Did You Get The Joke?

I hate doing this but.

My mother and I live in a pretty seismic zone of Italy (the Phlaegrean Fields) and while quakes are something we are used to deal with on the daily, the quakes on May 20th 2024, actually damaged our home pretty badly.

Those were the strongest quakes registered in the area in 40 years.

It's the house I grew up in, so as you can imagine we are devastated.

These are some pictures of how our home looks right now.

This is our home after the one that damaged it, but since right now we are not there for safety we do not know if the quakes that came after damaged it even more.

If you want, you could donate on our Godundme - we don't actually know how much it will cost us, as most of the walls are damaged, but this is just an estimate of the cost to hire a construction worker and a locksmith to fix our front door area at least.

We would be grateful for any kind of help. Even just sharing.

In my AP Art class, there was a girl who was just starting to experiment with mixed media. At this point she was still playing around, trying to decide what direction she wanted to go with her portfolio. So one critique day, she brought in an abstract canvas with some rhinestone highlights and painted and real peacock feathers. She loved sparkles and peacock feathers so she thought she’d try introducing them a *little*. And after everyone had given some input, the teacher gave her his advice, VERY roughly paraphrased here:

“So here’s the thing… I do not like this style. These are just elements that do not speak to me personally, but I see that you like them, and you’re doing interesting things with them.

“My biggest critique is, I only merely *dislike* this piece. I want you to make me HATE it. Go crazy with the things that you like. Don’t hold back trying to make it palatable to people like me. Because I am NEVER going to like it. And if the audience does not like it, it should drive them crazy seeing how much YOU love it.”

Her portfolio was chock full of neon colors and glitter and rhinestones and splashes of peacock feathers and it was a delight. Our teacher despised every piece lol, but she got great marks and I think even won some awards. And more importantly, she was happy and proud of the results. Because she didn’t limit herself by trying to appeal to people who were never going to enjoy what she enjoyed.