touches of TABOO: part 1 - ground rules, Spoleto's INFAMOUS bridge & ..................................................... my personal journey of suicidal ideation

"Amongst the early morning sunshine of Spoleto

& endlessly blooming red poppy fields,

enough warmth, light, hope & help

for a brighter tomorrow can

not always be found"

francesca owens

    

Struggling with life? Contact Dr. Luciano Faustini, tel:0744 422643, cell:3392809361 

RULE #1
Discussing suicide ideation with the patient does not increase the likelihood of a suicide attempt.

RULE #2

The best predictor of completed suicide is a history of attempted suicide.
RULE #3

The most common psychiatric disorders associated with completed suicide are major depression and alcohol abuse.
RULE #4 

Patients with a plan, access to a lethal means, recent social stressors and evidence of a psychiatric disorder should be hospitalized.

The question is what do you 

do when you have a bridge 

with centuries of this 

history?

my 9 cat lives - this existence of life chose me

"This existence of life chose me, I was just subpoenaed”                        Francesca Owens

my 9 cat lives - cat woman of Spoleto, watch the men paw..... meow, meow....

"Just remember, ARTISTS have an

blank permission slip on life!"

            Francesca Owens

here kitty, kitty...........................here kitty, kitty..........................

Francesca's gold leaf and watercolor painting

 WWF & WCS Siberian tiger in custody of Dr. John Goodrich

This is a different angle of my big kitty!

Dr. John Goodrich at work with a tranquilized tiger in Russia

This gold leaf watercolor painting was probably the hardest painting I have ever created. What makes this so unique is the shadowing technique with numerous shades and materials to create the tones of his face.


O.k., for example, instead of just layering different hues of one color of paint to get the rust and golden tones, I needed to think ahead very carefully. I worked with the few limited shades of gold leaf I had ranging from copper, yellow gold, brass tones with gold leaf powders, paints, paper sheets and flakes. 


The planning went very slow testing whether the tone differential was enough to create dept he needed. In the end, I was very pleased as I knew how hard this challenge was that I placed in front of me.


I hope to exhibit my BEAUTY OF THE BEAST - TIGERS FACING EXTINCTION fine art traveling show here in Spoleto when the frames arrive from an American friend and sponsor.


My guess is it will be before the spring of 2012 as we both have issues to work out in our lives. I'll keep you all informed!

I Lived the Life of a Street Performing Musician!

Nia in the pink here on left and I am in back below the golden light glowing.

The Percussion Instruments Nia and I played  this night:

Egg Shaker Maracas        Latin Torpedo 

A few nights ago was another amazing night in my village. Nia and I went out to hear our city's bands play for this 2 day Spoleto festival. I ran into my American friend and his street band. 


They were was pushing their hippie musical street cart from location to location stopping to jam for a while before pushing on. A few gals were belly dancing with the band. Some guys carried bongo drums and others shook their tambourines, while 2 saxes played.


So what does every good artist do when they are with fellow artists.... even if they are not musicians... they pick up an instrument and join the band. It took a while to get the rhythm down but it arrived shortly. All though years of the clarinet paid off!


Nia and I jumped in and walked and played with them all night in front of numerous mixed audiences.


Sporting my knee high chocolate leather Prada boots, I was transformed into a Latin torpedo percussion shaking musician and Nia transformed into a Maracus egg shaker musician! Its harder then you think as you need to control different sounds from something that has a low range of scope.

the Royal Cocktail Club begins...

It took a while before I noticed that this glamour-less life in Spoleto was getting to me. After sharing this revelation with an English friend here, I learned she felt the same way. I told her how I was introduced to the "COSMOPOLITAN" cocktail from the Sex in the City TV series show one month earlier in the USA.

Then my mind went a buzz.... I'm good at faking it till I make it so, let's do it! Make my own cocktail club! Bring the glamour to my little village even if it’s only 2 friends.

I also learned that a spunky little horse decided to throw my English friend but kept her leg in the bridle upon doing so. I think the words SNAP CRACKLE POP were remembered being overheard!

