School: Parsons School of Design
Major: Product Design
Term(s) Abroad: Summer 2019
Host School/Program: Studio Art College International (SACI)
Host City/Country: Florence, Italy
Email Address: duany191@newschool.edu
Why I Loved Studying Abroad
I love the environment and location SACI provided the most. Florence is a city which is full of the renaissance environment. Every building, street, wall, and bridge has its own history. It provided a wonderful environment especially for art students. In Florence, there are plenty of museums and galleries you can go in your leisure time and travel to other cities such as Rome and Venice during the weekend to feel different styles of art. When you are studying in Florence, you can learn not only from your courses but more from the city and the citizens.
My study abroad experience really brought a lot to me. For my sculpture class, I learned how to mix plaster and connect it together to build my own sculpture and figure out a better way to express my thoughts. I learned plenty of different ways to model in not only plaster, but also in wax and alginate body model. I also spent a lot of time in carving limestone and marble pieces. For my jewelry class, I learned the original handmaking method to join several pieces together and used different materials to make my own rings and necklaces. For my conservation class, though I had never tried ancient methods and techniques before, I cleaned ancient drawings using those original methods and learned ancient formulas such as rabbit skin glue and ox bone. All in all, this two months' abroad experience really impacted me a lot. I learned a lot of skills in Florence, and I believe they will help me a lot in the future.