Images of Italy

Our recent trip to Rome & Sicily is still washing over me. The images and sensations of so many new places are rising to the surface as I go back to my regular routines. I have been sorting through all the photos I took. As we walked every day, I always had my camera in my hand, and I tried to experience each place before I recorded it. But I tried to record the place in the way that I experienced it.. the first thing that caught my eye was usually what I snapped.

This image of one of the many faces carved into walls and doorways in Sicily is one of my favorites. Look at the funny little lion ears and the big moustache.

All around Taormina, where we stayed, you could see faces - on the flowerpots, the doorbells, the city walls, the store signs, the pastries, everywhere. One shopkeeper explained to us that the Moors had brought the art of ceramics with them when they invaded the island. The Arabic faces (some wearing turbins or with dark skin) of the Moors are the ones you see in the ceramic vases that line every balcony, filled with geraniums and succulents. He said that the heads might be referencing the fact that many heads were chopped off during the struggles of that era. He also said that one story goes, that the pots were used as chamberpots by the Sicilians, who didn't care for the Moorish invaders.