Per amore dell'arte... schizzi e riflessioni.. (For the love of art...sketches and reflections

Hello again...  I have been away for much too long and seem to have abondoned all of my students, friends, colleagues, and followers. I hope to make this up to you as work to bring you up to date. So much has happened as life took some interesting turns.  To begin, these are things that need to be said:
For the love of the art one does not abandon the creative inner being in dificult times.
For the love of the art one finds a way to stay focused even though outside stresses take their toll.
For the love of the art one must continue to expand and develop their skills.
For the love of art, we live. All art, music, literature, drama, feeds us and restores us.

As the world around us changes and new pressures crush even the most willing souls, great literature and art are the only things that can feed us and bring us back to life. My father, the son of Italians who came to the US to make a better life for their future generations, devoured great literature. Among the various works he often quoted was "If" by Rudyard Kipling. If you have had any personal struggles recently, read on and see if you can relate.

If you can keep your head when all about you
  Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
  But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
  Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
  And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream — and not make dreams your master;
  If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
  And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
  Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
  And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
  And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
  And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
  To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
  Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
  Or walk with Kings — nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
  If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
  With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
  And which is more; you'll be a Man, my son!
http://allspirit.co.uk/kipling.html
All art, music, literature, drama, feeds us and restores us. We must continue to create even when - perhaps, especially when  - we think no one is paying attention.