What Else I Was Doing in Cortona

My first week in Cortona was for Nina's class. I made this little 4 x 5 foldout collage book in the class while learning a bit about working with metal. We drilled, stamped letters onto our copper covers, set eyelets, split mica, made wire hooks and loops, did some photo transfers and metal tarnishing and really had a lot of fun putting together our memory books.

Some of the items in my book I found at the Arezzo Fleamarket. Other pictures were torn from an old school book, the Prosciutto sack our lunch came in, old discarded maps, bits and pieces of fabrics and old papers that Stacey made available to us. Nilene found, bought and shared watch crystals that we turned into tiny lockets for our books.


Olga shared her double pocket copper mesh page technique with me and I added holy cards I purchased at Santa Margherita along with my clamshell from Siena (a later addition).
The handwritten scrap on this page is a list of poetry I found tucked into a children's book I purchased in Arezzo. The tiny metal box and glass vial contain seeds I found on my Cortona walks. Also there's a fig twig and a dry leaf I couldn't resist. The olive twig will probably lose its leaves over time but I had to include it in memory of our olive picking day.

Of course, we'd also brought little favorite bits and pieces from home to include. It was a good and challenging break for me from my usual routine and it did the trick in shaking up my creativity. I'm home in Switzerland now and back to work on some new projects. Stay tuned.

Thanks Nina!
K Q:-)