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The Travelling Artist – Why Become One?

Posted on January 25, 2012 @ 7:11 pm by massimo | Filed under: art,blog,fun,illustration,japan,news,people,wordpress

A lot of artists have a habit of travelling and using their memories and changing environment to inspire them to create new works. Travelling has an effect on any individual, whether they’re a watercolour painter or a retired accountant. Seeing new locations and learning more of a culture whilst immersed in it can change your world perspective, and an artist’s work is sometimes based around the same concept – helping someone see something from a different angle. But what are the benefits, beside inspiration? Well, for one, it may allow you to find the ideal location for your skills, from improving them to finding tools that will allow you to make the most of them. Gadgets in Tokyo could be great for anyone from a webcomic artist to a web developer who is seeking new tech to work with for a design on partypoker. Meanwhile, hunting for cave paintings could lead you all around the world, and finding them might influence your art style or lead you to create new works for a themed gallery event. This might sound expensive, but it’s worth the investment, and you can always supplement your travels by selling the art you’re creating while you travel, as people may enjoy seeing art created by a non-local. You’ll also make many connections with people in the art communities, which is important for when you’re looking to get enough publicity for your work and need the right people in the right areas to help make that happen. Lastly, you need to travel because it’s part of life! To stay in one place the entire time your alive seems like such a waste of your legs, of the world around you, and even if you don’t find anything that inspires you, you’ll come away with some incredible memories and a wider personal knowledge of the world, and that can never be a bad thing.

family memories

Posted on September 28, 2011 @ 5:45 pm by massimo | Filed under: advertisement,ancona,blog,fun,holidays,illustration,mediterranean,news,people,sailing,wordpress

My parents, a couple of true sea lovers never owned their own boat, yet they often arranged our family holidays on board their best friends motor-cruiser. Well knowing that such kind of  holidays would make priceless memories for me and my sister, they managed to get everyting right, in order to avoid any possible annoyance: the chosen destinations were always reasonably close and the motor-cruiser capability let 4 adults with their 4 children, to cohabit without particular problems during the navigation.  As 7 or 8 years old kids we used to play below deck during the passage,  were trained to sleep two by two in the berths, or allowed to steer for a while. Great fun!  Would be my parents tricks useful to some travel advisor at hand, in order to arrange super special holidays for parents and childs?  I don’t know: yet it was exactly during a recent night-cruise, that these memories could’nt wait anymore: the boat pushed by a gentle and stable breeze under the light of a benevolent moon, having nothing do but gazing at the whispering sea, I experienced that peculiar meditative attitude that every sailor, under similar circumstances, had surely learned. “Why “-I wondered- “I am so invariably at ease while on board whatever boat or ship?”  ”Where does my sense of  well being when resting in a narrow berth during a rough navigation, comes from?” Off course, you see, the very obvious answer is deep in my childhood.

Lanzarote

Posted on September 13, 2011 @ 5:17 pm by massimo | Filed under: advertisement,africa,architecture,bargain,blog,cheap,flights,holidays,illustration,island,news,people,wordpress

A friend of mine lives in Las Palmas, Canary Islands. He recently wrote me about Lanzarote, an island of contrasts -according to him- where  long ocean beaches coexist with the lunar atmosphere of the National Park of Timanfaya.  Harsh in some ways, this island can surely surprise me with its beauty that now I wish to discover. Meanwhile I’m only browsing the Web and searching among heaps of  low-cost deals, I found out that these cheap flights to Lanzarote are really worth checking! The island is the easternmost of the Canary Islands and is about 170 km from the African coast. My friend wrote that probably  the first thing I’ll notice -as an architect, is the elegance of Lanzarote buildings: white traditional style buildings never exceeding a certain height, with green or blue shutters.  It is the result of a plan strongly supported by architect Cèsar Manrique, who wished to preserve and protect the natural heritage of the island. Manrique,  born in 1919 in Arecife, after living in Madrid and New York, returned to his beloved island in 1968 and began a series of works, with the sole goal of harmonizing the landscape in the artistic creation. The otcomes of his work are scattered throughout the island and make it a unique place in the world. His house, Taro de Tahiche 5 km from Arrecife, was carved out of a solidified lava flow: it is the result of  a game of surprising contrasts that includes the blinding white of the structure and the black volcanic rock. My summary representation of Taro de Tahiche relies on a photo found on the Internet; it’s  just a personal reminder until I’ll be able to pay a visit to my friends in Lanzarote…

boundaries

Posted on September 10, 2011 @ 6:41 pm by massimo | Filed under: advertisement,blog,cheap,fashion,fun,holidays,illustration,news,people,thailand,travel,wordpress

Most of us live their lives within a consolidated routine, whose boundaries completely depend by our will. In other words we are supposed to be sufficently self-possessed in order to get out our rate-race as soon as we are fed up with it: our mental well-being cannot but improve! With this …

last minute!

Posted on September 8, 2011 @ 10:16 am by massimo | Filed under: africa,art,bargain,blog,fashion,flights,fun,holidays,illustration,kenya,lamu,people,travel,wordpress

I am quite an organized fellow when it comes to plan my trips. Since I’m going to be “on the road” usually for long, I always try  to arrange as many details as I can before leaving: booking in advance  is a must for me. Off course many people simply let …

Harry Morgan

Posted on September 4, 2011 @ 9:47 am by massimo | Filed under: advertisement,blog,books,fashion,flights,illustration,island,news,people,politics,travel,wordpress

I’ve not been yet in the U.S. These days however, a good reason to drive me there would be to visit Key West: I have just been re-reading Hemingways’s  “To have and Have not” and now I fancy a quick trip to this very tiny island, about 6 km long and 3 …

stereotypes

Posted on August 27, 2011 @ 11:42 am by massimo | Filed under: advertisement,blog,cheap,flights,fun,illustration,india,news,people,travel,wordpress

Plenty of cheap flights to India in Bangkok! I had bought one, a night flight to Delhi. I had got my 6 months visa at the Indian Embassy in Sukhumvit. After travelling an year I was now coming back from the costly Japan. Yet it was to early to get back …

an African bargain

Posted on August 22, 2011 @ 11:17 am by massimo | Filed under: advertisement,africa,bargain,blog,fun,holidays,illustration,kenya,people,travel,wordpress

For us Westerners, born and raised by the concept of “fixed price”, bargaining may seem a strange practice at first, or more benevolently, a waste of time. On the contrary Africans think that every bargaining is a challenge to immagination, a friendly way to “duel” with the customer, to value his …

August anniversary

Posted on August 15, 2011 @ 3:36 pm by massimo | Filed under: advertisement,bargain,blog,food,holidays,illustration,news,people,travel,wordpress

On August 13 morning, 1978, I woke up in  the ground floor dormitory of King George VI Memorial Hostel, Holland Park, London. I was very dizzy. The first thing I could see from my bed was a bunch of clothes in the middle of the room and my room-mates standing …

the temple of Apollo

Posted on August 10, 2011 @ 3:39 pm by massimo | Filed under: architecture,blog,fun,holidays,illustration,island,mediterranean,mythology,news,people,travel,wordpress

A very good reason for a cyprus holidays is to visit the archeological greek sites, particularly the temple of Aphrodite and the Sanctuary of Apollo Hylates.  Everybody who has been visiting some “special” archeological area, has experienced a very peculiar and powerful  feeling, something that really can project the visitor back …

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