El Templete, Habana Vieja (with water from the Malecon). Ink on hand.book paper. Habana, Cuba. April 2012.
Example of Moorish (Mudéjar) Architecture in Habana Vieja. Ink on hand.book paper. Habana, Cuba. April 2012.
….
“Music is a total constant. That’s why we have such a strong visceral connection to it, you know? Because a song can take you back instantly to a moment, or a place, or even a person. No matter what else has changed in you or the world, that one song stays the same, just like that moment.”
‘Habana is very much like a rose,’ said Fico Fellove in the movie The Lost City,
‘it has petals and it has thorns…so it depends on how you grab it.
But in the end it always grabs you.’
“One of the most beautiful cities in the world. You see it with your heart.”
Enrique Nunez Del Valle, Paladar Owner
Habana’s real essence is so difficult to pin down. Plenty of writers have had a try, though; Cuban intellectual Alejo Carpentier nicknamed Habana the ‘city of columns,’ Federico Llorca declared that he had spent the best days of his life there and Graham Greene concluded that Habana was a city where ‘anything was possible.’
…
ARCHITECTURE
Habana is, without doubt, one of the most attractive and architecturally diverse cities in the world. Shaped by a colorful colonial history and embellished by myriad foreign influences from as far afield as Italy and Morocco, the Cuban capital gracefully combines Mudéjar, baroque, neoclassical, art nouveau, art deco and modernist architectural styles into a visually striking whole.
But it’s not all sweeping vistas and tree-lined boulevards. Habana doesn’t have the architectural uniformity of Paris or the instant knock-out appeal of Rome. Indeed, two decades of economic austerity has meant many of the city’s finest buildings have been left to festering an advanced state of dilapidation. Furthermore, attempting to classify Habana’s houses,palaces, churches and forts as a single architectural entity is extremely difficult.
Cuban building – rather like its music – is unusually diverse. Blending Spanish colonial with French belle epoque, and Italian Renaissance with Gaudi-esque art nouveau, the over-riding picture is often one of eclecticism run wild.
Nadie’ en tus arquiadas
En tus piedras llore’
Tus plazas me acogieron
Respire’ en la sombra de tus arboles
Sufrie’ por su cara
–los abrazos olvidados en la rena
estan alla’ hasta otro viento–
En tu son
Tu sol
Comprendi’ tus ojos infinitos
El calor the tus brazos dorados
Me calento’
En la noche el agua va corriendo en las fuentes–
Todavia estare’ alla’,
En los pasajes y las calles,
En las escaleras y las puertas serradas,
y en tu corazon de sal.
La Habana, Cuba, Avril 2012
…
Havana
I swam in your porticoes On your stones I cried Your piazzas welcomed me
I breathed in the shade of your trees I suffered for his face –the embraces forgotten on the sand there remain, until another wind.
In your sound Your sun I understood your infinite eyes The heat of your golden arms Warmed me
In the night The water will continue to run in the fountains I will be there still, In your passageways and streets, In your staircases and closed doors, And in your heart of salt.
{new} Favorite drawings, paintings, collages and handwork on SketchBloom
Watercolor on paper. June 3, 2010
Concept for jewelry piece ‘twomoons’
Mare Mosso Act II. Graphite drawing by Gianni Aiello. Collage. March 18,2011
Ink on Paper. Calabria, Italia. September 29, 2011.
Ink on hand.book paper. Paris, 2011.
Ink and watercolor on paper and tracing paper. A bit of digital manipulation. Feb. 09,2011.
Waiting for Godot | Static Head. Digital Collage. May 5th, 2010
Coffee Carrier (delle). Graphite on paper. Kuwait. January 2010
Platonic Solid Exercise. Graphite on Paper. 2007
Pilot Pen on Paper. November 2009
July 27, San Diego Museum Of Art. The Age of Enlightenment – Gabrielle Emilie Le Tonnelier de Breuteuil, Marquise du Chatelet by Yinka Shonibare- Ink on hand.book paper
Collage, Pilot Pen on Paper
Persimmon- very quick pastel rendering. November 12, 2009.
Queen Califia’s Garden, Totem/Sculpture. Ink, color pencils and markers. 2009
Miniature Pomegranate. Watercolor on chocolate wrap. Kuwait. January 2010
The Fortress of Lost Time. Graphite on paper and magazine cutouts. December 27, 2010. Miti and Gianni Aiello.
Pencil and Watercolor on canvas
Ink on Paper. December 2010.
Pilot pen on paper. January 2011
Casa Del Fascio, contrast corrected thru Photoshop, Como, 2007
Felt tip on paper. March 22, 2011.
Ink on Paper. December 2010.
Earth and Water. Beads and yarn. June 24, 2011
our very own coffee cart @ NewSchool: Cafe’ A la Carte
Mare Mosso Act III. Graphite and pen drawing by Gianni Aiello. Collag and pastel. March 19, 2011.
Ink on Paper. September 2009
The funambulist. Ink drawing + digital collage. August 2011.
Graphite on paper and magazine cutouts. December 27, 2010. Miti and Gianni Aiello.
Twomoons Wax Proof-modeled after concept sketch
Final Twomoons Piece, Summer 2008
Ink on tracing paper. Kuwait, January 2010. The scene at the bottom is what I saw-or decided to see- at The Avenues, the most popular malla in Kuwait City. There is nothing like seeing photography and drawings from a trip abroad to make you realize all reality is subjective, and we choose to see what we want to. We just don’t realize it in our own backyard.
Earth Henna, Eucalyptus Oil. May 2, 2010.
Baggalini Red.
Watercolor and Graphite. November 12, 2009
The Sun, the Moon, and on there being no abstracts in life. Pencil, ink, watercolor on 4″X5″ canvas.2009
Dr. Gregory House. Watercolor on Paper. June 3, 2010
Barcelona Chairs by Mies Van De Rohe, 1929 @ the CED Library in Berkeley
