Yemisi currently lives in Stockholm but has worked in Pietrasanta since 1999. She lived here for 15 years and creates in marble, granite and bronze.

Yemisi's love of animals started at a young age and they are a frequent theme in her work. Yemisi had four aquariums in her room as a child, and tells us why she finds the animals’ anatomy so fascinating.

She studied the anatomy of elephants, hippos and rhinoceros in depth and finds in them a testament to ancient times.

This interest really comes to life in the foundry, where we watch the final patinas being applied to her series of hippos, each piece brought to life through a distinct choice of colours.

Yemisi talks through the process from when she brings her models into the foundry and explains the lost wax process.

She also shows us her current series of female torsos and tells us about her grandmothers, and her passion for depicting strong independent women in her sculptures.

Yemisi works with a range of stones including marble, Swedish granite, Indian granite, Swedish porphyry and Spanish alabaster, and explains how each of them needs different tools.

Recently, she completed a public commission at Bleket bathing place in Tjörn, Sweden, carving directly into the existing granite. She reveals to us how she approached working with this community in another part of Sweden from her own, and giving them something memorable which also blended into their environment.

Yemisi was attracted to the challenge of drawing monkeys when she saw how fast they moved. She created a series with a new angle on the old fable of the three monkeys, reversing the original moral this time to encourage listening, talking and expressing. She hopes that listening and speaking out can help resolve modern day issues in society.

For this episode we met Yemisi at Fonderia Artistica Versiliese , founded in 1975 in the centre of Pietrasanta. This family-owned foundry is now run by the three brothers Tiberio, Franco and Gabriele Lucarini.

Links
yemisiwilson.com

instagram.com/yemisiwilson

See pictures and read more on materiallyspeaking.com including a full English transcript.

Questa settimana incontriamo Franco Casoni, maestro intagliatore del legno, per scoprire come realizza le polene, ovvero le figure di prua delle navi.

This week we are meeting Franco Casoni, a master wood carver, to find out how he creates ships’ figureheads — known as 'polene'.

Per questa puntata ci siamo recati a Chiavari, in Liguria, a breve distanza in auto lungo la costa da Pietrasanta e dalle cave di marmo di Carrara. Qui, tra la costa rocciosa e le colline ricoperte da fitti boschi, il materiale locale è il legno.

For this episode we travelled to Chiavari, Liguria, a short drive up the coast from Pietrasanta and the marble quarries of Carrara. Here, between rocky coastline and dense forested hillsides, the local material is wood.

All'interno del suo laboratorio, Franco ci mostra una scarpa di ottima fattura e ci spiega che suo padre era un calzolaio. Aggiunge che, quando era giovane, era consuetudine fare l'apprendista presso il padre di qualcun altro, per evitare di litigare troppo con il proprio.

Inside Franco’s workshop, he shows us a beautifully crafted shoe and explains that his father was a shoemaker. He adds that, when he was young, it was traditional to apprentice under someone else’s father, to avoid arguing too much with your own.

Franco racconta la storia delle polene, spiegando come, al di là della loro funzione decorativa, un tempo si credesse che possedessero proprietà mistiche. Racconta inoltre come è arrivato a scolpirle, oltre a parlare dei tipi di legno e degli strumenti che utilizza nel suo lavoro.

Franco shares the history of figureheads (‘polene’ in Italian), explaining how, beyond their decorative role, they were once believed to hold mystical properties. He also reflects on how he came to carve them, as well as the types of wood and tools he uses in his work.

Franco parla di alcune delle superstizioni legate alle polene e racconta come Pablo Neruda, il celebre poeta cileno, abbia iniziato la sua collezione di fama mondiale di polene di navi del XIX secolo. Queste polene sono riemerse dai relitti affondati nel mare insidioso vicino alla sua casa in Cile e sono esposte nella casa-museo Isla Negra. Isla Negra Museum house

Franco discusses some of the superstitions around polene, and tells how Pablo Neruda, the renowned Chilean poet, came to start his world-famous collection of 19th century ships’ figureheads. These figureheads floated up from shipwrecks that sank in the perilous sea near his home in Chile, and can be seen at the house museum Isla Negra Museum house

Franco è noto anche per la realizzazione degli stampi utilizzati per preparare i corzetti, un tipo di pasta tradizionale ligure a forma di moneta che risale al Medioevo. Ci racconta come realizza questi intricati stampi e ci svela i suoi segreti per preparare il sugo. 

Franco is also known for carving the stamps used to make corzetti pasta — a traditional Ligurian, coin-shaped pasta dating back to the Middle Ages. He tells how he carves the intricate stamps and gives us his recipe tips for the sauce. 

Se vuoi vedere un bel video su Franco e sua moglie Alexandra mentre preparano i corzetti, clicca su “Play” qui sotto!

If you want to see a cool video about Franco and his wife Alexandra making corzetti, click play below!

Questo episodio continua anche il nostro desiderio di produrre un episodio per stagione in italiano.

This episode is in keeping with our desire to produce one episode per season in Italian. 

instagram.com/franco_casoni_intagliatore

Widely recognised as the inventor of organic cubism, Pollès has created his own private laboratory for the creation of his singular sculptures.

In this episode, we invite you to watch a special video interview with Pollès and enjoy a rare glimpse inside his home and workshops.

Watch on YouTube: The World of Pollès

Ko Yamazaki was born in Japan but at 17 he went to Paris to study before finding his second home in Italy, working with marble.

Today Mike Axinn and I are back in Studio Pescarella, on the outskirts of Pietrasanta to chat with Ko Yamazaki. Originally from Kyoto, Japan, Ko has been coming to carve in Pietrasanta, Italy, since 1992. We find him working in the sunlight, polishing marble in his outside workspace under a hot tin roof. On his cavalletti are some rounded Yin and Yang forms which he is polishing.

Born the child of teachers, Ko’s mother was an activist and supported many causes. At the age of 10, he was surprised to find that the summer camp he was sent away on, was for communists. This encouraged him to reflect on the impact of politics from a very young age. Ko’s early life was moulded by a rich blend of activism, creativity, and a sense of independence; he often spent time with his grandmother while his parents worked.

At 17, Ko left Japan for Paris and, although young, he was accepted at the Sorbonne to study art. Initially drawn to painting, he soon realized he didn’t enjoy the solitary nature of painting.

His father suggested he try Pietrasanta, a town renowned for its marble and artistic community. First Ko stayed with his father in his workspace, and took odd jobs helping out at the foundry and delivery jobs for the galleries.

Ko was captivated by the energy and possibilities of working with stone, and decided to stay. He describes his first attempts at sculpture, including carving his own hand in marble, an artwork that was stolen. Established artists, and artisans, helped him shape his learning, and develop his approach in conceptual art.

He works in wood while he is in Kyoto and stone when in Pietrasanta. He divides his working life between the two. He also sometimes creates in clay and plaster.

An avid reader, Ko has always been influenced by his Japanese heritage of the creation of paper.

Ko tells how he came to carve a black cardboard box in marble. He was pondering on how people often have that final cardboard box after they’ve moved house, which sits in a room, unopened. He always wonders why the owner never just opens it and empties it out. Ko wanted to create this box in the heavy material of marble to reflect the emotional weight of unopened boxes, and likes the contrast displayed by carving a paper object in stone.

Ko’s Japanese heritage inspired his fascination with transforming hard stone into forms that resemble delicate paper or books. He expresses a desire to preserve the tactile and cultural experience of reading and writing, which he feels is fading in the digital age.  An avid reader Ko created a series on books.

He works in wood while he is in Kyoto and stone when in Pietrasanta. He divides his working life between the two.

koyamazaki.com

instagram.com/ko.yamazaki

Sculpture Vulture is a podcast which we love, and if you haven’t discovered it yet, we’re sure you’ll enjoy it. Produced and presented by bronze conservator and restorer Lucy Branch of Antique Bronze in the UK, it offers insights shaped by her specialist work in sculpture restoration, war memorial conservation and bronze maintenance.

Lucy hosts conversations with contemporary sculptors, shares the stories behind historic statues, and explores the wider world of public sculpture. Her storytelling is shaped by her distinctive training: a degree in Art History with Material Studies from University College, followed by a Masters in Conservation from the Royal College of Art and the Victoria & Albert Museum.

As well as caring for many much-loved UK monuments, including Nelson’s Column, Eros, Cleopatra’s Needle and the Albert Memorial. Lucy has also restored bronze sculptures by artists who worked in Pietrasanta, among them Henry Moore, Helaine Blumenfeld and Igor Mitoraj.

Lucy invited Sarah to share how Materially Speaking began, and to reflect on the artistic community of Pietrasanta. As they exchange stories of their favourite sculptures, Lucy introduces the idea of “sculptural tourism”, even imagining a sculpture passport for travellers and together they draw out insights into how we encounter public art today.

Lucy is also a writer and novelist, and you can support her work by exploring her books: Wax On Was Off: How to Care for Your Bronze Sculpture and Bronze Behaving Badly: The Principles of Bronze Conservation.

We also highly recommend her excellent podcast series, Sculpture Vulture, available on Spotify, Google and Apple Podcasts.

sculpturevulture.co.uk/sculpture-vulture-podcast

antiquebronze.co.uk

instagram.com/lucybranch_sculpturevulture

Renowned sculptor Alex Seton tells us about his journey from a rural Australian upbringing to becoming a prominent artist known for politically charged marble works.
He speaks about how he became fascinated with marble at a very early age, and how he was influenced by his unconventional upbringing near an historic quarry.

His family spent his childhood in the Australian bush with no electricity, a sawdust toilet and no hot water. He and his three brothers studied in a small local Catholic school. Alex and Sarah met in the studios of Massimo Galleni, which has been his studio in Pietrasanta for the last 15 years, where he was finishing up The Tenderness Series. We learn how his passion for social change inspires his work and leads him to use his art to explore themes of social engagement, privacy, and identity. 

Alex tells about a work he did for a sculpture competition in a hotel, which caused a visceral response from viewers - revealing those who had empathy for the homeless and those who reviled them. The piece is called Unsettled. Alex’s first shows included an installation where the gallery had their leather-topped benches replaced by marble versions, which all had bum prints in the marble. So when the visitor came into an empty gallery they would think “what am I looking at?”.

Alex became well known for his series of cross-legged, hooded figures with hollowed out faces from 2012, which he presented at the Hong Kong Fair, just before it became Art Basel. The hoodie seemed to him an egalitarian garment - worn as readily by billionaire Mark Zuckerberg and by Martin Trayvon, the young man shot dead in Florida. Alex explains he can get obsessed with fashion items.

Alex did a series of works during the pandemic, one of which one touched Sarah deeply. Proposal for a Humble Monument was inspired by how, in a place called Bathurst, convicts used to hack away and pull out big blocks of lime. Alex considered all the monuments around the world being pulled down because they reflect our shameful colonial past, and wondered what we might replace them with. He decided something more humble would be appropriate, and so the Proposal For a Humble Monument was named to honour the pain of those miners.

Alex tells us how he came to name the piece Someone Died Trying To Have a Life Like Mine (2014) which pays respects to the many refugees whose lives were lost at sea trying to reach a better life.

alexseton.com

instagram.com/alexseton_

Massimo Galleni Studios, gallenimassimo.it

Sullivan + Strumpf Gallery, sullivanstrumpf.com

See pictures and read more on materiallyspeaking.com

Questo episodio continua anche il nostro desiderio di produrre un episodio per stagione in italiano.

