On The Road

My friend lulu is a sketchbook/journal addict. About fourteen years ago she found a little store in Florence that sold handmade sketchbooks or journals - what you call them depends on whether you are an artist or a writer and since I am both, I get confused. Lulu is getting ready for her annual trip to Italy with her drawing group and this year they decided to order sketchbooks in advance so that they wouldn’t have to wait until they got to Florence to buy them.

I’m not going on lulu’s tour, but I did get in on the journal buying. I invited myself over to lulu’s studio on the day the box arrived from Florence. What a treat to see them all! Each journal is unique in that it is covered in Florentine marblized paper and bound with leather. Some of the covers are more colorful than others, but that’s what makes them interesting. The one that I’m holding in my hands in the photo is the one I bought.

When I was an art student, one of our ongoing lessons was getting used to using top grade materials for our work. It’s natural for a student on a budget to use the least expensive materials they can find. I went through a phase of doing all my work on cardboard because I couldn’t afford anything else.

As I held the journals in my hand, one by one, I thought back on those lessons. About how not to be afraid of the expense of the materials. There is almost two thousand dollars worth of imported journals laying at my feet in that photo. That is because of the euro/dollar conversion rate and shipping charges. A few years ago, they would have been almost half that. But still, these journals are molto caro, so it was quite a process in choosing just one. In any case it is not easy to put down the first scribbles in such dear book.

Lulu has a bookshelf in her studio that is full of these special journals that she has filled from cover to cover over the years. As I was looking at mine I realized that she was my age when she bought her first one. An omen? A sign? That in fourteen years I may have a bookshelf that looks like hers?

I justified the expense of my book as my birthday present to myself and today, on my birthday, I share them with you!

Most of my possessions have been in storage for seven years, including all of my old photographs. I used to shoot a lot of slides when I was traveling and using a 35mm film camera. A few weeks ago something possessed me to get my box of slides and my slide projector out of storage and take a walk down memory lane. To my horror, I found that my first trip to Europe, which was about six months long and included lengthy stays in France and Italy, had almost disappeared, given in to the vestiges of time and the life expectancy of slide film which was developed on the road.

So, as I was looking at that trip through very faded photographs, I took out my dSLR and started shooting photographs of the slides projected on the wall. They came out sort of dreamy, sort of like they were taken centuries ago rather than in my lifetime. Some are in worse shape than others. Most of the stuff I have at the moment is from Florence. But for some reason I thought they were usable and have used a number of them in the Tuscany section of the site. So if you happen to stumble on them and say ‘Egads, what’s that?’, well, now you’ll know.

Emily Wise Miller is a freelance writer and editor currently living in Florence, Italy. She is the author of The Food Lover’s Guide to Florence, a wonderful resource for anyone who is into exploring the culinary culture and finding a few out of the way trattorie and ristoranti of Florence and Tuscany. The guide is full of Emily’s passion for food, and her experience will guide you to some of the best Florence has to offer.

She has written on the subjects of food, culture, and travel for the Berkeley Guides, a student-oriented offshoot of Fodor’s travel guides, Salon.com, the Times of London, and the San Francisco Chronicle. She also has worked as a cookbook editor.

Emily and I both participate on a writers listserv and when she announced the release of the latest edition of The Food Lover’s Guide to Florence, I couldn’t pass up the chance to ask for an interview. We sat down at our computers, one in San Francisco, the other in Florence, and had a chat.

Read the interview with Emily.