The Tramming Continues… Napoli, Italy

I am having a wonderful time painting a city tram in Napoli. My friend Jade Fusco and I are collaborating on it, merging our styles and vision. She is a hard worker and a burst of positive energy and magic. We are having a blast. My friend Riccardo proves indispensable as our trusty helper, painting the doors, roof and making material runs. He will varnish the tram after I leave.

We arrive to the depot in the mornings and are greeted by the workers. They are such characters, these Italian men. Their faces are full of expression and they love to talk talk talk. They usually bring us a coffee straight away and then keep it flowing throughout the day. Every couple of hours, its coffee time. Jade is bouncing off of the walls. The depot is a wonderful place to work with glowing skylights, lofty ceilings and romantic old trams hanging around.

We tune the radio to the classical opera station and technicolor nebulas and magical crystals come streaming from our consciousness and onto the side of the tram. Our work table is loaded with spray paint of every color. More cans of spray than I have ever had at my disposal. The depot workers are more than helpful. They gave us respirators, they primed and taped off the tram for us and if we need anything, they’ve got our back. At night the place is frigid. DAMN COLD. Its like a giant walk in freezer. Some nights I find it almost impossible to work because I am so shivery. Apparently there is a cold snap and its very unusual for Napoli to be this bad. Despite layers of sweaters the damp air chills me to the core, the inside of my bones turn to ice.

But the tram is coming along gloriously. The front has Jade’s crazy fractal star explosion and the back has my heart, filled with space crystals. The workers are already proud of it. They are making special plates that hang off the bottom of the tram so that we don’t have to write the numbers on the art, they are polishing it up and painting the wheels a new shiny black.