In keeping with our desire to produce one episode per season in Italian.

Inoltre, ora avete la possibilità di guardare questo episodio come video o semplicemente ascoltare l'audio.

In addition, you now have the option to watch this episode as a video below or on YouTube, with English subtitles, or simply listen to the audio, in Italian only.

Nato a Roma, ma ora residente in Versilia, Giannelli è probabilmente famoso soprattutto per la sua gigantesca scultura Mr Arbitrium, alta oltre cinque metri, che sembra spingere via o sostenere gli edifici contro cui è appoggiata, a seconda del punto di vista dello spettatore.  

Born in Rome, but now living in Versilia, Giannelli is probably best known for his giant sculpture, Mr Arbitrium, over five metres tall, which appears to be either pushing away or supporting the buildings it stands against - depending on the viewers’ point of view.  

Questa ambiguità trasforma noi spettatori in protagonisti, mettendo in discussione le nostre convinzioni sul significato di queste strutture e sul nostro legame con esse. Diverse versioni di Mr Arbitrium sono state installate su edifici e chiese a Milano, Firenze, Lucca, Servezza, Carrara, Pietrasanta e persino in Ucraina.

This ambiguity turns us as viewers into the protagonists, challenging our beliefs about the meaning of these structures and our connection to them. Versions of Mister Arbitrium have been installed against buildings and churches in Milan, Florence, Lucca, Servezza, Carrara, Pietrasanta and even Ukraine.

Giannelli accoglie Mike sul prato della tenuta di famiglia, dove la sua serie di sculture in bronzo I Sospesi è appesa agli alberi e un simpatico labrador nero giace sull'erba.  

Giannelli welcomes Mike on the lawn of the family estate, where his series of bronze sculptures I Sospesi hang from the trees, and a friendly black labrador lies on the grass.

Emanuele è arrivato a Carrara a diciannove anni per studiare scultura all'Accademia di Belle Arti di Carrara, stabilendosi qui in Versilia, dove la sua famiglia aveva vissuto nelle generazioni precedenti. All'Accademia ha scelto di lavorare l'argilla piuttosto che il marmo, per la flessibilità che offre e per la natura più concettuale del suo lavoro. 

Emanuele came to Carrara at nineteen to study sculpture at the Carrara Academy of Fine Arts, settling here in Versilia, where his family had lived in previous generations. At the Academy he chose to work in clay rather than marble, due to the flexibility it offers and the nature of his work being more conceptual.

Giannelli racconta a Mike di come, in gioventù, abbia trascorso del tempo a New York, Londra e Berlino, subendo l'influenza della fantascienza, del cinema, dei graffiti, della musica elettronica e del punk rock. Alla fine è tornato a Pietrasanta, luogo più adatto per crescere una famiglia.

Giannelli tells Mike how in his youth he spent time in New York, London and Berlin and was influenced by science fiction, cinema, graffiti, electronic music, and punk rock. Eventually he returned to Pietrasanta which was more conducive to raising a family.

Ricorda la gioia di incontrare artigiani e visitare i laboratori che allora si trovavano nel centro di Pietrasanta. E gli piacevano anche le feste e la vita sociale con tanti giovani, soprattutto stranieri, tedeschi, francesi e americani.

He recalls the joy of meeting artisans and visiting the workshops which were then in the centre of Pietrasanta. And he also enjoyed the parties and social life with lots of young people, especially foreigners, Germans, French, and Americans.

The Watcher è una scultura che osserva il cielo con binocoli, cosa che gli esseri umani hanno sempre fatto. Tuttavia, ora, grazie alla tecnologia, sta cercando di guardare oltre. Emanuele afferma che “oltre” gli fa pensare anche alla spiritualità. 

The Watcher is a sculpture who looks up with binoculars at the sky, which is something humans have always done. However now, through technology, he is trying to look beyond. Emanuele says that ‘beyond’ also makes him think of spirituality.

Un'altra opera che cita con un tema visionario è Korf, un uomo che sta in piedi davanti al suo monitor, con le braccia incrociate, lo sguardo rivolto verso l'alto, alla ricerca della sua visione e del suo futuro.

Another work he mentions with a visionary theme is Korf, a man who stands watching on his monitor, arms crossed, gaze turned upwards, searching for his vision and his future.

Emanuele afferma che, pur non credendo in un codice chiamato religione, crede molto negli esseri umani. Dice che, sebbene siamo animali e abbiamo un senso di autodistruzione, siamo animali straordinari. Le sue opere si collocano tra il figurativo e il concettuale, riflettendo sul periodo contemporaneo caratterizzato da cambiamenti incredibilmente rapidi. 

Emanuele says although he doesn't believe in a code called religion, he believes very much in human beings. He says that although we are animals, and have a sense of self-destruction, we are extraordinary animals. His works are pitched between figurative and conceptual, reflecting on the contemporary period of incredibly fast-moving change.

emanuelegiannelli.it

instagram.com/emanuele.giannelli

Originally from Zurich, Maja was always keen to leave Switzerland and with an Italian grandmother perhaps Italy was always going to be her destination. She moved to Italy in 1991.

She speaks to us about how her approach to work has changed. When she was young she liked seeing the impression her hands made on the work, while now she seeks smoothness and perfection.

We meet Maja at her home - Artists Hill - an old farmhouse, surrounded by olive groves and a huge vegetable garden, which she has renovated into a home, studios, and a part that she rents out.

First Maja shows us the room where she draws, and then we move over to her new modelling studio, opposite the house.

In the middle of this room, towering above her, is a spiral column. It’s a plastercast - soon to be realised in acrylic resin and earth.

Maja tells us about a bas relief project in 16 panels called dressing. The question she originally posed was, “Can we change religion like clothes or is religion something inherent to us, you know, is it like part of us?"

One of Maja’s first pieces was Extension of Ego and now it takes pride of place in her studio. Maja still loves it and it represents the theme she still develops of externalising human traits in her work.

Labrynth is another of Maja’s pieces that follows the theme of a body’s outside reflecting what is inside.

majathommen.ch

instagram.com/thommenmaja

Ursula è nata a Seravezza e vive e lavora ancora nella zona di Pietrasanta e ha anche trascorso un periodo di apprendimento delle tecniche speciali di mosaico di Ravenna e Spilimbergo.

Facciamo un giro nel suo studio e tra le sue numerose scatole di tessere.

Quando le chiediamo quanto sia importante la luce nella composizione di un mosaico, Ursula ci spiega che una delle prime cose che fa quando accetta un incarico è vedere dove verrà collocato il mosaico.

Le sue commissioni la portano in tutto il mondo e, quando l'abbiamo incontrata, era appena tornata da un lavoro a Filadelfia, negli Stati Uniti.

Ursula ci racconta della sua formazione e di alcuni dei progetti speciali a cui ha lavorato, compreso il primo, per una sinagoga.

Vedere i suoi lavori su Facebook “mosaici Ursula Corsi”

facebook.com/mosaiciursulacorsi

instagram.com/mosaiciursulacorsi

English translation
See pictures and read more on materiallyspeaking.com

Ursula was born in Seravezza and still lives and works in the Pietrasanta area and also spent a period learning the special mosaic techniques of Ravenna and Spilimbergo.

However, her commissions take her all over the world and when we met her, she had just returned from a job in Philadelphia, USA.

Ursula tells us about her education and some of the special projects she has worked on, including her first one, for a synagogue.

Let's take a tour of his studio and his many boxes of tiles.

When we ask her how important light is in the composition of a mosaic, Ursula explains that one of the first things she does when she accepts a commission is to see where the mosaic will be placed.

Dutch artist Anne-Claire trained and worked as a lawyer until she followed her heart to become an artist. She moved to Pietrasanta, where she lived, and worked, for 15 years. Now she divides her time between the Hague and Pietrasanta.

After the pandemic she was looking for a way to capture peoples’ thoughts and emotions in order to make a three-dimensional sculpture of them in clay.

Having discovered that a traditional scanner was unable to grab the emotion she saw in a split second, Anne-Claire was happy to meet Claudio Giustiniani of ArtaxLab in Pietrasanta, who showed her how he used 30 Nikon cameras in conjunction with a 3-D printer. Working with Claudio she could get what she wanted and began her project to capture the emotions around the experience of COVID-19 called My Collection of Souls.

To create her My Collection of Souls Anne-Claire talked to the person about COVID-19 and, at the exact moment she saw their strongest expression, she pressed the button on the cameras. Claudio and she discuss in this episode how they created the work - from taking the photograph through to the finished collection.

Another collaboration Anne-Claire made was with photographer Gail Skoff.

Gail came to this part of Italy in 2017 to photograph the quarries of Carrara but soon became fascinated by the artists working in marble. When she met Anne-Claire they instantly clicked, and embarked on a collaboration with Gail’s photographic collage technique. Gail likes to enter the world of the artist and elaborate on their process, creating more of an impression of the artist's work rather than its ultimate reality.

Anne-Claire tells us how it was working with Gail and how happy she was to have Icarus flying.

From her childhood, Anne-Claire was inspired by how Michelangelo expressed such soft emotions in hard marble. Below is a piece in tribute to him. Anne-Claire thought David’s victory over Goliath was an excellent metaphor for our battle and the optimism needed to succeed during COVID-19.

anneclaire.nl

instagram.com/anneclairevandenelshout

ArtAxlab aims to build a bridge between the artisan world and digital technologies

artaxlab.com

instagram.com/artaxlab

A sculptor and painter born in Damascus, Usama tells of the impact of being brought up in Syria and of continuously dealing with people from different religions with diverse ways of looking at things. 

Usama’s studio space, and home, is tucked away in the shadow of the statuario marble quarries. Usama bought the space in this historic marble area because he felt an urgency to build a stone amphitheatre there. Initially he dismissed the land because he feared flooding. But he worked non-stop his first winter to build his theatre. 

He tells us about his childhood and how it informed the person he’s become. His uncles are both sculptors and their books on marble, in his grandmother’s library, inspired him from a young age. First he studied art in Damascus, where he carved in wood, and then he came to Carrara to study sculpting in marble. 

Usama talks about his relationship with nature and his love of plants. He grew up in Syria with a family garden of fruit and vegetables, and always loved working in nature. He has planted many trees and plants in his Carrara home.

Many of Usama’s pieces are inspired by immigration There’s a wall of marble blocks sculpted with luggage handles, straps and zips. He tells how immigrants who used to carry lots of luggage now find their luggage has become much smaller, sometimes even just a mobile phone.

Usama created a series of sculptures of women depicting the life of women in the Middle East and their freedom to travel around. His sculptures explore how women have sometimes been transformed by religion into more of an icon than a person, and how this can also become a prison. However, they often find virtual freedom through the internet.

This piece is a woman on one side and on the other side a horse, her hair represents an extension of her thoughts.

Usama loves teaching and sharing his skills whilst allowing his students to develop their own personalities in their work.

alnassar.it

instagram.com/alnassarsculpture

Originally from Oregon, John moved around America a lot as a child. Although he was not formally schooled as an artist, he received his education at a young age while travelling with his family through Europe and the Middle East. There he took in many of the great works of antiquity.

John came to sculpture in his thirties from a background in painting, and very quickly began carving monumental pieces which he was able to sell. It was at this time that he experienced a revelation when he began to imagine how stone carvers worked in the past.