My English friend with a broken leg was then confined to her top floor apartment (which is the 3rd floor by American standards) without an elevator. Oh My!

I thought if I can't bring the SPICE GIRL to the party, I can bring the party to the SPICE GIRL! This is where are story begins.

With my new cocktail book "in hand" I was armed and ready. I loaded as many cocktail making accessories that could be stacked in my 2 wheeled grocery cart I headed off with a mission.

Our 1st meeting went well. After juicing the limes and shaking up all things, 3 hours later I made it down the 3 flights of steps quite well. Gravity was the driving force here! We agreed that the "Italian Mojitos" were pretty good and a new choice would be made for the next week.

By the time the 2ND cocktail event happened, a Roman Pistol friend of mine said, “and you didn't invite me?" Off to L'Contessa di Londra's house for a consult as to inviting an “Italian” into our midst. Could an Italian drink socially and still keep it fun? We voted YES for a trial appointment with our new honorary guest.

To our surprise, this little Roman Pistal could pour down a drink like in half a NANO second. I hadn’t even finished mixing my 1st drink and she wanted her 2nd. I knew right then and there, she could fit in just fine.

So we the L'Marchesa di New York & L'Contessa di Londra approved the membership of the Roman Pistol and dubbed her L'Emressa di Roma.

From that point on we participated in weekly or bimonthly WORLD CONFERENCES. The drinks changed each time to be coming in from around the globe.

A Brazilian cocktail, an Italian cocktail and an American cocktail and soon we are do for an English cocktail! These evenings went well with three countries making, sipping and talking world issues...

We have become a very globally sensitive club making sure we stay true to our roots discussing global warming issues like-

Do you think they grow limes here in Italy? No, they are usually ship them in from Spain. Why, it is not warm enough here or is it a cultural issue? Do you think they sell flavored vodka here? In Spoleto, probably no but maybe you can carry it back from London next trip. Or I can try the next time to suitcase it from America! Before we knew it, we were solving the dilemmas of the world, or as much as we thought we could.

I think our next year goals will include, trying to help the global warming crisis by trying to grow a lime tree indoors and maybe inviting 1 more international guest, L’Sultana di Casa Blanca. I will present it out our next United Nations meeting but one problem is holding up all this diplomacy, L'Marchesa di New York has an ongoing urinary tract infection that’s not responding to antibiotics! So we fore see it being another 2 weeks before we rejoin in session.

PROGRESS: a day to be proud to be an AMERICAN!!!!

Watch President Obama's TV address announcing the news making world history!

Thank you to all the soldiers who have been injured or gave their lives to our freedom. Thank you to their families who have suffered the greatest lost by losing their loved ones early or for caring for their disabled returning family members.

Civilized past participle, past tense of civ·i·lize (Verb)

1. Bring (a place or people) to a stage of social, cultural, and moral development considered to be more advanced: "a civilized society".

I have spoken to quite a few Italians and they all seem to be very happy about Bin Laden's death. They are unclear on some choices the USA made. Possibly their translations of the story did not deliver enough information in Italian.

A simple explanation of why the burial at sea... and why the direction the USA took with a Muslim burial. 

Bin Laden's body was ported back to the USA Navy ship to be DNA analyzed against Bin Laden's sister’s DNA. In addition, one of his four wives positively identified Bin Laden body.

"A different international country" was asked by America to take his body and "that country said, NO THANKS." To be buried on land, where ever it would be could serve as an international pilgrimage site for his current and future terrorists. 

Bin Laden was given the minimally politically correct Muslim burial, which was more than our 3000 + 911 victims received.It appears to me that President Obama was being the "bigger man" while serving a slice of humble pie to Bin Ladens' supporters.

Remember, we are still are war. Our soldiers and TV reporters get dragged through the street dead or beheaded on live video. We tried to bring a moral decency to be a more advanced “a civilized society” but not forgetting we are at war.