Venetian Fields

By Elena Oliinyk

“I will spend my entire day at my campo”didn’t happen unless your days start at 12 pm. A 1.8-kilometre walk becomes longer if you stop at each crossroad, or should I call them cross-rio, to take a photo. You will never find two identical bridges, bricks, walls, roof, gelaterias, anything really in Venice. I have to stop.

From tiny and dark Calle del Spezier to overexposed Campo Santa Maria Nova The eyes need to readjust. Too many things happening at the same time, need to breathe. Red bench.

Putting earphones in is my not very unique survival mechanism. Usually takes a certain period of time to allow me to be somewhere alone with my thoughts with no distraction.

12: 37 pm. Earphones out. Two men get into a quarrel over a barking dog. Cannot miss out on details like this one. Still not quite safe on this bench, but oh well… curiosity killed the cat, as they like to say.

Fine liner repeats the movement of my eyes on the paper. Who knew that one small campo can have more than ten distinct windows? Most certainly they all will become one in a future SketchUp context model. Why are these closed? Oooh, that is a nice pattern.

Chimney. Weirdly majestic and surprising white. Need to ask Daniel later if I am allowed to keep it. Little steps, why are they there? So many details concentrated in one architectural element for such a bland building. Fire will do it good. Not keeping that 20 %.

Despite having only two and a half trees, the site has an unexpected range of greens. Fun fact for you, each individual wooden panel will decay in its specific way, changing the original paint with hues and dirt.

A little girl is looking behind my shoulder. Curiosity, interactions. She looks so intently, too scared to breathe out, not to interrupt the pen movement. Don’t worry, darling, you can be as destructive as you want, it is part of the experience. Mum dragged her away. Oh, no one walked there today. Well done on being different.

Smells of duo cappuccino and alarmingly burning calzone in the microwave waltzing around the field. Don’t you dare to call it a square. Sun comes out. Want lunch. Managed to burn my insides with that pasta. It wasn’t even tasty. This is the tourists’ side, learnt it the hard way.

Basic knowledge of Italian allows you to find out that the woman’s cousin’s brother is cheating on his missus with a lady from the bookstore. How dare he. After all these years.

The noises, the smells and the wind and the sunshine. Let me put these leaves in my sketchbook, I am officially a crazy plant lady at this point.

The church is too scary. Have to pay for the entrance. Not much of the FREESPACE, is it? Marble, blue marble, yellow marble, stairs. I am afraid to talk, which rarely happens. “Let’s go, this place disturbs me, feel too small and miserable.”

Cold marble steps are getting even cooler as the Sun is on it’s way to California right now. Soft and smooth, enjoying sitting on it, despite potential hypothermia.

The restaurant didn’t have tiramisu. What kind of restaurant in Italy does not serve tiramisu?? At the same time, the pasta was the tastiest yet. One cannot spend an evening without Aperol Spritz before/after/instead of dinner.

A lovely little creature in a pink coat. “We gonna have 6 kids, you raise 3 your way and I will raise 3 of them mine. Let the competition decide.” “I will create a tribe”. My godchildren will be weird, that’s for sure, all 6 of them. Girl fell down. Waiters lifted her up. She seems to be local, even if she is not, she is very welcomed. Everyone is.

By Francesca Beltrame