will respond to the invitation with a similar project – a virtual twinning for this event. We are still defining the project, and we are open to suggestions. Of course it is not necessary to come in Tuscany, though we would be happy to have you come to Florence. We are not asking any money for this project; we do all this only for our pleasure to do a beautiful project.

You can contact us at this address coloridellevante@libero.it



SECOND COMMUNICATION
After Easter we will present our project, officially, to our friends and associates, in order to arrange an exposition after this summer (the place and the period is not yet decided).

The project, dedicated to Amerigo Vespucci, is named:

PLUS ULTRA
The big travels.

Plus ultra is the Latin for "go beyond, overcome the limitations, the things known to explore the unknown..."

We plan to divide the exposition in four sections:

1. Vespucci and his world. In this section we will put all the works about this person, representationsof his house, of himself, etcetera...
2. The new world. Section dedicated to America... and also to the Native Americans, in order to reflect on the difficult relationship with the other
3. The big explorations.Section dedicated to all the efforts to discover new places, to the means of explorations (ships etc...), reminders of big enterprises...
4. The meaning of the travel.All the reasons to travel: emigration, scientific travel (Darwin for example...), religion (pigrimage), imagined travels,and so on...
   

For now, these are our ideas. If you and some of your friends are inspired from one of these categories and want to participate. simply send a photo of the work which you have done to coloridellevante@libero.it , and you are welcome in the group. If you have ideas for how to do a twin project in Vermont, we would like to have your ideas and involvement.