Wanderlust: Italy

It’s been years since I’ve been out of the States and I’ve been having some serious travel cravings. It’s times like this were I look back at all of the photos and mementos that I’ve picked up while travelling and it usually just makes the wanderlust worse. These days I’ve been looking at some of the handmade things I picked up when I was studying in Italy for inspiration.

In Venice I meandered into mask shops where the walls were lined with hand molded and painted masks of every imaginable style, color, and purpose. No wonder why Carnivale is still such a huge celebration there every year. I walked out of the Ca’Macana shop with the beautiful green & gold eye mask above and a sinister blood red long nosed mask as it’s counterpart. Each of the mask makers pride themselves on their traditional craft and sticking to the classic techniques, and the care is so apparent with each mask.

All over Italy the art of paper making and thus bookmaking is still practiced, and is one of the major influences on my desire to make my own sketchbooks today. The day I walked into the Cartoleria Pantheon in Rome I fell in love with the leather handmade sketchbooks and photo albums and fountain tip pens and stage set dioramas and classic journals with Florentine patterned paper covers. Looking back I’m stunned that I only walked out with two sketchbooks, one for myself and one for a friend. To this day (I bought the book four years ago) I haven’t used the sketchbook because I cherish it so much. Luckily they ship anywhere around the world, so I’m working on using my current sketchbook up and then heading over to the beautiful blank pages of a sketchbook that’s waited a long time and travelled quite a ways to be used and loved.

Have any cool handmade souvenirs from your travels? I’d love to see them!