Burano - the pastel city

Burano is the most charming place. As I walked through the town, I kept thinking, this can't be real. It's just a set, right? It's just too perfectly adorable.

I think the whole town is based on the gelato color system. Actually, the colors are controlled by the government. If a homeowner wishes to paint their house, they must submit a request to the government so that they can determine which colors are permitted for that lot.

Home

Although my home isn't as adorable as these homes in Burano, it's good to be back with TB, my cat Six, and all that is comforting and familiar. I had a wonderful trip and I'm thrilled with the photographs I took. They'll be keeping me busy for many months to come.

But in the middle of this heat wave we're having, nostalgia is simmering and my lazy, hazy brain finds itself reminiscing, remembering and missing:

• The colors! My God ... the colors! Pinks, yellows, peaches, blues, greens. Villages like Burano and those in Cinque Terre are works of art. The houses are the canvases onto which the most amazing colors have been painted and one feels as though one is walking through a dream.
• Taking a vaporetto instead of the bus in Venice
• Tagliatelle (pasta) with truffles
• Cafe Americano con latte
• The amazing croissants I ate every day for breakfast while in Tuscany
• Tomatoes bursting with flavor
• The gentle rolling hills of Tuscany
  
• The chance to photograph such incredible beauty for hours each day
  

Fair and Fair Alike: Miami 2009. House and Home

Fair and Fair Alike coverage so far:
. Bourgeois, Benglis, Wilke
. Mano a Mano
. The Pretenders
. Art Miami
. Red Dot
. NADA
. Scope
. Aqua Art
. Pulse
. The Big One, Art Basel Miami Beach
. An Overview Before the Individual Fairs
. Art Bloggers at Art Miami
. Are We Out of the Woods?
. A Little Gossip
. Art? Or Not Art?
. Nosing Around
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These are the best of the domestic structures I saw at the various fairs. Perhaps I wouldn't have noticed them in another year, but given the way the economy crumbled, home became a metaphor for the stability we craved, and the default mode for strategies going forward.
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ABMB: Rachel Whiteread, Ghost II, polyurethane and other materials; at Waterhouse & Dodd Contemporary, London
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ABMB: Nathanial Rackowe's sci-fi-meets-Home-Depot structure; at Bischoff Weiss, London
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Aqua: Above and below, Felicity Warbrick's tiny carved soap houses, themselves housed in a pharmacy case about 70 inches high; at Waterhouse & Dodd, London
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(Looks as if the gallery, with booths in two locations, contined its domestic theme between venues)
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Another look, below:

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ABMB: Marina Rheingantz, Vagalume, oil on canvas, 9 x 11 inches; at Galeria Fortes Vilaca, Sao Paolo
(See not everything at the big fair is big, big, big)
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ABMB: Thomas Schutte, Untitled, gouache on paper; at Galerie Bernier Elliades, Antwerp
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ABMB: Rinus van de Velde, Without Ifs, Buts and Maybes, not sure of the medium, but possible graphite on paper; at Galerie Zink, Munich and Berlin.
How metaphoric can you get?
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ABMB: Phillip Estlund, at Sarah Gavlak Gallery, Palm Beach. The shanties are so at odds with the venue, no?
Another view below
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ABMB: Wolfgang Laib, House, 1990, beeswax; gallery unknown
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Art Miami: Jennifer Bartlett, Untitled (House), 1999, oil and wax on canvas; David Klein Gallery, Birmingham, Michigan

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Next up: Five Woven Geometries