A look back at 2009 through arttrav - how the most significant moments in my year turned into posts.

We started off 2009 with a guided visit of Lucca in early January by new friends Fabio and Laura from FlorenceIN. We have since become close friends, in touch weekly if not daily, while FlorenceIN has become a fixture in our lives. I have a reprise of this visit planned for January 4th 2010 to check out Lucca’s contemporary art scene!

In February, poor arttrav got none of my attention as I was happily teaching art history to undergrads for UGA Cortona and commuting quite a distance to do so.

The Danube

By March I finally got my act together and was able to post the photographs I had taken the month before of the newly restored Fountain of the Four Rivers by Bernini. This article has had a lot of success thanks to Google and interest driven up by the movie Angels and Demons.

April marked the end of the Spring 2009 term at UGA Cortona. I asked students in my “Women and Art” class to each make a biographical video about a woman artist other than Artemisia Gentileschi, and posted these videos online. My favourite is the video about Lavinia Fontana.
Soon afterwards I found myself with extra time on my hands and plenty of energy; this is when we restyled arttrav with the current wordpress theme and launched into facebook and twitter with great enthusiasm.

In May I saw the presentation of a newly restored painting by Artemisia Gentileschi, about which I wrote a review. I finally met Jane Fortune - from afar - at this event, though it took another 6 months to meet her in person and hear about the rest of her “Invisible Women” project.

June was all about “the cheese video” - how to make pecorino cheese - which has some serious (unrealized) viral potential ;-).

In July I gave a talk at a FlorenceIN meeting on “Mediating Cultural Exchange” that represented a major turning point in my life; I met Costanza from Fondazione Sistema Toscana, which led to my current job as arts editor for the Regione Toscana’s Social Media Team. Thanks to FlorenceIN (soon to be renamed ToscanaIN) I’ve met many active residents in Florence and become one myself.
I also launched the arttrav Italy writing contest this month, and was amazed at how many sponsors were willing to offer prizes.

In August it was hot and I wanted to avoid downtown whenever possible; I explored my own area and wrote about “off the beaten track” Florence: the museum and convent of San Salvi.

My favourite article from September is an interview with artist Stefano Giovacchino who was chosen to install his large paper sculptures in Lucca’s piazza dell’Ampiteatro as part of the anteprima of Cartasia, the biennale of contemporary art dedicated to paper as medium. I am starting to get more interested in contemporary art, and predict that there will be more offerings of this sort in Tuscany in 2010 (all of which will be covered on arttrav, or on the website that I write for work, TuscanyArts).
Also in late September I wrote an article commenting on a local government document called Florence is the Next Florence. I actually came up with this phrase which is now the slogan for arts and culture in the new city administration.

On October 25th, Florence’s mayor made Piazza Duomo pedestrian-only, and arttrav was there. It was a pretty big deal. Read the announcement and read about my experience of the space that day (with photos too).

In November, everybody LOVED Pamela Marasco’s contest-winning article in the Tuscany category about truffles and thermal baths in Tuscany.

In December, some of my best articles were written for publication by others. I was happy to be given an advance copy of Jane Fortune’s Invisible Women for review by and in The Florentine; for work I went to see the show Manipulating Reality at the Strozzina, the review of which was first published on the turismo.intoscana blog.

2009 was a great year; with hopes that 2010 will bring great art and events, and enough time to write about them. Happy New Year to all my regular readers; with many thanks to you for giving me reason to keep writing.