At the end of my last blog I said I had another story to tell you, but it was long enough so this is my seperate post for that story.
It starts on a beautiful sunny day in Florence, Italy. I decided to wander around Florence to explore a bit after class. I walked around the Duomo, down streets, by bridges and through Piazzas. As I strolled I was keeping an eye on the street artists. When I'm here I have been thinking of getting a piece of artwork for my dorm room and future home to help remember Italy. Now most that I looked are were beautiful, but seemed a bit expensive. As an artist myself I didn't want to get ripped off by spending 25 Euro for a small 3x3 painting. I wanted my money worth if I was to buy a painting. Now I came round to a full circle ending up close to the Duomo. I decided to look at those street artists a little bit better because I now had more of an idea what size, how much and what picture I was looking for.I slowly paced myself down the line of artists working. I stopped at the one stand, but her paintings and etchings were a bit more than I wanted to pay, so I kept going. I stopped at one of the next stands. This one painting caught my eye. I asked the painter how much and he gave me a good number, so I bought it.
As the man is packing up my purchase, he engages in conversation. Now picture this: an older man talking in broken English with an accent speaking to me, an American student who knows about 6 words in Italian. Let's just say one of us knew what he was saying through the whole conversation. He was really a nice guy. As we talked he found out that I'm a student here in Florence studying art. He talked some more about how there is a lot of history and information for art history here in Florence. Then he was trying to tell me what it was like about being an artist out by the Duomo, however at this time the bells that ring every 30 minutes that are in the bell tower that is no more than 500 feet away from us started ringing. We waited then continued our talk. He said how it was hard these days for them because of photographers and photoshop. With that technology now everyone can have a piece of Florence stored on their computer or camera. This was the point he was kind of bashing photography, which is ironic, because that is what I want to pursue in the future. It was only fair of enlightening him to my future plans of wanting to be a photographer. He kind of gave me a look of grotesque, but I proceeded to tell him that as an artist I do appreciate what him and others do because it's something I can't do. I think it was a statement that changed something between us. He understood I did understand how much work it was to do what he does. So with that he said, "Since you're an art student I'll add this one for you. It's uh, last years." With that he opened up the wrapping he did around the first painting and put in the second painting.
A few of the last words we exchanged though I hope to remember for a long time. Hopefully, I can go back to them and see inspiration to furthering my faith. "It's people like you, nice people, who come here and buy this. It's people like you who make me believe there is still a God." With that it was kind of the end of our encounter. I walked home thinking that being nice and talking with this man I might of been able to encourage his faith another day. It doesn't sound like I did much or that important, but it stirred up thoughts for me as I returned to my apartment.
"Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’~ Matthew 25:37-40
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