Although this technique is much less practised nowadays, he believes that for thousands of years sculptors worked without eye protection. They discovered what John refers to as profile carving. John describes himself as a direct, flexible, profile carver.

The first piece John mentions is a big reclining figure which earned John enough money to allow him to come back to Pietrasanta and work. Recently the owner of that piece died and John was able to buy it back in an auction.

John also tells of the gravestone he carved which is in the cemetery of Querceta, near Pietrasanta which is a Pieta of 5 life-size figures.

Another piece, a pair of lovers, John carved from a special piece of marble he had kept for 16 years. As he was carving the embrace he had a moving experience as he felt them pushing themselves into each other, as though they couldn’t get close enough.

Now John divides his time between the Redwood forests of California and Pietrasanta - drawing inspiration from the world around.

He acknowledges a great debt to the cavatore, the quarrymen. Without quarrymen, artists don’t have the material to work with.

johnfishersculpture.com

instagram.com/giovannipescatore51

Sandy first came to Italy to be with her partner, the sculptor John Fisher, and enjoyed the influences of the Italian Renaissance, and the detailed work of the Baroque.

From observing the sculptors she learned about shadow and light, negative shape and profile lines. However, she was offered a three month artist residency in a paper making village in Japan where she discovered an economy of stroke and a muted palette which inspired her to develop her work with paper.

Gail and I met Sandy at Pescarella studios, in Vallechia, on the road from Pietrasanta towards Carrara. As we entered the large studio space, Sandy was calmly taping collages onto the wall, for a pop-up exhibition she was staging.

Her beautiful collages feature fruits, wine bottles and inviting cups of cappuccino - with froth you can almost taste. There’s a three dimensional effect on wooden spoons that she has created with papers of different shades.

On another work a tower of coffee cups leans so precariously I want to reach out and save them.

Beside Sandy there’s a table heaped with fine, plain and patterned, papers carefully arranged by colour. She shows us some samples of the paper and talks about how they are made and tells us about her techniques.

Sandy speaks about an ongoing series of womens’ portraits called Women in the World. In this project she aims to honour and recognise struggles and successes of notable women who have made a special contribution to the world. This life-long series includes visual artists, actors, musicians, scientists and political activists.

On her birthday Sandy does a collage self-portrait to reflect on the year behind and the one ahead. She talks about her childhood and the words of wisdom she took from her father who escaped Germany in WW2 and came to America.

sandyoppenheimercollage.com

instagram.com/sandyoppenheimer

On 15th April, 2019 a catastrophic fire broke out in Notre Dame Cathedral. Parisians watched in horror as the spire fell and most of the roof was destroyed. In the aftermath it became clear that a large area was contaminated with toxic dust and lead.

The iconic building, which has dominated the Île de la Cité island in Paris since the Middle Ages, is a national symbol not only for the French but for people all over the world. 

President Macron pledged to build back the cathedral as it was before, and as the planned reopening in December 2024 looms, a huge office structure has mushroomed around it and 500 workers are on site daily as the team race to rebuild it.

The eyes of the world are watching, but Materially Speaking has a story for our ears - the story of its sound.

As a sound specialist himself, Mike Axinn was fascinated when he discovered there is a group exploring the restoration of the acoustics at Notre Dame. He approached Brian F.G. Katz and David Poirier-Quinot at the Sorbonne, and their colleague, sound archeologist Mylène Pardoen, who is co-coordinator with Brian of the scientific acoustics team assisting the reconstruction of Notre Dame, and soon we were off to Paris to hear their stories. We first met Brian and David at a restaurant and then visited their simulator inside the Sorbonne to discover more.

Notre Dame has a special role in western European music’s history and is generally thought of as the cradle of polyphony. Sarah was attracted to this angle as her father, Christopher Monk, was part of the Early Music movement which restored the use of the Renaissance cornett, a woodwind instrument well known in Monteverdi’s music. He also made and played serpents, long snake-shaped instruments that had a central role in music that was performed in Notre Dame many centuries ago. So she approached Volny Hostiou, one of France’s leading serpent players, and we were delighted when he and singer Thomas Van Essen agreed to join us in Paris for some experiments with Brian and David.

We then jumped on a train to Lyon to meet with Mylène Pardoen and learn more about her work as one of the world’s foremost sound archaeologists, tasked with recording the sounds made by stone masons and other artisans in their work, and re-imagining the church’s soundscape at various points in its history.

A key person driving the physical restoration is Pascal Prunet, Chief architect of historic monuments in France and part of the team in charge of restoring Notre-Dame. Prunet explains that their work in restoring the church has revealed many secrets about its construction and the work done by artisans. We were fortunate to hear how his team was able to discover things they never would have learned had it not been for the fire.

As we obviously could not go inside Notre-Dame, Volny and Thomas then kindly arranged for us to hear them play in the Abbey of Rouen, built on a similar scale to nearby Rouen Cathedral, the abbey is famous for both its architecture and its large, unaltered Cavaillé-Coll organ. Here they talked to us about the serpent and their group Les Meslanges, showed us a serpent fresco on the ceiling of the Abbey and played in three different locations.

Finally Mike takes us back to Brian and David’s simulator to compare and contrast the sound of the musicians live in the Abbey of Rouen, and their simulated version of how the music would sound at different historical periods of Notre-Dame’s history.

Thanks also to Frédéric Ménissier who made a great video recording of our visit to the Abbaye of Rouen. You will be able to watch the result on YouTube @materiallyspeakingpodcast nearer the scheduled reopening of Notre Dame, in December 2024.

Thanks and links

We are very grateful to Brian, David, Mylène, Pascal, Volny and Thomas for giving so generously of their time and sharing their expertise and passion. You can learn more about their projects in the following links.

Brian F.G. Katz & David Poirier-Quinot
Brian Katz, originally from the U.S., is an acoustics specialist and leads the Sound Spaces research team. David Poirier-Quinot works with Brian and is a researcher, presently focused on sound spatialisation, perception, and room acoustics simulation for virtual and augmented realities.

Beginning mid April 2024, The Past Has Ears project is launching Whispers of Notre Dame, ‘Ekko of Notre-Dame de Paris’, an immersive audio guide that transports listeners through time and space to the heart of Paris's most treasured landmark. Free on Google Play, Android and iOS. It can be listened to anywhere, but is best with GPS onsite at Notre Dame.

ndwhispers.pasthasears.eu

Mylène Pardoen
Musicologist and soundscape archaeologist Mylène records and recreates the sounds of the past. She is a scientific expert for the restoration of Notre-Dame - Co-coordinator of the Acoustics group. She is also designer, coordinator and manager of the Bretez and ESPHAISTOSS projects.

Pascal Prunet
Chief architect of Historic Monuments responsible for the restoration of Notre-Dame de Paris is noted for his work in the restoration of the Cathedrals of Paris, Nantes, Limoges, Nîmes, Arras and Cambrai, as well as the Opéra Garnier in Paris , Le Corbusier 's Villa Savoye and the Citadel of Lille. 

prunet-architecture.com

Volny Hostiou & Thomas Van Essen
Musicians specialising in performing compositions that were written for, and often performed for the first time in, Notre-Dame.

Volny teaches tuba and serpent at the Rouen Conservatoire and creates projects in collaboration with the Musée de la Musique de Paris.

Thomas is a musicologist, flautist and singer, dedicated to early music and founded Les Meslanges, one of the early music ensembles Volny plays in.

Les Meslanges is supported by the French Ministry of Culture, the Regional Arts Council of Normandy, the Normandy Regional Government and the Rouen City Council. The ensemble is a member of FEVIS – the Federation of Specialised Vocal and Instrumental Ensembles.

Credits

Producer: Sarah Monk

Producer/Editor: Mike Axinn

Music: courtesy of Les Meslanges - Thomas van Essen & Volny Hostiou

The flags are out, the bunting too, and the red and white mascot Burlamacco is everywhere as Viareggio eagerly awaits the start of Carnival. The trees are heavy with oranges, the sweet fried dough, chiacchiere, are in the pastry shops - there’s excitement in the air!

Dating back to 1873, Viareggio’s Carnival attracts thousands of visitors each year to watch the enormous, intricate papier-mâché sculptures dance their way along the seaside promenade.

From September through March the Citta del Carnevale - a circular complex with 16 hangars - is a hub of energy for the artisan community using boat-making skills from Viareggio, and artistic creativity from Pietrasanta. Last year we learnt how they use newspaper, along with flour and water paste, to create papier-mâché floats.

But between the audience watching and the artists creating, there’s another community: hundreds of volunteers or 'figurants' who turn up to rehearse, rain or shine, each weekend, to form the colourful dancing troupes in front of the floats.

So Mike and I are here to revisit the LeBigre family on the 20th anniversary of their La Compagnia del Carnevale to learn why their 200 volunteers return each year, and what impact one creative project can have on the wider community.

For this episode we are also proud to collaborate with Celia & Enzo of Piazza Talk Lucca - a popular YouTube channel sharing how life is in Lucca, and in the Tuscan hills. Celia, a book restorer, and Enzo, a sea captain dived right in to volunteer behind the scenes with the Le Bigre family creating papier-mâché items for the float.

Check out the videos they made of their behind the scenes experience volunteering with the Le Bigre family on their YouTube channel.

Links

Carnival parades run through the end of February 2024. You can also visit the Cittadella museum during the rest of the year.

• Viareggio carnival info & tickets
• instagram.com/compagnia_del_carnevale

Celia & Enzo 

• Youtube: Piazza Talk Lucca 
• instagram.com/piazzatalklucca
• facebook.com/piazzatalklucca

Le Bigre

• viareggio.ilcarnevale.com
• Benjamin Le Bigre’s theatre group in Paris
• instagram.com/elodielebigre_babskin
• instagram.com/benleb

Credits

Producer: Sarah Monk

Producer/Editor: Mike Axinn

Music : courtesy of Audio Network

• Gypsy World, Haris Custovic

Special thanks to Linda Nari for sharing her vibrant photos

• Carnevale 2024 Facebook post
• instagram.com/lindajezsek

Gabriele talks to us about his upbringing in Genoa, his self-taught artistic training, his love for the history of art, and for photography.

He explains the process of creating pebble mosaics, including the selection of stones and the use of lime mortar. He also discusses the importance of preserving the skills and techniques of mosaic making and the impact of climate change on the availability of materials.

We met Gabriele in a city park called Campo Pisano – where Genoa once beat Pisa at the battle of Meloria, and confined more than 9,000 prisoners. Here he is restoring a memorial mosaic which was first made by Gabriele’s teacher Armando Porta. Further info and images on Wikipedia.

For many centuries Genoa wielded enormous power as a maritime republic and was considered one of the wealthiest cities in the world. On our way to Gabriele’s studio he showed us the narrow streets and wonderful architecture, with layers of history.

Liguria, is a region of northern Italy; a narrow strip bordered by sea on one side and densely wooded mountains on the other. The air here smells of salt from the sea, minerals from the rocks, and pine from the hills. Its traditional crafts are mostly inspired by materials from the sea and forests.

Gabriele emphasises the need to pass on the craft to future generations. Gabriele's work is driven by his deep connection to nature and a desire to create beautiful and sustainable art.

mosaicidiciottoli.it

facebook.com/mosaicidiciottoli

We settle down to chat outside Robin Bell’s home at a sheltered table with a spectacular view of the sea, from Pisa to La Spezia, and the never ending horizon. An exterior storage space against a yellow wall reveals shelves laden with maquettes and sculptures in various stages of completion.

