Last Wednesday and Thursday I participated in my first group street painting from scratch. We actually had to wash the street first, dry it with newspaper and wait for the sun to do the rest before beginning a new drawing.
Street painters are called madonnari in Italy, a reference to the fact that we often paint images of the Madonna. I madonnari in Florence, Italy, have been working without a tessera (permit) since December 2008. Those who follow this blog may remember that I reported that last year, the Comune di Firenze (City Hall) wanted to have a competition of madonnari to determine who would get a limited number of yearly permits.
Since their ideas would eliminate half of the artists in our organization, we decided as a group to ignore this request and kept working with (and paying for) our permits to try to earn money as street performers. We felt that is was better for the artists and for Florence if the organization fills the spaces because we have more flexibility when things like illness and vacation time come up for individual artists. We can contact each other to have another artist fill our spaces for the day(s) as needed.
Another concern was the standard one: how is a government entity going to judge artists? By someone’s idea of quality; by money (tips) earned; by nationality (i madonnari a firenze is composed of artists worldwide)? Since the art of street painting is learned on the street from other madonnari, how will new artists ever be able to work and learn?
Later the Comune changed the competition idea to a different set of rules, proving how little they understand about how we work. For example, one rule was that one artist could not work more than six hours per day. Normally one artist works from 10 am to midnight, stopping as needed for meals. It takes time to make a drawing and earn enough to pay for the work done. Also, the Comune wanted one artist to start from about 9 am and work until 3 pm. and then wash the street for the next artist to work in the evening. This is horrible because the morning time is for starting the drawing. Most tips are received later in the day. Also, once the street is wet, pastels and chalks cannot be added.
Last November we protested these ideas by paying to have our questions heard. No response in all of these months, other than the one in December: the Comune chose to stop issuing permits. So, under rules of the Italian Constitution, we can work under laws of manifestazione (protest), creating only one drawing per day, although it can be larger than our usual space (10 sq. meters now). We have more than seven artists, so now we work in groups.
I took this image of my colleagues at work on Sandro Botticelli’s “Madonna of the Eucharist”. From left to right are Gabrielle (USA), Johnny (Ireland), and Giovanni (Brasil). Gabrielle created the face of the madonna, Johnny arrived after lunch and began the baby, I chose the male figure on the left, while Giovanni did the background and architecture and later, the frame.
It was a good day, but the next morning, the street cleaners passed over the drawing, as is usual and no big deal really (the streets need to be clean!). They do not use water when they pass over our work, they only lightly brush away debris. I did a horrible job on the face, with the guy looking quite drunk. So, I laughed when I saw the tire marks over his face since he already looked as though he had gotten run over!
Part of my problem was in making blue eyes – since I could not see detail in my reference material. The lighter color emphasized that I had my shapes wrong. I had a lot of shapes wrong. Too exaggerated, as I often do. This next image shows Giovanni demonstrating to me how he would approach the face. And I think it was fun for him to do something other than background. It always amazes me how each artist can make a copy look like their own voice.
These last two images were taken later in the day after I worked on the basket and more details all around were put in.
And now, I am off for my next day of street painting. We will recreate part of Botticelli’s “Primavera” today.
