The end of a lovely time

Henriette (blurry in toque) packs up with the
help of Steven and Tamara

Rolling up Henriette's beautiful paintings
Steven (left), Tamara and Henriette

The Biennale space emptying out.
The sculpture stands are stacked and wrapped.

Yesterday morning I set the alarm to head over to
the Biennale to make sure my work was going to
be shipped without any problems, and to see whether
I had to sign anything. I was delighted to find Tamara
and Henrietta packing up their work. I watched Tamara
finish taping her bubble wrap, then Steven and Tamara
and I helped Henrietta with her very complicated packaging.

What a woman! She has a baby girl six months old, and
a one and a half year old boy, and here she is lugging her
work and a friend's work back to Norway where she
lives.

It was strangely exciting to see the space we'd all been
showing in, pulled apart, and stripped of the evidence of
a magnificent show. The crates used to pack the work
again were scattered here and there. Fork lifts came
to hoist up the sculptures and move the heavy
crates. It was the flip side of set up. But unlike in
Canada the very nice cafe in the middle of the Biennale
space stayed open and we could get very nice panini
and espressos to make the work a bit lighter.

Tomorrow we go to three Tuscan cities on a magnificent
tour. And yesterday we walked home past the church
of San Lorenzo, an absolutely gorgeous building. At the
market I bought a few small gifts for my family and then
we walked and walked sporting our new toques, a
complete necessity in the cold wind Florence is experiencing
now.

I've been trying to speak in Italian (very badly -- but my
minuscule vocabulary is growing and I sometimes understand
people's conversations). Then at the show I spoke French and
German. I felt like I was very fluent in French, although that's
far from true at home.

Have an art-is-its-own-language day.