Robin discusses his move from working with marble to bronze and his focus on creating larger sculptures. He shares stories about some of his notable commissions, including sculptures of Winston Churchill, Ulysses and the hockey star and Canadian politician, Ken Dryden.

Robin talks about his Irish heritage and how he loves telling stories through his sculptures. He also describes his working process and how he immerses himself in the characters he sculpts. He recounts the preparations he took to sculpt a Canadian cutting horse called Peppy San, which took three years to make. 

Coming from a military family involved Robin in much travelling and he acknowledges the influence his grandfather’s pioneering spirit had on him. He reflects on how attached he is to the view of the horizon over the sea from his house near Pietrasanta. Nowadays Robin creates a drawing daily, which he posts on social media.

instagram.com/bellrobinch

Robin Bell on Facebook

The long, narrow, glass-walled studio of Janice Mehlman is perched half way up the steep garden of her home, on a hillside near Pietrasanta.

Many of her abstract photographs are hung on crisp white walls, and she welcomes us inside to look at some of her work from the last 30 years. She explains how she started as a photographer, focusing on black-and-white images of architecture. After creating an image that captured a chance moment of light on a discarded photographic proof in her waste bin, she started to incorporate objects into her compositions. 

She shows us her workbench, where she finds inspiration. When light from the window shines in, it illuminates a cornucopia of materials in every colour and texture. We see swimwear, hats, netting and fluorescent wrapping – all glittering in the morning sun.

Janice explains how her work has evolved over the years, particularly in relation to her exploration of her sensuality and sexuality as a woman. She talks about using her own intimate garments and other objects to create compositions that reflect her inner soul.

She also recounts how her work has responded to different experiences, such as the Covid-19 pandemic and shows us a few pieces from that series.

We hear how she was inspired by a disastrous trip to Chicago to create one of her most acclaimed series of work, choosing to find the positive even in adversity.

janicemehlman.org

instagram.com/janicemehlman

Steaven Richard evolved his craft as an apprentice to several artisan blacksmiths over many years and in many countries, before establishing his own atelier in Paris specialising in artistic metalwork

Soon demand for his work, from architects and designers, grew - and he needed more space. To accommodate this, he moved to a large warehouse in Valenton and expanded his team of blacksmiths and metalworkers who combine traditional skills, and new technology.

Atelier Steaven Richard has become famous for its artistic metalwork.  Prestigious designs include a bespoke metal floor for the studio of Karl Lagerfeld, the elevator doors for the Hotel de Paris in Monaco, and a ‘Steaven Richard’ limited edition bottle for Remy Martin.

We started to interview him in front of his wall of gorgeous wall samples in a colourful array of textures, patinas and designs and then went through to the workshops.

And we also tour his huge hangar-like workshop, which is buzzing with activity and the thrum of machinery.

Enormous shelves hold sheets of carefully-labelled metals. There’s large-scale equipment, and workers hand-finishing on long benches. It’s artisans work on a grand-scale. We see some samples of his finished work.

Mike Axinn and I took the train 50 km south of Paris, through the suburbs, to the dense wooded area of Bois le Roi, next to the forest of Fontainebleau. As the train slowed into the station, a bright blue sky is visible above the dense forest of wintry trees, and we see the lanky figure of Steaven waiting on the platform to greet us.

steavenrichard.fr

instagram.com/ateliersteavenrichard

Xavier Montoy grew up in a family of doctors and was always keen on biology. When he chose an artistic route he wanted to focus attention on endangered insects to highlight how we should honour and conserve them.

As part of our Paris series, Mike Axinn and I go to the 11th arrondissement of Paris to meet Xavier and see how he creates jewellery with the Sternocera beetle.

Sternocera aequisignata live in Southeast Asia, especially in northeast Thailand. Their life cycle is two years, of which the period when they live above ground and reproduce and then die, lasts only a few weeks. Once a year, in September and October, villagers harvest and sort the elytra (fore-wings), and then Xavier sources them for his work.

Xavier’s workshop is in the artisan complex at the Cité des Taillandiers, in rue des Taillandiers, where around twenty artists and artisans have workspaces thanks to an initiative of the mayor of the 11th who is working to support historic craft activities in the arrondissement.

In his shared, neat workspace we find a magical display-box of beetles and butterflies, a case of jewellery tools and some 3D printing equipment. On a high shelf are some sheets of the precious material he has created from beetles in bright iridescent colours.

xaviermontoy.com

instagram.com/xavier_montoy

Judith’s workshop is in the 10th arrondissement, tucked away in a courtyard behind huge iron gates where tall white buildings house workshops, and motorbikes and cars are squeezed against the walls. There are lines of plants in terracotta pots and a small white dog.

Judith greets us in her office where a history of her instruments line one wall – some with painted gold detail and others with fine marquetry work in wood.

She makes instruments on commission for professional and amateur musicians, ranging from promising students through to well-established performers, from all over the world. She also creates instruments for Swiss and French music conservatories and does restoration work on old viols.

In her light and airy workshops, we find a large store of seasoned wood including many triangular shapes ready to form the instrument, and shelves holding a rich assortment of spirits, glues and waxes.

She speaks about how she sources the wood in the Jura and how you can tell the age of the wood in an old instrument, and judge the climate over the years, through the stripes you see in the wood.

There’s a half finished instrument in a vice on a workbench and Judith runs through the process of creating her instruments for us, each of which takes a couple of months to complete. All the tools of Judith’s craft line the walls, including a fine selection of blades.

Judith talks of the pleasure both of making the instruments, and of hearing them play in the hands of their final owner.

judithkraft.net

In 2018, Judith Kraft was named Maître d’Art by the French Minister of Culture.

Sylvain always loved cooking and when he discovered a passion for working with metal and wood he trained so he could create kitchen knives for chefs.

Mike Axinn and I travelled to Paris to meet four artisans. In the first of our series we talk with Sylvain Maenhout who took the decision to retrain as an artisan in his late 30s. Becoming an artisan has given him the ability to work from home and have a more balanced, family-centred life.

Finding workspace in Paris has become increasingly expensive and, as in most cities, there are restrictions on noise and dust. So Sylvain Maenhout made the move to an eastern suburb, 10 kilometres out of town in Nogent sur Marne.

We chatted with Sylvain about his background, and how he worked in business before choosing a different path as a blacksmith making kitchen knives. 

We visited Sylvain’s workshops – the first dedicated to metal work which had a 1950s rolling mill, anvil & hammer, and hydraulic press.

He tells of his passion for forging and how he loves working both with metal and with wood. He explains how he sources his materials – steel from Germany and wood from suppliers who have already seasoned it.

Then we go down to the basement workspace where he has a space for woodwork and knife assembly. In the house’s former coal room he shows us where he does the heat treatments, and sharpens the knives with Japanese wet stones.

Sylvain tells about the range of knives he creates and his experiences talking with professional chefs and private customers.

sylvain-m.fr

instagram.com/sylvain.m.coutelier

This spring Mike Axinn and I went to Paris to see how artisans are able to practise their craft in a vibrant, urban setting. We wanted to discover more about the relevance of traditional skills in a world of 21st century technologies.

First we met Sylvain Maenhout who gave up a conventional career and moved his family out of central Paris to devote his life to making kitchen knives.

Release date: 26 May 2023

We also spoke with Judith Kraft who left America to establish herself in Paris as a Luthier, making viola da gambas. She tells of her process - from choosing the wood in the Jura to passing the instrument to its new owner and hearing it play in their hands.

Release date: Summer 2023

Then we visited Steaven Richard, whose passion for horses took him around the world as a blacksmith, discovering architecture that inspired his fine artistic metalwork. As demand for his work grew he moved to a larger facility where his team of blacksmiths and metalworkers combine traditional skills with new technology.

Release date: Summer 2023

Finally we met Xavier Montoy who grew up in a family of doctors and was always keen on biology. When he chose an artistic route he focussed on endangered insects to highlight their importance in the eco-system. He tells how his passion for insects led him to create jewellery with the Sternocera beetle.

Release date: Summer 2023

All of these artisans told us tales of transformation and spoke of sourcing and creating from their chosen materials with passion and purpose.

Ron Mehlman grew up in Brooklyn and came to Pietrasanta in the 1980s. No materials are off limits in his quest for creating sculpture infused with spirit and life.

As we settle down to talk by his warm log-burning stove, Ron describes the two walls of his studio with their alphabet of colourful abstract sculptures – created from stone, wood and bronze – each one perched on its own individual shelf. The project started as a way of making thin sketches out of the stones available in the area.

Ron talks about his family from the Ukraine, his neighbourhood and his upbringing in New York. He tells of his student days, his teaching work and how he originally came to Pietrasanta with Janice, a photographer and now his wife.

One piece which Ron discusses is an abstract metal piece called Drawing in Space. It reflects his upbringing in New York where he salvaged scrap to use in his art. This three dimensional piece is created from parts of tools used to copy a marble sculpture, as well as an old bicycle seat.

He also spoke about a work created from a stone which he fell in love with and reminded him of an intricate, Chinese drawing of a landscape. He bought the broken stone, put it together and carved a landscape in front and behind it.

Many of Ron’s sculptures play with light, and he works with the stone to reveal the geological formations and their intrinsic natural beauty.

Ron shares his home on the edge of town with his wife the photographer Janice Mehlman – instagram.com/janicemehlman. It’s a pretty house on the hillside, with neat rows of vines below it and a stone studio with high glass windows set in the garden. The studio is surrounded by sculptures and stacks of stone waiting to be worked.

ronmehlman.org

instagram.com/ronmehlman

Nicola Stagetti of Stagetti Studios in Pietrasanta, and Robin Sethi, the project coordinator from India, describe the creation of Pramashwar the Infinite.

Artisan and studio head Nicola Stagetti spoke to us from his studios, where historic busts line the shelves and the familiar roar of his robot emanates from the next room. Nicola completed his art education in Pietrasanta and went on to become an apprentice in his father’s workshop, then called Stagetti & Cosci. In 1996 he changed the company name to Marble Studio Stagetti.

Nicola approached this project with great passion. He talks about the joys and challenges of realising this piece of huge significance for the many followers of the holy saint in India. Nicola has been working on the project for the past three years from just one original photograph of the Indian saint who lived 100 years ago.

Robin Sethi, the project co-ordinator from India, met us in the gardens of the Convent of San Francesco, which dates back to the 16th century and was once dedicated to prayer and meditation, but now offers community courses, conferences and internships, all in the area of the arts

He talks of his admiration for how Nicola skillfully replicated in marble the shoe that the Saint wore. The original shoe was handcrafted in leather with fine thread work.

All photos by Gail Skoff: gailskoff.com – instagram.com/skoffupclose

Stagetti Studios

For Pramashwar The Infinite, visit Yogiraj Sarkar Godariwale Trust at ysgt.org

John Greer finds art gives him an invaluable structure in life. Expressing himself in form is more important than a visual language.

Professor of sculpture for 26 years at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, John was the catalyst for the ‘Halifax Sculpture’ movement in the 1990s which was rooted in minimalism and conceptualism.

Inspiration for his sculpture often comes from Ancient Celtic stones and Greek sculpture and he likes the merging of cultural and natural history.

He discusses a number of projects he has created over the years, and Gail Skoff took photographs of some of his more recent works.

