Anyway have a collection of stuff our italian art/furniture restoration teacher has said:
“If you’re in this business for money, you’re in the wrong business. Go work at McDonald’s.”
“All insects are referred to by their latin names. If you really want to piss off a conservator, ask him if he’s familiar with lactobacillius bulgaricus. He won’t be, that’s in yoghurt.”
“A mirror doesn’t usually wear down from being used. People that ugly are rare.”
“When I see the Alps I will instantly weep, because I know I’m almost home. and if someone dismantled the Alps, I’d cry harder. Moral of the story is, there’s no pleasing me.”
“One year a girl asked me if we’ll have to use animal glue, because she’s vegan. I’m a vegetarian, too, and I can already promise you this: You don’t have to eat the glue. Actually, now that I thought of it, I’m forbidding it completely. If I see you eating glue in this class I’m throwing you out.”
“If a very old object has been kept well, it can still be in very good shape. Like a grandma. Old things are never ugly, they must be respected.”
“Do not put silicone breasts on the grandma.”
“In the video interviews (for school entrance exams) there were some interesting, and even funny ones. None of you were funny, though. The funny ones didn’t get in.”
“When I was in school, interior design was taught by an architect who didn’t know anything about the subject. Never trust architects, they are evil.”
“Low-fat milk is only good for making milk paint, it’s poison. It’s just chalk and water, and even the chalk has been removed. Low-fat milk is essentially nothing.”
[Has a 15-minute argument with a student about whether “dark blonde” is a real hair colour]
“Fresco also means ‘I am in prison’ in italian, because it’s a bit cool. Or was, nowadays I think prisons are quite comfortable.”
“Ideally we’d use pure 100% ethanol, but we’re not allowed to get that anymore because we’re in Finland. They don’t even sell pure ethanol to doctors or hospitals, because medical students kept stealing and drinking it.”
“The man was - what was his name? Hefner. No, Defner, Hefner was the american. Apparently my brain rotates around playboy-magazines today.”
“This may be the only example of this kind of object in Kymenlaakso. Do not drop it, I might suddenly become very violent if something happens to it.”
“I have a jar of shellac in my old workshop in Italy. Haven’t been able to open it for 25 years. Every year, I try again.”
“If you can’t have a baby and don’t want to break into a maternity ward to steal hair, goat hair brushes are almost as good. But baby hair would be the best, it’s not like they use them for anything.”
“The best vodka is made out of potatoes, not wheat. Remember that. Polish potato vodka.”
“Let’s have a coffee break. Fifteen. I mean fifteen minutes, do not have fifteen coffees.”
He’s notorious for never actually booking a class, but just having his classes wherever he wants and whenever he wants, and acting insulted when he and his students are shooed out. One morning when he was having a class in the room that our teacher of the day had booked for the day, Diego left first with all his students following him in such a neat row, that he started sarcastically muttering some prayer or religious litany in either italian or latin as he went.
