Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/66107
travel COLUMN BY ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR BRIAN ELDER Travel changes you on the inside. When we travel, we are particularly aware of sights, sounds and other experiences as we move from place to place. During my sabbatical leave this past fall, I had the opportunity to take part in an Artist Residency program at Wassard Elea in Ascea, a small town high on a hill overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea in southern Italy. In this place, I was able to experience the sweet smoky smell of olive branches burning and the ever-changing appearance of the Mediterranean Sea. Ascea is not a town crowded with tourists; it's more for those who are interested in getting off the well- worn paths and visiting the site of Elea, an ancient Greek settlement that was the home of the Eleatic Philosophers Parmenides and Zeno. I lived and worked in a place steeped in natural beauty and a long history of human habitation. My goal was to develop artwork that expresses our contemporary experience of moving from one place to another and how we come to know that location we are residing in. This is important because our thoughts and our knowledge of a place allow us to connect our present experience with the past, and this can be synonymous with our personal journeys through life. Jessi Fowler, a student on the faculty-led summer abroad program, draws above Florence with the hilltop town of Fiesole in the background. 26 centralight summer '11 is a metaphor