John has created about a dozen pieces on the theme of value, and he tells us why he finds the invention and history of money so fascinating. He speaks about the geology of materials, and how he takes this into account when he chooses what stone to work with.

The Sleeper and The Rose (2021) was inspired by a Greek piece. John discusses how we live in a time where Western culture is trying to come to terms with its history and its colonial past. He feels it is important to let go without forgetting.

John’s series on Sirens was inspired by Greek figures. Sometimes used as a memorial, sometimes to mark an event, and sometimes as a real person. John explains how in the Louvre everything was against the wall because it was considered a humiliation for an aristocrat to walk behind another person, and a sculpture was considered another person.

Born in Canada, John now shares a studio in Pietrasanta with his wife the sculptor Vanessa Paschakarnis, and a lively community of frogs.

Thanks to Gail Skoff for this collaboration and for the fantastic photographs of John.

All photos: Gail Skoff, gailskoff.com – instagram.com/skoffupclose

artistjohngreer.com

instagram.com/artistjohngreer

Carnevale originated in pagan rituals celebrating winter turning to spring. For Christians it offers a brief hiatus before the rigours of Lent – hence the name ‘carnem levare’ – which means ‘to take away meat’. This is a time to create chaos, to question and poke fun at authority and, for the artisans of Viareggio, the opportunity to say something meaningful to the public and get them involved.

La Cittadella del Carnevale, just outside Viareggio, is a circular complex with 16 hangar-like warehouses and a museum. It’s here that we meet some of the artisans whose dizzying array of skills include design, art, modelling, mechanics, puppetry, welding, choreography and scenography. However, as in a circus, everyone has to do a bit of everything.

— — —

The French Lebigre family travelled the world learning from other carnivals, and are credited with being the first to create a community theatre to perform in front of their floats. Each year they train 200 people from all walks of life to participate in their show. This year their grand float is entitled Laugh Pagliaccio, or the art of taking oneself seriously and features a clown looking at himself in the mirror as he readies himself for the show. Will he make us all laugh, or himself be the one to laugh at the world which has become a circus?

— — —

Libero Maggini is an artist based in Pietrasanta who creates works in bronze, terracotta and marble. He is the son of two artists and each winter he works with his father at the Carnevale. This year, the 150th anniversary of the carnival, they created six figures for the masquerade category as a homage to Queen Elizabeth II and her dogs. It is titled Anglicani as a joke – ‘cani’ means dog in Italian.

— — —

Edoardo Ceragioli started competing in the Carnevale in 1998. This year his creation is titled There was a boy like me, which quotes a famous song by Gianni Morandi denouncing the stupidity of war. His creations depict memories of a young boy’s life cut short in the rubble. Here you can see him working on the backpack representing the boy’s schoolboy years.

Francesco Manfré has been assisting Edoardo for some years and works as a lifeguard in Viareggio during the summer months.

— — —

Matteo Raciti was born in Sicily and grew up in the artistic community of the Carnevale of Acireale studying architecture before coming to Pietrasanta to train as a sculptor with a special interest in puppetry. This year he called his masquerade Humanity has lost the thread, a modern retelling of the Ariadne and the minotaur myth. His minotaurs can’t get out of the labyrinths that our society has created. Will they be able to follow the red thread invented by a young Ariadne and find their way to a new humanity?

Here you can see him working with a colleague placing papier-mâché inside a mould.

Silvano Cattaï born in Belgium, of Italian parentage, came to be an artist in Italy by way of making films in New York. After years in sculpture he finally came back to painting but this time with a sculptural angle, using a plasma gun and paint on aluminium.

Silvano’s studio houses his powerful plasma equipment, and protective gear. On the walls are metal-working tools, shelves with tubes of oil paints. Around the studio are neatly stacked rows of aluminium.

Silvano mixed his own colours and worked in sculpture in Pietrasanta for many years until he came full circle back to art - this time using the plasma torch at the same time as paint, making sweeping cuts on the aluminium plates.

With sculpture Silvano depended on other people but he came back to painting to be more instinctive, and to work all by himself. He finds painting gives him the freedom to express what pleases him.

Silvano’s garden has myrtle bushes burgeoning with berries, persimmon, lemon and olive trees - all plump with fruit. The view is dominated by the peak of the mountain opposite, with the quarries and the familiar lines of mining scars.

Thanks to Gail Skoff for this collaboration and for the fantastic photographs of Silvano.

cattai.net

instagram.com/_cattai_s

German born Vanessa Paschakarnis migrated to Nova Scotia before coming to Pietrasanta in northern Italy. Hers is a philosophical approach to sculpture.

I met Vanessa through Californian photographer, Gail Skoff, who took a special series of photos of Vanessa, which you can see on this page.

In front of her studio-home is a dusty yard filled with her work. She works in large series’ and themes include horned and winged beings, beasts, and shadows.

Behind us is the large hangar-like industrial building with huge windows, which is being transformed into studio space for her and her husband, sculptor John Greer.

Vanessa is hugely inspired by nature and we settle to chat in a small oasis of flowers and water – where a pond, fed by a stream is home to fish and frogs. I also meet her spectacular Bengal cat, Tarzan von der Saffenburg.

In the third of our Venice series, Mike and I are meeting furniture restorer Alvisé Boccanegra who trained in restoration in the workshops of the Church of San Marco. He tells how he repaired a crucifix after Venice flooded in 2019.

Alvisé’s workshop is in the heart of San Polo on the ground floor of the building where he was born. Inside it smells of wood and linseed oil and there are neat shelves of brightly coloured powdered paints and a large selection of jam jars with oils and waxes.

Over the years Alvisé has collected samples of wood which he keeps in his wood library. This helps him compare the density, and other features, of different woods from all over the world and understand better how to work with them.

Alvisé tells of a very special project restoring a crucifix – a masterpiece by Guiseppe Torretti – which was found floating around the church of San Moisè after the aqua alta (high water) of November 2019. As he says in a Tweet (translated):

Thanks to #VenitianHeritage the crucifix of #GiuseppeTorretti (18th century) of the church of San Moise was restored, damaged during the exceptional high water of 12.11.2019. It is now on display in the chapel of #PalazzoGrimani until next February.

This catastrophic flood brought the second-highest waters since records began in 1923. It submerged St Mark’s square, caused enormous damage to homes and artworks, and left two people dead.

The photograph of this statue immersed in water was widely shared and became a symbol of the need to preserve the special, and often sacred, beauty of Venice.

Alvisé explains the delicate procedure, restoring materials that are no longer frequently used like mother of pearl and tortoiseshell.

In this, the second of our Venice series, Mike Axinn and I met Austrian born shoemaker Gabriele Gmeiner who makes high quality made-to-measure shoes in her workshop at Campiello del Sol. She speaks of her craft, her journey from Austria and why she chose Venice.

As we turned into Gabriele’s courtyard we found her sitting at a large wooden desk by her shop window, wearing a work apron, and smiling. A shoe was jammed between her knees as she filed the base of it. In front of her were a wide selection of hammers, tapes, knives and glues.

Leather ribbons were stapled on the walls and dozens of wooden handled tools were slotted inside their curves. Above her head, suspended from the ceiling, was a forest of wooden shoe lasts.

Gabriele studied at Cordwainers College in London, and in Paris at the Centre Formation Technologique Grégoire for saddlery. She honed her skills over ten years working throughout Europe before she came to Italy and made her home in Venice.

Every July Gabriele directs the shoemaking workshop of the Salzburg Festival making shoes to measure for opera singers and actors to support their performances.

She talks us through the process of creating the perfect shoe: from measuring the client, crafting the shoe, to the final fitting. She keeps the original last and also repairs shoes, ensuring they have a long life, and that their beauty grows with wear.

Gabriele talks about sustainability and explains how she tries to source sustainable cowhides from the food industry.

gabrielegmeiner.com

instagram.com/gabrielegmeiner

Piero Dri is the fourth and youngest remer in Venice, making oars and oarlocks - or in Italian ‘forcolai’. Since he learnt to row aged 4, rowing has been his passion.

I came to Venice with sound specialist Mike Axinn for a special Venice series of Materially Speaking, during the Homo Faber celebration of artisans, in April 2022. We met three young artisans who are now bringing a fresh energy to the community with a particular eye on repair, re-use and sustainability.

Venice is an extraordinary Island city with a rich history, magnificent art and great beauty. However there are no cars and a frail infrastructure. And of course there are the tourists. So we were keen to discover what these artisans bring to Venice and why they like to call it home.

Piero’s vibrant personality has earned him the name of the ‘mad forcolai maker’ and so his workshop is called ‘Il Forcolaio Matto.’ As we arrive, Piero is opening up his shop - hooking flower boxes onto his window cill, and leaning a red and white striped oar against the wall.

He tells us how it was growing up in Venice, and how he escaped to the lagoon when he needed some peace, and to be with nature. He tells us of his studies as an astronomer and how he then changed direction and became an artisan.

Piero’s workshops have painted and varnished oars suspended from the ceiling. He speaks about the different woods he uses and the boat community in Venice.

In one window is a display of decorative forcolai, which hold their own as art objects in a variety of gorgeous woods. He speaks of a competition where he created a forcolai to express the natural beauty of the lagoon (see green and yellow forcolai below).

ilforcolaiomatto.it

instagram.com/ilforcolaiomatto

In the Spring of 2022, sound specialist Mike Axinn and I went to Venice during Homo Faber, an event created by the Michelangelo Foundation to celebrate master craftsmanship.

We wanted to discover more about the community of younger artisans in Venice - what brought them there, and why they liked it.

First we met Piero Dri, a remer who makes oars and oarlocks, or as the Italians call them, ‘forcolai’. Since he learnt to row aged 4, rowing has been his passion.

Release date: 16 November 2022

Then we chatted with Austrian-born shoemaker Gabriele Gmeiner who makes high quality shoes to measure in her workshop at Campiello del Sol. She speaks of her craft, her journey from Austria, and why she chose Venice.

Release date: 30 November 2022

Finally we had an illuminating talk with furniture restorer Alvise Boccanegra, who painstakingly repaired a crucifix which was found floating in the church of San Moisè after the floods of November 2019.

Release date: 14 December 2022

All three young artisans bring a fresh energy to the community and discuss the materials they choose with a keen eye on sustainability, re-use and repair.

Marianna Blier was born in Astrakhan, Russia but moved to Vienna in 2007. She now divides her time between her atelier in Vienna, Austria and her marble studios in Carrara, Italy.

Eminent Californian photographer Gail Skoff introduced Marianna, and when I followed Gail on one of her photography trips, Marianna was standing on a table top, in a large workshop in the centre of Carrara. Wearing goggles and earmuffs she was leaning over a tall sculpture, carving the final touches.

Marianna got a PhD in economics and started out in business. But her true passion was always art and finally she made the jump from finance to becoming a full-time artist.

She speaks about the importance of creativity to all people. At her Austrian company she founded a project to display the art of employees from all over the world. She continues to manage this project and tells how it played a role supporting the influx of Ukrainian refugees in the past year.

Thanks to Gail Skoff for this collaboration and for the fantastic photographs of Marianna.

All photos: Gail Skoff, gailskoff.com – instagram.com/skoffupclose

mariannablier.com

instagram.com/bliermarianna

Celebrated figurative sculptor Daphné Du Barry speaks seven languages and modelled for Salvador Dali in her 20s. She discusses her bronzes, her love of learning and her faith.

