Tuscan Sun Festival

Man Handling Man Aging by Alberto Alfonso based on the poem by Edward Mayes.

Traveling or living in Italy this summer?  If you’ll be in Tuscany, then you might fancy visiting the Tuscan Sun Festival, from July 30-August 7, 2011 in Cortona, Italy.

An international lineup of artists from classical music, dance, visual art and Hollywood will celebrate the arts and the Tuscan lifestyle.

The festival will include the stunning painting and poetry exhibit From Things About to Disappear, I Turn Away in Time.

At Sant’Agostino, this exhibition is a collaboration between architect/painter Alberto Alfonso, AIA and poet/scholar Edward Mayes.

Alfonso and Mayes live in America and Italy and their collaboration is inspired by their “conversations and observations about the concepts of time in the two countries.”

These two artists are actually neighbors in Cortona.  Mayes usually begins their collaboration by writing a poem which he sends to Alfonso who visually interprets each poem.

The exhibition includes a series of 26 watercolors based on the alphabet and nine oil paintings.  Thirty-five poems accompany the paintings.

Cuban-born Alberto Alfonso is a founding principal and president of Alfonso Architects, an award-winning architecture firm in Ybor City, Florida.

His paintings have been exhibited in USA and Italy and permanently installed at Nielsen Media Global Technology Center and other places.

Edward Mayes’ award-winning books of poetry include First Language, To Remain, Magnetism, Works and Days, Speed of Life, and Bodysong.

Some 400+ of Mayes’ poems have appeared in journals such as American Poetry Review.

Here are more painting from their Tuscany exhibition:

And Diego Valasquez by Alberto Alfonso.

Because You Saw This Face and Painted It by Alberto Alfonso.

Poem by Edward Mayes based on the painting:

“Because you saw this face and painted it

And not as an afterthought, blue settling on

Water to keep all the relevant boats afloat,

Or when some Ostrogoth thought about the Pantheon..”

(excerpt)

Images courtesy of Alberto Alfonso and Edward Mayes.