CHINESE PAINTING AND PAINTING ON SILK

When I was studying in the University I was walking every day to the Faculty where I studied Italian, and I was passing by a book shop, where I saw a book on Chinese painting. I passed the book shop by so many times that each time I promised myself that when I had the money I would buy the book. So I did. I bought the book and started to paint.

I painted a lot and I gave many of my paintings to my friends for their birthdays as a present.

Here goes some examples of my paintings.

The inspiration for this painting were the flowers
from my mother's garden. Flowers are my favourite.


The inspiration of this painting were the Slovenian Alps.


This painting was inspired by the tiger on the doors
of the Castle in Prague. If I am not wrong the tiger is of
the Slovene architect Plečnik who did various buildings
and other objects in Prague.

The paintings above are just some of the many I did. This hobby is at the moment on a standby because I am occupied with my translation jobs and with my little daughter, so it really doesn't remain much time for the art.
Besides my Chinese paintings, which technique I will explain on other occasion, I started to paint on silk, when a friend of mine who was always my neighbour in my village and also in the student house, gave me as a present, when I finished my University studies, a box for painting on silk. I never imagined than that I would like so much paint on silk. It is a wonderful hobby. You can make wonderful paintings, and not only paintings, you can paint also cloths and other things to decorate your house. What to paint? Well, there are plenty of things one can use as the inspiration. Mine is the nature. In my opinion, the nature is the best artist, just think of the wonderful things that surround us.
Here are some of my paintings on silk:

I don't need to mention that I was inspired by the sea.
I love the sea and I think it is so relaxing.
This painting makes me feel just at the seaside.
I used the window of a room where I stayed
as a frame to put on the silk and paint.

A dragon, one of my favourite subjects to paint.


And again flowers, the best subject to paint and to decorate a room.

I like to paint on silk for a simple reason that silk gave a special glow to the painting. Besides, throwing salt on the silk, but after you put the colour on the silk, makes fascinating effects, just as the one on the painting with the dragon. It is fascinating, what pieces of art can one do with just some salt. Besides, painting is the best hobby in my opinion, it is so relaxing, and one expresses oneself. Really wonderful. I hope my daughter will love painting just as much as me.

EARNING MY LIVING WITH LANGUAGES

It is now almost more than 15 years that I make my living out of languages. I started at the University, when I was still a student, studying a two program studies in Italian and journalism. It was not only a two program studies, but also a two Faculties studies, since I had to ping pong myself between the two Universities. My study schedule was really all day long, and sometimes I couldn't manage to attend to all the lectures, it was really impossible, to be at two lectures at the same time or be there in ten minutes, as the bus took half an hour from one Faculty to the other. Oh, those were the days. I wanted interested studies and so it was.
Nowadays my working days are not so moved, as I work from home and I collaborate with several translation agencies. I will name all the agencies I work and worked for.
The first translation agency I worked for was Skrivanek. I started to work for the agency in the 1999, when I was finishing my studies at the University.
Then I worked as a translator for the textile company in Ljubljana, Julon, from 2001 to 2003.
In 2006 I started to work for Optimus lingua translation agency.
In 2007 I started to cooperate also with Julija translation agency and in 2008 I started to work for Alkemist translatio agency, Multilingual and Eurotranslate.
In 2010 I cooperated also with Preteks translation service.
Besides the translation agencies I translated also for private persons and for companies. I translated internet pages into Italian for Bio-pharma, and I translated Instruction manuals for Balavto d.o.o., they are both Slovene companies. I also did simultaneous translation for some Slovene companies.
I still cooperate with most of the agencies. Some of them stopped to cooperate with me, the most of them are still sending me translation projects.
I hope I will cooperate with new agencies in the future or maybe publishing houses. This would be great, to translate also books.
As for the languages I work with, the combinations are the following:
Italian-Slovene, Slovene-Italian, Spanish-Slovene, Slovene-Spanish, English-Slovene, Slovene-English.
Besides the four languages mentioned above, I speak some French and German, an a little Portuguese. I am still learning the three of them. I would like to learn Chinese, but for now I have no time left to learn a new language, maybe in the future.

Languages are great, not only because they help you in your journeys but also for work. Besides they make you understand not only different people, but also different cultures, as cultures and languages are closely linked one to the other.

And as Ludwig Wittgenstein said: "The limits of my language are the limits of my world."

RESEARCHES IN THE YEARS OF STUDIES

Although I have already finished my studies in 2008 and I have obtained the title of Master of Science, I still remember those days when I was a student of social anthropology at the ISH institute in Ljubljana. I had luck because at that time we had really the best professors possible at our study program. Not only Slovene professors, but also from the United States and Croatia. It was really a great study program and in the time of my studies I had the possibility to know a lot of people to travel for research purposes and make friends.
In these years I did some researches for the subjects we were studying. I will mention below all the researches I did in the years I was still a student in social anthropology.
My researches and their titles. Some are in Slovene, some in English.

1. Being a tourist:Social suspension of status and social roles. (in Slovene)
   
2. Living in Casas particular in Cuba and the beginning of fictive kinship.(in Slovene)
   
3. Prekmurje in Tourist texts: the white storks and the melancholic, dreamy, mysterious, calm landscape of the forgotten region. (in English)
   
4. Travelling: In search of paradise. (in Slovene)
   
5. Slovene tourist industry from Socialism to Post-socialism: Tourism as a media to create the national image.
   
6. People in the photos of the magazine "Horizont": Camera lens as the weapon of culture/cultural power. (in Slovene)
   
7. Cuba: Female sex tourists and "jineteros": the disguised power of the "Other" over the eroticized body of the "Exotic Other".
8. Minorities from the Former Yugoslavia between the improper media definition and the ostrich state policy. (in Slovene)
9. The research method using porno videos as a fieldwork. Very interesting indeed. We were analysing the concept of racism in porn movies, especially what concerns women in the industry. Unfortunately the records of this research are saved on a diskette that are nowadays obsolete.

And finally, the greatest and most important research I did to finish my studies and get my Master, was the research I did in Colombia. Thanks to my friends in Colombia, mostly in the region Valle del Cauca, in Cali, I could carry out my research. Without their help, I would have been lost there. I could finish it in time and I hope a did a good job there. The result of that has the following title:

SUSTAINABLE TOURISM AND QUALITY OF LIFE:THE CASE OF VALLE DEL CAUCA, COLOMBIA


sugar cane in the Cauca Valey (Valle del Cauca)


ARTICLES THAT WERE PUBLISHED:

1. In the magazine MONITOR, they published in 2007 my article in English: CONSTRUCTION OF URBAN AND NON-URBAN SPACES IN TRAVEL MAGAZINE PHOTOGRAPHS
2. In the magazine MONITOR, it was published in 2008 an article out of a research I did for the University. Its title is: MINORITIES FROM FORMER YUGOSLAVIA CAUGHT BETWEEN THE MEDIA AND THE POLICY OF THE STATE