Institute founded on love for Italy

By VICTORIA GANNON, Portland Press Herald News Assistant

Copyright © 2004 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

	Staff photo by John Ewing Institute co-founder Paola D'Amato is a native of Trieste, Italy.
	Staff photo by John Ewing Institute students meet to discuss Italian culture in an informal Italian conversation group at Sophia's Bakery in Portland.
	INSTITUTE FOR ITALIAN STUDIES ADDRESS: 75 Pearl St., Suite 440, Portland PHONE: 939-5127 WEB SITE: www.iismaine.com FOUNDED: 2004 EMPLOYEES: 2 QUOTE: "I always wanted my own school, rather than working here and there. We realized this is the best way to stay in touch with the language and with people who are very interested in the culture." - Paola D'Amato, co-founder and co-director of the Institute for Italian Studies To top of story

Italian culture isn't a hard sell. Opera, wine, Fellini films - what's not to like? With the opening of the Institute for Italian Studies in Portland, Italian culture is essentially for sale.

And what's being sold there - knowledge of Italian art, cooking and language - is authentic. The institute's founders and directors, Paola D'Amato of Portland and Maria Luisa De Luca of Falmouth, are Italian natives. D'Amato is from Trieste, De Luca from Rome. Both met and married New England men who were traveling in Italy and settled in Maine less than five years ago.

Their goal with the institute is to share the Italian culture and language with their adopted community. They hope to appeal to those completely unfamiliar with Italy, as well as people of Italian heritage who have grown disconnected from their roots. Their other hope is that by doing this, they will not become members of the latter group.

D'Amato and De Luca became friends while teaching Italian at the Language Exchange, a language school formerly in Portland, now in South Portland. D'Amato's primary job in both Italy and the United States has always been as an Italian language teacher.

De Luca worked as a lawyer, but taught part time at the Language Exchange to stay connected to her native language.

Both yearned to be part of a school that focused solely on Italian, the language and culture, rather than one that taught multiple languages.

"Each one of us, separately, thought of doing something with Italy. We found ourselves sitting and talking about it," said D'Amato. "This was a way for us to bring what we know and what we grew up with to Maine, and enrich the community and not lose it."

"This was a way for us to be in contact with what we really are," said De Luca.

Drawing $4,000 from their personal finances, the two women launched the institute. They found a location, an office suite downtown on Pearl Street, and developed a brochure they passed out to local businesses. Their main startup costs were renting a space, marketing and liability insurance. As for materials to teach with, they didn't have to look further than their own experiences and personal libraries.

The institute launched its first session June 7. Six language classes, with 45 students total, are now under way. The language classes meet 10 times and cost $250 per session. Future workshops, which may meet for a day or four times a month, include Italian cinema, regional cooking and opera. Daily workshops will cost $130. Single classes in a series cost around $45 per class.

So far, students have typically been adults who frequently travel to Italy. One whole class is made of a family of five preparing for their first trip there. Several are students who have studied with the two women before and enjoy their teaching styles.

"I'm basically just following her," student Peggy Golden said of D'Amato. Golden, owner of the Greenhut Galleries in Portland, has studied Italian at various schools and is enrolled in the institute's intermediate class. "They use more inventive ways to teach Italian, like going out to dinner (as a class) and speaking Italian. It mimics the way you would use it in Italy."

Five years ago, Golden took her first trip to Italy, returning several times since. She's taking language classes to increase her independence while there. She's also excited about the institute's arts and cultural offerings.

"I've been really impressed with their knowledge of opera and Renaissance artists, politics and culture," she said of D'Amato and De Luca.

Student Annette Elowitch, who lives in Portland, travels to the same Italian village every summer. "I can only say the same dumb thing to my friends there," she said. "I would like to know more than the present tense."

Elowitch and her husband Rob own Barridoff Galleries, an international art auction company. Their primary purpose while in Italy, she said, is to see and purchase art. But theirs is not what you would call a working vacation.

"When we go, we sit in a café for an hour and a half. Americans are too busy, Italians take their time," she said. "They do what they have to do but they know the value of family and eating and can sit and eat for three hours."

Workshops and classes at the Institute for Italian Studies take into account this leisurely pace. Daylong workshops, in any subject, involve preparing and eating an Italian meal together. A recent conversation group met over pastries and coffee at Portland's Sophia's Bakery to discuss café culture in Venice during the Renaissance. A homework assignment for an Italian language class, said D'Amato, might involve buying ingredients for a meal at Miccucci's, an Italian market on India Street in Portland, and translating the items' names into Italian.

All this, said D'Amato and De Luca, is their way of re-creating the Italian lifestyle here in Maine.

"I want to share with people here about the things I love, the arts and traditions and where we come from," said De Luca. "It's like there's two sides of a stage," Italy and the United States. "We've been on both sides. We want them to learn it from someone who's from there."

News Assistant Victoria Gannon can be contacted at 791-6309 or at: vgannon@pressherald.com.

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