At the crystal workshop ColleVilca in Colle Val d’Elsa near Siena, getting some footage of the fascinating process of creating pieces of blown and cast crystal for a current work-in-progress of student Julia for the Art & Society course! Many thanks for the staff of Collevilca for being so welcoming, collaborative, and friendly!
#studyabroad #crystal #glass #factory #collevaldelsa
As the end-of-semester exhibit opening nears for May 13th, work is underway on Final Projects! 
As we look ahead to our end-of-semester exhibition (Saturday May 13th 4-6pm) we are diving into brainstorming for our Final Projects. Below are some references we have been looking for themes of memory, responding to space, and approaches to art-making in the context of our Final Project development:
Footage of 1987 conference with French philosopher Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) speaking about “What is the Creative Act” (transcript: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tmNNe5YTnTwr8itJaUrXnnwWBpkRx0qbTh4ZNsMtclQ/edit?hl=en)
Overview of Italian Futurism (1909-1944): http://exhibitions.guggenheim.org/futurism/
Interviews with Gabriele Orozco (Mexican artist, born 1962) on art:21 https://art21.org/artist/gabriel-orozco/
Exploring the work of Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986) and his film Nostalghia (1983): http://people.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/
Insight from Rebecca Solnit: rebeccasolnit.net/
Presentation by Irene Lupi, former Siena Art Institute student (Fall 2013), speaking for our weekly series “stARTers:assaggi d’arte”.
For more info: http://www.ilcittadinoonline.it/cultura-e-spettacoli/spich-inglisch-musica-video-e-racconto-partigiano/
Studio visits this morning with artist Irene Lupi, former Siena Art Institute student (Fall 2013), speaking at 6pm tonight for our weekly series “stARTers:assaggi d’arte”. 
You can find information on our current participants ongoing projects on their individual profile pages:
This weekend we had a school excursion with students from the Siena Art Institute and Siena School for Liberal arts, exploring areas of Lazio, Umbria, and Tuscany! Stops included the beach at the Marina di Capalbio, the Chiesa di San Pietro in Tuscania, and the quirky and dizzying “Giardino dei Tarocchi”, an esoteric sculpture garden of the artist Niki de Saint Phalle in southern Tuscany.
Siena Art Institute Blog 