Born in Holland, Daphné studied at Munich University and afterwards, at McGill in Canada. Later she enrolled at the Sorbonne in Paris to study modern literature. She had a brief career as a chanteuse in Paris and then became an artist.

She studied drawing with the Hungarian master Akos Szabo, then in Florence she learnt from Marcello Tommasi, one of the great masters of classical figurative sculpture.

Daphné met her husband Jean-Claude Du Barry, an art critic, at the home of Salvador Dali in Spain and it was love at first sight. She tells us of his influence on her and how she values observation and continuing to learn all our lives. ‘Sometimes’, she says, ‘we look but we don’t see’.

Her first huge monument was The Baptism of Clovis by St. Remi, in Rheims, France in 1996. It was during the making of this statue of the first catholic king of France that she met Pope John Paul II, which changed her life.

D’Artagnan in Gascony, captain of the musketeers, was created with her husband’s memory in mind, a project he would have loved her to realise.

daphne-dubarry.com

Renowned sculptor Helaine Blumenfeld continually re-invents herself in her search for a vocabulary of form.

Helaine’s work communicates on all levels: visual, tactile and emotional. She is well-known for her public art and her sculptures often seems weightless as she strives to portray something spiritual. Her work is a continuous journey of discovery and growth.

Helaine tells us about becoming an artist, her unstoppable urge to create and how she first came to Pietrasanta 50 years ago.

She now divides her working life between Pietrasanta, Italy, and Cambridge, UK and has been honoured in both countries. In 2007, she was the first woman to be awarded the prestigious ‘International Sculpture Prize: Pietrasanta and Versilia in the World’ and in 2011 was awarded an honorary OBE for services to the arts.

In her recent exhibition, Intimacy and Isolation, Helaine explores beyond the level of personal relationships to our place in the world as her sculptures express what it means to be connected and to share perspectives.

Flame, is part of the outdoor exhibition of art in Pietrasanta placed on Via Oberdan.

Links
helaineblumenfeld.com

instagram.com/helaineblumenfeldobe

Credits

Sound edit and design: Mike Axinn

Music: courtesy of Audio Network

• Fading Colours 1596/2, by Paul Mottram

Nilda Comas knew she’d be an artist from a very young age, and now she’ll be the first Hispanic master sculptor to create a statue for the US National Statuary Hall. She describes her journey, from a childhood in Puerto Rico to coming to Italy and learning carving skills from the artisans in Pietrasanta.

Following the shocking Charleston church shooting in 2015, the State of Florida decided to change one of the two sculptures representing them in the National Statuary Hall in Washington. They chose to honour Dr Mary McLeod Bethune, educator, philanthropist and civil rights activist. Then, from 1600 entries, Nilda Comas won the commission to create the statue in marble.

Nilda explains how creating a statue of Dr Mary McLeod Bethune was such an extraordinary commission for her. Bethune was born the 15th of 17 children in 1875, in Mayesville, South Carolina to former slaves. As a young child she became eager to learn how to read and write, and soon education – for herself, her siblings and other African Americans – became her key ambition.

Mary McLeod Bethune founded a school for African American students in Daytona Beach, Florida, which later became Bethune-Cookman University.

In 1911, Bethune opened the first black hospital in Daytona, Florida. She became a friend to Eleanor Roosevelt and subsequently an adviser to president Franklin D Roosevelt in what was unofficially known as his Black Cabinet. Bethune was the only woman of colour at the founding conference of the United Nations in 1945.

This episode follows the creation of this special commission from Florida’s decision to change their statue, Nilda winning the commission, finding the stone, the process of creating the sculpture, through to the moment it was unveiled in Italy in July 2021. All against the challenges of the last three years.

After the statue was unveiled in Pietrasanta in July 2021 it was shipped to Florida and went on view in Daytona Beach, before taking a short tour to Bethune’s birthplace in Mayesville, South Carolina. Finally it will make its way to the US Capitol for inauguration in the summer of 2022.

We hear from some of the 54 visitors who came to Pietrasanta from the USA for this special event and hear what the African American statue means to them.

Contributors
Thanks to all the contributors to this episode:

• Nilda Comas, master sculptor
• Nancy Lohman, chair of the Dr Mary McLeod Bethune Statuary Fund
• Derrick Henry, mayor of Daytona Beach
• Dr Hiram Powell, interim president of Bethune-Cookman University
• Rev Thom Shafer of Fort Myers
• Kathy Castor, Florida Democratic US representative
• Shonterika Hall, Bethune-Cookman alumni
• Khalil Bradley, Bethune-Cookman alumni
• Hannah Randolph, Bethune-Cookman alumni
• Sarah Slaughter, Bethune-Cookman alumni
• Jacari W Harris, former B-CU student government president and social justice activist
• Yolanda Cash Jackson, lawyer and lobbyist.

Links

• nildacomas.com
• Nilda on Facebook
• Member of the National Sculpture Society
• Giancarlo Burrati clay studios 
• Cervietti marble studios
• Franco del Chiaro foundry
• Documentary film excerpt on Mary McLeod Bethune from Bethune Statuary Fund

Credits
Sound edit and design: Guy Dowsett

Sound recordist: Andrea Gobbi @magazzenosoundproject and @andreagobbi_music

Narrative consultant: Mike Axinn at One to One Box

Music: all courtesy of Audio Network

• The Mist On The River, 3424/3 James Taylor
• Stuff Of Life, 2017/9 Philip Sheppard
• Welcome To Utopia, 3110/2 Philip Sheppard

on form is an exhibition of sculptures in stone held every other summer at Asthall Manor, Oxfordshire. Discover what goes on during its installation.

Creative director, Rosie Pearson tells us about the finials by Anthony Turner on her gateposts which she commissioned in 2000, and how these sowed the seeds for creating on form.

We hear from the curator, Anna Greenacre, about how she and Rosie choose artists through studio visits, then work alongside them to select pieces for the exhibition. She describes how her master wall-planner acts as a powerful tool in helping to place sculptures to their best advantage in the garden.

In this episode you’ll hear some of the sculptors sharing their thoughts about what they love about working with stone and what work they are presenting at on form this year.

on form is created with love and encourages visitors to wander and absorb the beauty of the sculpture and know that there is no need to understand what it means, just enjoy it.

Resident animals, with bags of character, include Lovage, the not-quite Jack Russell and Ziggy the cat with a half black, half white face.

In the weeks before opening, the sculptors descend in groups to install their work, many staying a few nights in the beautiful house and creating a core team to help other sculptors unpack and place their work. We recorded this podcast when installation was in full swing and share the behind-the-scenes stories of how the community of artists, staff, gardeners – and even neighbours with tractors – all played their part.

Rosie considers herself a custodian of the 18 acres of nature and is committed to biodiversity. She works with ecologist Tim Mitchell, who is running the walled garden as a food-share scheme: ‘some for the birds, some for the bugs and some for us’.

We also hear from head gardener, Owen Vaughan, who brings to perfect readiness the 100% organic garden, originally designed and planted by Isabel and Julian Bannerman in 1998, for the four long weekends of on form.

The 2022 exhibition of on form runs from 12 June to 10 July – open Wednesday to Sundays (closed Monday and Tuesday) – book tickets online.

onformsculpture.co.uk

instagram.com/on_form_sculpture

Thanks to all the contributors to this programme:

• Rosie Pearson, creative director
• Anna Greenacre, curator
• Owen Vaughan, head gardener
• Deandra Barrett, administrative assistant
• Annie Taylor, Rosie’s daughter

Thanks to the sculptors:

• Sergio Baroni
• Rob Good
• Lotte Thuenker
• Jason Mulligan
• Richard Perry
• Christine Madies
• Jaya Schuerch
• Mark Stonestreet
• Ben Russell

Credits

Sound edit and design: Mike Axinn

Music: licensed from Epidemic Sound

• I Will Hold Onto You (instrumental version), Garden Friend

From a very young age Flavia drew and painted. She was always asking everyone around her for paper and colours because drawing was her language and her refuge. It was her way of processing everything that happened to her, much as some people use writing.

Flavia is inspired by her childhood and her work often ends up being self-portraits. Even if she tries to invent different characters behind her pieces, they always end up being her.

Flavia is fond of working with wood and says that although there are similarities between wood and marble they have subtly different languages. She describes how wood, being easier to handle and able to be moved around without asking for help, makes it a material that guarantees her more independence.

Flavia co-founded La Polveriera, one of the last remaining studios in the centre of Pietrasanta, with her childhood friend Veronica Fonzo. But when the building was sold to developers, Flavia set up a new studio on the edge of Pietrasanta called Tre Luci. Here she and a handful of colleagues can work in peace without complaints about noise or dust.

The founding members each have an inside studio to show their work and create dust-free pieces, and an outdoor workshop for everything else. There are also some outdoor spaces available for guests to rent.

Some members of Tre Luci include have also been featured on Materially Speaking including Jim Hager, Jacob Cartwright and Rita Meier.

Unfortunately Flavia’s show in Florence mentioned in the podcast has come and gone, but for more up-to-date information on her work check out:

flaviarobalo.com

instagram.com/flaviarobalo

This episode refers to:

• Anna Stella Belli, linguist and art curator
• Studio La Polveriera
• Franco Cervietti
• Tre Luci

Veronica was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where her mother taught drawing and painting. She learned alongside her mother’s students, discovered clay and soon started creating small animals and other subjects from nature. By the time she was a teenager it was clear that art was her path.

She came to Pietrasanta, along with childhood friend Flavia Robalo, to learn how to carve marble. They fell in love with the area and when Martin Foot introduced them to the ex-Cervietti studios they joined him there. Gradually they took over running the space and founded La Polveriera studios, known for its strong community of artists and holding special events.

La Polveriera was on the site of one of the last remaining historic studios in the centre of Pietrasanta where artisans had carved marble for more than 100 years. Franco Cervietti had his studio there for 40 years, and when he moved to bigger premises he left his large collection of historic gessos in the attic.

Recent members of La Polveriera whose stories have been featured on Materially Speaking including Jim Hager, Neil Ferber, Jake Cartwright and Rita Meier.

Veronica often creates centaurs, firstly because she loves animals and feels at one with them, secondly because she is especially fond of the centaur Chiron, who was the first educator in mythology. She often depicts children with the centaurs. Sometimes the centaurs carry the children, sometimes the children become the centaurs – gentle and sweet but also determined and independent. She is inspired by the child inside all of us, learning and moving forward, and growing with our intuition. Veronica’s most frequent themes are childhood, education and growth.

Veronica also creates paintings and sculptures of children and animals, particularly dogs.

Sadly La Polveriera studios closed at the end of 2020, but Veronica has now created her own studio space immersed in nature and next to her home where she is able to concentrate on developing her own work. Her themes are the same but she is experimenting with new techniques such as using robots and creating centaurs with very thin legs. She remains very close with her friends from La Polveriera.

veronicafonzo.com

instagram.com/veronicafonzo

This episode refers to:

• Anna Stella Belli, linguist and art curator
• Studio La Polveriera
• Franco Cervietti

Filippo is a vivacious 24-year-old student at Accademia di Belle Arti di Carrara which was founded in 1769 by Maria Teresa Cybo, princess of Carrara, to support the marble industry. The Academy was founded with two schools: sculpture and architecture, but over the centuries painting, scenography, decoration and graphics were added. However, Filippo has chosen to specialise in the most recent addition: new art technologies, founded in 1999, which trains artists in digital media skills.

