The Arts & Industry Building Shows the Creativity Within

In Florence on Sunday, we got soaked in culture, steeping ourselves in the creative atmosphere of dozens of artists, who opened up their studios at the sprawling Arts and Industry building on Pine St.

It was a day to pop in and pop out, we were welcomed with snacks and drinks, and behind each door of this rabbit warren lay another person’s passion and resulting treasures. In one studio, a man created paintings out of beeswax, telling us about this thousand-year-old art medium that’s done with a small torch.

In a hallway, Dianna Stallone showed us series of fascinators, popular delicate vivacious head decorations worn instead of hats at weddings. They were charming and she told us, very popular.

We rounded a corner and met another artist, Alyssa Dee Krauss, who had the cleanest, whitest and most impressively set up studio we saw all day. She showed us a line of earrings that come in several styles, all meant to mirror the wearer’s type of hair. They were either wavy, curly or straight, and looked very impressive when stuck into Mary’s ears matching her wavy locks.

We met an illustrator with a brick walled studio, his view of the river was magnificent. Then we went upstairs for a sumptuous lunch of Indian food for just $5. These open studios are a wonderful window into the creative lives that go on inside these walls every day. So glad we got a peek!