This is difficult, keeping up to date with this blog. There is also a second blog happening concurrently for this course. Because this is a personal blog this doesn't really count. The other one is
HERE. The concept is good, we, the students, are supposed to post about inspirations and things that we see or interviews or insights. Understanding Italy through the eyes of a design student. That will probably have more updates than here hehe.
Anyway I've noticed that my leg strength tolerance is getting shorter and shorter. On the first day I could walk for 12 hours and my legs wouldn't tire. Now, I walk for two hours and my legs are already achy!
Today, we went to Richard-Ginori, a ceramics company. I wasn't expecting it to be anything particularly exciting (because it was going to be about plates), but I actually really enjoyed it. Ceramics are expensive and a large company like this requires a lot of money and highly skilled labourers. Wedgewood just closed up shop two years ago. A painter needs at least 10 years of experience before they can start hand painting and another 40 years to hand paint a single perfect line on the plate and each line on edge of a piece of porcelain increases the price by 10% and to finish a plate requires about 200 hours of hand work.
We were given a lecture by the marketing manager of Richard-Ginori: Stefano Rocca. He gave a history of the company as well as the history of porcelain. He even showed us work from designers who collaborate with him on new dinnerware, like sketches, inspiration, etc. As a marketing director with experience he warned us about designing cool things, because only the coolhunters will want them, and that is like 19 people who will pick up the plate and say they love it, and then put it back down. The rest of the population has always enjoyed the classic styles; and those will sell.
After, we got a walking tour of the plant so we could view the process of making a Richard-Ginori plate. There is a building for slipcasting and three ovens for firing. Then there is another building for painting and decals.
pure gold is black
Following the visit we all hoped to take home a souvenir of some sort, but there were no plates for sale haha. Anyway I doubt any of it was affordable really. It's probably about 200euros - 15000 euros.
Next, we went to the Piaggio museum..which means Vespa! I think they are super cools but the museum was lacklustre in comparison to the visit to Richard-Ginori. That, and we were getting really tired.
1. superwoman, 2. face
Back to our hotel we had free time. So a bunch of us went for fancy dinner at this place called
Giovanni.
Everything is closed at night and there was a rumour that this street opened at 10:30pm. We went, and it wasn't true. : ( But! my friend and I came across a Damien Hurst exhibit! We paid 8 euros to go see it, and all it was, was a single skull in a black room made out of aluminum and crystals. THAT WAS IT. A little steep for the price of the exhibit in my opinion, especially since my friend and I were being rushed out of the room after examining the artwork. The rest of the building was very ornate and the family that owned the house was so baller that they inlaid their art collection into the ceiling. Crazy huh.
Okay, tomorrow I'm up early again to try and see as many things as I can, again!
Oh, and I have officially been welcomed into Italy. I have four mosquito bites around my ankles. I don't know why they always aim for the ankles.
1. slush in italy colours only, 2. market square at night
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