Filippo has lived his whole life in Monteggiori, a small fortified medieval village dating back to 1224, perched above Pietrasanta with a strategic view over the Versilia plains and the sea. As cars are forbidden, everyone has to walk up the steep cobbled path carrying their provisions, and if anyone urgently needs the hospital you’ll see men bobbing down over the cobbles bearing them on a stretcher. There’s a brown dog on duty in the car park and many feisty cats which wander from house to house demanding food and attention. It’s a close-knit and colourful community.

Filippo’s parents run La Bottega dell’Arte, and being experts in the traditional arts of gilding and silvering, restore furniture, picture frames and antiques. Using these skills they have done restoration projects for the church of San Stefano in Monteggiori. Meanwhile, Filippo straddles both the old world and the new. This is reflected in the two projects he’s chosen for his course theses, both of which he hopes will give something back to his village.

His first thesis will explore how the digital revolution could help modernise the exhibition space of Monteggiori Arte, a cultural association and gallery space located in an historic home. The gallery can be found as you walk up into the village next to the frescoed arch, with a dragon by artist Tano Pisano, weaving in and out of its walls.

For the second thesis, Filippo uses 3D technology to create a spare key for San Stefano church. He presents the key to the priest during a special Sunday service and in a slideshow on his iPad (set within a gilded picture frame devised in his parents’ workshop) shows the congregation how the various stages of reverse engineering created the key.

LinkedIn: /filippodalleluche

Accademia di Belle Arti di Carrara

With abstract calligraphic lines, Julia Vance creates sculptural forms in white Italian Statuario marble. She tells us how she created a modern altar, font and pulpit for a new church in Hønefoss, Norway, which replaced the previous church which had burnt down.

In this episode, Julia describes a piece she was finishing called Passage to Knowledge. Carved in black granite, this monumental sculpture is like a huge letter Q, signifying a question. It comprises a circle with a tail, and is a portal you can pass through.

Julia believes the value of questions is far more important than students being filled up with answers. Passage to Knowledge was unveiled in the schoolyard of the newly opened Flesberg school, Norway, in September 2019. Julia created the piece to honour curiosity and encourage children to engage and play with it.

Another work which plays with calligraphic forms is HOLD #2. This sculpture is inspired by the sweeping lines and curves of the letters H, L and D. The piece invites you to curl up inside the cavity and become the missing letter O. Before going on display in Holland Park, London, HOLD #2 was shown in front of the Norwegian Parliament.

The sculpture group WE-ME #5 was inspired by the idea that the word ‘me’ can easily be turned upside-down to form a ‘we’, much the same way an individual ‘me’ can join a group and become part of a ‘we’. First displayed in 2014 in front of Oslo Central station, the piece has wheels fastened to the side allowing members of the public to rotate the words.

Since 2005 Julia has divided her time between Norway and Italy, creating her letter- and word-inspired sculptures. Having spent most of the pandemic in Norway, she is looking forward to returning to her studio in Pietrasanta to work on new commissions.

juliavance.no

instagram.com/juliavance1

Royal Society of Sculptors

Guus Jooss lives in Holland but comes to Pietrasanta in Italy for several months a year to work in marble.

Guus used to work as a museum teacher and researcher in the Netherlands when he wasn’t creating his own art. Before that, he went to an art academy in Utrecht for a year, but mostly learnt about sculpture through doing the work himself. He also did some teaching and found himself describing for his students skills that he didn’t realise he’d learnt.

When working in marble he considers himself rather old-fashioned as his heroes are artists of earlier generations: Henry Moore, Constantin Brâncuși, Alberto Viani, Isamu Noguchi and Hans Arp, all of whom had a classical, figurative, training but then moved on to pure form. He likes the honesty of one form made in one material.

With an affinity to antiquity, Guus makes collages that reference his love of history. Old civilizations that are lost are recreated by him in images which look a little like tapestries or Persian rugs. He’s fascinated by the regularity of geometric patterns that Islamic artists made in the sixth and seventh centuries. He talks us through his process and the way he expresses the layers of history.

Guus tells how Homo Ludens, a book by Dutch historian and cultural theorist Johan Huizinga, explains the importance of play in society. Like Huizinga, Guus believes that adult creativity should be approached with the same urgency that a child approaches play, that is to say, as a matter of life and death.

A keen swimmer, Guus found that open water swimming strengthened his lungs after what may, or may not have been, a dose of Covid. At the beginning of lockdown he enjoyed the chance to focus on work, but the need for a hug finally forced him to admit that isolation was actually a difficult experience.

Since this episode was recorded in September 2020, we’ve had another winter of lockdown. Like others who moved out of towns and cities during the pandemic, Guus relocated from Utrecht to the countryside where he has fresher air and more studio space.

guusjooss.nl

Badriah Hamelink comes from a family of Dutch intellectuals. Her mother is a professor, while her father is the poet and writer Jaques Hamelink. Her grandmother founded the first Arab study centre in the Netherlands.

Her own artistic development however has leant more towards the intuitive than the rational, and when she followed her nose to Pietrasanta she sought mentoring from the artist Armen Agop. Badriah also credits Martin Foot who taught her many carving techniques.

Badriah’s abstract style explores the essence of our existence, and what lies beneath it.

The piece A3A is visible from both sides. The two objects act as a duet and, as is often the case with kindred spirits, the apparent similarity of the objects also directs the viewers’ attention to their minute differences.

Recently Badriah had a near-fatal accident due to a four-and-a-half metre fall resulting in heavy concussion. While recovering, she started playing around with and reworking old images she’d taken, by ‘mirroring’ some of them. What she discovered led her to an awareness of the importance of reflection and symmetry as a way of expressing the qualities of balance and equanimity.

Badriah found that if you held a shape against a mirror you immediately see something organic – even the most inorganic surface will seem to produce an organism in front of your eyes. It’s what our minds are wired to do.

The first piece that Badriah made after her accident was PROLIFERATIO which consists of a block of two tons of salt, split in half and a cast of the rupture in black polyester. Where the pure and natural salt has opened up, the black synthetic proliferates out of its core, as if a tumour growing at the same speed as the mineral. It seems to suggest: ‘At the moment of birth our death is born as well’ which, Badriah says, is the only certainty we have. This work is currently in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art Sotto Sale, Sicily.

The relief, A5B.2, was inspired by photographs from the Hubble deep space telescope of two extraordinarily thin galaxies, NGC 4452 and OPO 0624. Badriah created a heightmap of the visual data and based a sculpture on it’s features. The work re-materializes the far-away light sources to throw a rippling onto the physical surface.

In 2017 Badriah founded Atelier BSH which continues to produce her artworks in stone and metal. Her work has been displayed in galleries and museums in New York, Luxembourg, Stockholm, Milan, Prague, Hawaii and Amsterdam.

Constantly experimenting with new materials and always driven to further her career as an artist, Badriah recently applied herself to learning the ancient Japanese art of stone splitting.

badriah-hamelink.com

instagram.com/badriah_hamelink

Born in Wales, Neil Ferber started his creative life making models and objects in his parents’ garden shed. After art college he made his way to Italy with his wife, writer Kathleen Jones, where he discovered the artist community working in marble and based himself in several of the studios there. At the time of our interview he was packing-up from Studio La Polveriera in Pietrasanta and now mainly works in Cumbria at his Mill studios.

Neil’s sculptures are abstract and often architectural or geometric in form, initially created in clay or wax before being cast in a variety of more permanent materials. He composes fully three-dimensional pieces where no one view dominates, all being of equal interest. Neil’s work is held in private collections in Italy, Sweden, England and the USA.

Neil speaks of his friendship with Italian-born Fiore de Henriquez in Peralta. She was sculptor to the famous, a flamboyant character and proud hermaphrodite who created portrait sculptures of John F Kennedy, Igor Stravinsky and the Queen Mother and is credited for introducing Cubist sculptor Jacques Lipchitz to Pietrasanta. In love with clay, a film of her life by Richard Whymark, tells more of her story.

Our interview took place in il CRO di Pietrasanta, an historic workers’ restaurant which has fed generations of artisans and remains a meeting place for artists. On the walls frames have been painted in which artists can sketch their contributions, while live music nights are a popular fixture here.

neilferber.co.uk

instagram.com/neil_ferber

Cynthia Sah was born in Hong Kong and studied in the USA. She first came to Italy in 1978 to study and came back soon after to learn with the artisans. She has stayed ever since and now works in a studio complex with her partner, Nicolas Bertoux.

Inspired by the form, movement and colours that nature gives us, Cynthia tells how she always looks for the spine in a piece. She loves how the energy of a wave – of water, sound or wind – reminds her that we are all connected.

Gallery spaces being altogether different to her studio environment, Cynthia prefers to settle her pieces into their new home personally. But lockdown entailed her having to learn to curate a show long-distance this year. Here she describes the process.

Cynthia creates public art for all over the world. She talks about a special commission she did for a grieving daughter in memory of her father, called Balance & Counterbalance.

Underpinning her public art is the idea that sculptures should be friendly and invite you to touch or sit on them.

Finally Cynthia takes me to their basement, and what was originally a trout farm feeding the Medicis in the Palace opposite. This breathtaking long gallery is now their exhibition space, where they host events for their non-profit foundation, Arkad.

cynthiasah.it

instagram.com/charnyucynthia

After studying zoology, then going to art school in Bournemouth, Anne tells how it was the traditional teaching of Signorina Simi in Florence that made her feel she was finally in the right place.

Anne stayed in touch with her fellow students who learnt with the artist and teacher Nera Simi (1890–1987) alongside her in the 1980s. Even when it was seen as out of fashion, Nera Simi continued to teach by the atelier method having learnt it from her father, Filadelfo Simi who had studied under Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904). This link with the past gave Anne a close connection to the classic academic traditions of the late 1800s. Recently she felt moved to do a bust of her highly esteemed teacher which she called simply, Nera Simi.

Anne has lived in Italy since 1980 and developed her own painting style combining her keen sense of observation, love of animals and Renaissance drafting skills. For many years she has also been coming to Pietrasanta to cast her sculptures in the foundries.

Facing the future, a bronze of a male mute swan flapping its wings after preening, is the culmination of Anne’s long-held dream to sculpt a larger-than-life-size swan. It was cast at Fonderia Artistic Mariani and in a PDF on her website she describes how the sculpture was created.

During the first, strict, lockdown in Italy Anne says she felt like a prisoner in her own home. Her painting Balcony expresses the fear she experienced during this period. When it became apparent that she might be at home for some time, she decided to set achievable goals to give herself a routine. Every evening she painted the sunset from her balcony initiating a project involving the close study of light. You can read more about this on her blog.

It was during this project that she noticed how each evening a passenger train passed by and the moving carriages picked up and reflected the setting sunlight. As well as the train, little glints of strong light could be glimpsed elsewhere too — on the gutterings, the aerials and the shiny-leaved magnolia tree, the top of which Anne could just include in the foreground of her painting, The 7:30 train.

Anne describes the close relationship between sculptor and model, and the moment the sculpture ‘comes to life’ for the artist. She references the painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme (below). The motif is taken from Ovid’s Metamorphoses and depicts the sculptor Pygmalion kissing his statue Galatea at the moment the goddess Aphrodite brings her to life.

www.anneshingleton.com

instagram.com/arcshingleton

Originally from Paris, Nicolas first came to Carrara with his father, also a sculptor, who was working on a monumental piece at Henraux.

