I recently enjoyed a trip to the Bahamas and one of my least favorite, yet quite memorable moments was when my 3 1/2-year-old son stormed into a very small hotel gift shop, threw a fabulous tantrum, flung a tacky looking canoe-shaped magnet on the floor and broke it. (He then proceeded to throw all of the pillows off the hotels sofas and chairs onto the floor, but I digress.)
I paid the nice price of $5.95 for this canoe thingy (tax included!) which is now glued back together and silently sails through our Frigidaire art gallery in all its glory.
If only I had been in the southern Italian town of Rivello, perhaps I'd be singing a different tune.
The town is rebelling against generic, not-made-here products, according to a report in the Springwise newsletter. The town hopes to attract 149 artists to come visit and reshape the souvenir concept.
As artists in residence they will be charged an accommodation fee of about 90 euros a week for a minimum stay of one week in July or August.
The organizers of the Unconventional Holiday Market hope that the visiting artists will frequent the beaches before they visit town to exhibit alternatives to what the marketplace managers call "trivial, mass-produced objects, quite often camouflaged as fake local handicrafts."
Kudos to Rivello for thinking outside the box.
I do have a favorite souvenir from my family vacation - a conch shell that my daughter picked up while snorkeling. My now much-calmer son said to me recently: "Did you know you can hear the ocean in there?"
Fancy that.
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