Now he lives and works in Seravezza, northern Tuscany with his partner Cynthia Sah, in an extraordinary pre-industrial building which was once an historic sawmill, where marble was cut for the very first time by water-powered machinery.

He was drawn to move to the area not because of the studios and artisans, but because of the quarries. He likens the search for raw material to buying your food at a farm instead of a supermarket. He wants to talk to the quarrymen and know the chain of production.

The Wind Tree project was due to be installed just as the pandemic hit so instead of installing the piece himself Nicolas had to box it very carefully, then guide people at the other end to erect it in his absence.

When Nicolas was approached by the coastguard, and forced to pay an administrative fine for a lack of paperwork, he and other sculptors created a work of protest – Protesta (Yell).

nicolasbertoux.it

instagram.com/bertouxnicolas

Co-founder of Studio Pescarella near Pietrasanta, Jaya was born in California, moved to Switzerland with her family as a teenager, and later lived in Hawaii where she worked in papier-mâché, lava and basalt. In 1986 she came to Carrara attracted by the marble quarries. Jaya says ‘it’s important to me that my sculptures feel alive, pulling out the aliveness in the stone, showing the absolute connection that stone has for me with life.’

At one point in the interview Jaya explains how she experiences the difference between the white marbles of Italy, Greece and China. We also hear how important it was for her to learn skills from the artisans of Pietrasanta when she first arrived.

Physics, gravity, black holes and planetary motion have long been a source of inspiration for Jaya, perhaps because of her background. As well as art, she also studied engineering, biology and botany. The theme of suspension is important to her as a metaphor for the tensions of life. In Exploded Spheres, a series of works seek to describe the release of tension. A larger scale work, Suspended Cube, shows how the tension in the cables keeps everything suspended.

Jaya enjoys creating in wax, especially in winter when she can work in front of a hot wax pot. In the process of renovating her house she hurt her hand which meant wielding a hammer and chisel on white marble was not feasible until it healed. Instead, Jaya picked up some wax and created a series of original, unique sculptures, later casting them into bronzes. She reflects on the amazingly varied forms life can take, and how strange it was to have sold one of her pieces – which looked very similar to the coronavirus – to her dentist in 2019.

We talked about lockdown, about the soothing qualities of baking bread and of meditation. Sound of One Hand Clapping references a Buddhist meditation mantra.

Jaya used to be a sailplane instructor in the Alps and there were a few occasions when eagles would fly with her. Those experiences led her to try and capture that magical feeling of soaring within her work Flying.

Jaya made Challah during the first phase of the pandemic and it references one of her favourite poems, A common woman by poet, activist, and scholar Judy Grahn. She created it as a loaf and hopes you might feel you could pull off a section of it. She finds baking a restorative process and suggests it fits well with the preoccupations of lockdown: bread being regarded as the foundation of human life – feeding yourself, your spirit, and others.

jayaschuerch.com

Born in Soissons, France, Emmanuel went to trade school at the age of 16 to learn how to renovate historical monuments by hand, specialising in granite. He spent some years restoring churches, cathedrals and monuments all over France until he felt the calling to create his own work as an artist.

He says women and the female form are a constant source of inspiration. Dance is a strong theme in his work and began with a homage he did for Martha Graham which lives in the outdoor sculpture garden at the Wallis Theatre in Beverly Hills, LA. The models he used from a French dance school in order to make that sculpture impressed him hugely and, he says, gave him a lifetime of inspiration, adding that he felt he was surrounded by walking sculptures.

For a recent show Emmanuel made a triptych of Exaltation – one carved in white marble, another cast in polished white bronze, and the third in natural bronze with a patina. He explains how he wanted to illustrate how the same subject feels completely different when created in a different material.

Emmanuel displays his extraordinary carving skills in his portrayals of Kinbaku – the Japanese art of tying rope around a person using visually intricate patterns, typically with several pieces of thin rope (often jute, hemp or linen). He believes the practice is empowering because the people are not tied in their mind, in fact they are very free.

While Emmanuel was carving in white, bianco p and statuario marble, some of his black women friends asked why he didn’t sculpt black women. He says, ‘I felt like, well, I’m not going to sculpt a black woman in white marble. It kind of doesn’t make sense because part of their beauty is their colour. I mean, it’s not a colour, but it’s being black. So I went to a quarry in Belgium and purchased some beautiful black marble blocks. And it’s really an homage to them. And I hope they’re happy, but I think a lot of them, they express their contentment.’

Emmanuel describes how he was affected by the fires in California and the south of France. He admires the resilience of nature whereby a forest is reborn afterwards, growing back twice as beautiful. It was then that he started to make pieces with burnt wood.

Emmanuel comes from a family with a famous painter, Jean Cousin the Elder. Cousin was a Renaissance painter who painted Eva prima Pandora in 1500, which is in the Louvre, Paris.

Emmanuel and I met at Massimo Galleni Studios, who specialise in reproducing classical sculptures, just outside Pietrasanta. He also referred to Mario Tavarelli who showed Emmanuel around when he first arrived in Carrara in 1995. Mario was the owner of a marble company and had guided the novelist Irving Stone during his research for his book on Michelangelo, The Agony and the Ecstasy.

emmanuelfillion.com

instagram.com/fillionsculptures

Lucy Dickens is an artist and illustrator, whose works exudes humour. Close friends since the age of three, Lucy and Sarah ramble and percolate over Lucy’s upcoming show.

As a great, great granddaughter of writer Charles Dickens, writing plays an important part in Lucy’s life. Her paintings often have a narrative quality, leaving you wondering what went before, or what will happen next. As well as humour, her recent work contains a lot of vibrant colour and exuberance.

After school Lucy studied fashion journalism and started as a stylist at Condé Nast, where she soon became fashion editor of Brides magazine. Her passion for materials, and how people express themselves through fashion, continues to this day. When she started her own family she began writing and illustrating childrens’ books which were published in London and New York.

This May she has a show at Cricket Fine Art and as the catalogue arrived she and Sarah flick through it with Lucy explaining the background behind the pictures. She says she likes to portray groups of people and works in many mediums from oils, acrylics and gouaches, to bold graphic fabric collages. The series of Japanese paintings reflect her love of travel.

Lucy often puts in a cameo appearance in her own work. A self-portrait below shows her framed within a picture At the Picasso Museum and again in Cyclists and Whippets, Hyde Park Corner where you can she her as a passenger peeping out of the back of a bus, centre left of painting.

A great observer of people, lover of dogs and fan of London, Cyclist and Whippets, Hyde Park Corner speaks of Lucy’s skill to snatch a view from a bus and make it immortal.

Lucy comes from a creative family. Her mother Julia Dickens paints, while her sister Sophie Dickens is a renowned sculptor whose work you can see at Sladmore Contemporary Gallery, or on her website: sophiedickens.co.uk.

lucydickens.com

instagram.com/lucy_mdickens

Welcome back to a second series of Materially Speaking – where artists and artisans tell us their stories through the materials they choose. 

In these snapshot stories, they tell us about their journey to become an artist, and the inspirations for their work. Along the way, they explain why they have chosen different materials to work with at different stages of their careers.

We are taking a break for the summer but we have already started recording new interviews and look forward to sharing more artists’ stories later this year. We will continue our conversations with artists who work, or have worked, around the area of Pietrasanta and will discover how the current pandemic has influenced them.

Sollai Cartwright takes inspiration from everything around him creating both abstract and figurative work.

Sollai talks about his favourite stone, Bianco P, and how it responds to chisels while holding its form. He speaks about the historical resources of the area around Pietrasanta and of the extensive range of historical tools available, especially at the renowned Milani Tools shop. He describes how each tool has a different relationship with a different stone.

In 2019, Sollai exhibited at Sculpture by the Sea, Cottesloe and Bondi and had a solo show at Harvey Galleries in Mosman, Sydney, Australia.

From the age of seven, Danica, who would go on to marry Sollai, trained as a gymnast and trampolinist, later becoming an acrobat with Cirque du Soleil where she and Sollai met. She explains a little about their team work approach with her doing the management and marketing of his art.

Sollai mentions the power of having a mentor and cites the guidance he received from Douglas Robinson, a Canadian sculptor who has also spoken to Materially Speaking.

Sollai comes from a family of artists and you can hear the stories of his father, Michael Francis Cartwright; mother, Shona Nunan and brother, Jacob Cartwright all on Materially Speaking. In 2018, along with the rest of his family, he showed his work in Australia House, London in an exhibition that celebrated a centenary since its construction on the Strand.

sollai.com

instagram.com/sollai.cartwright.sculptor

Born into an artistic family in Australia, Jacob has been living in Italy, on and off, since he was two-years-old. He began his musical training very young and brings these sensibilities to his art. All the music in this episode was composed by Jacob.

The Embrace series was inspired by a hug Jacob’s wife Jacqueline gave him. He explains that when his wife gave him a hug he saw a certain form. This form became a piece and this piece then developed into a series of work about the embrace. He also feels that his deep links with music played a part in influencing the outcome. He says, ‘It’s a beautiful subject matter because an embrace is a paradox: giving and receiving at the same time. It’s like two things at once and everything at once’.

Jacob loves carving wood and working to optimise its fibre and grain, discovering how it might split or break. He describes his love of the textures of wood and explains both the process of burning wood and using the burnt wood with oil to make a patina. Sometimes in making a sculpture he will cover whole sections of wood with nails.

Jacob usually worked with the aid of machinery but admits that he hasn’t yet made up his mind about whether or not to use a robot in future. When health and safety regulations around dust became an issue, Jacob decided to embrace a change within his studio and reverted to working marble by hand and avoid machinery altogether. He tells us how this meditative way of working influences his life.

jacobcartwright.com

instagram.com/jacobcartwrightartist

Christian Lange apprenticed as a chiseller in Freiburg, Germany, and started out as a stonemason restoring churches before coming to Pietrasanta to try his luck as an artist. Then he fell in love and his work took a slightly different direction. He decided to build his career as an artisan and now creates ornamental pieces and sacred art, as well as collaborating with artists to realise their visions in marble.

He talks about the responsibility of selecting a block of marble to work on, outlining some of the challenges in finding the right piece for a particular work.

Christian also teaches sculpting courses and has his own apprentices. He reflects on the new technology acknowledging that an air hammer or electric powered chisel, ubiqitous in sculpting today, would be considered a devil’s tool by the artisans of a hundred years ago. He laments the dearth of young apprentices coming up the ranks. In his day, he says ‘the apprenticeship was three years where we worked only by hand. No electric power tools, no air pressure, everything with really very old-fashioned hand-tools. Slow. But for learning, I still believe that learning something slowly is probably better.’

He loves the challenge of making figurative work but says that it is more expensive because it takes much more time.

marbleartwork.com

Stagetti Marble Studio

Rita Meier learned the direct carving technique from artisans and the international community of artists in the studios around Pietrasanta. In this episode she talks about the grades of hardness of various stones and describes the process of carving.

Inspired by organic shapes, Rita discusses her seed pods series which she sees as the carriers and protectors of future lives, always perfectly adapted to survive in their environment.

Rita describes her fascination for limpets, very old beings which cling to almost anything while cleaning the water they live in. She loves their shapes and wanted to carve them into the surface of marble, as they appear in nature.

‘It started out with leftover pieces of statuario,’ she says. ‘Since they were not cut but removed manually with one blow of the hammer, the crystalline surface remains untouched, looking like snow glittering in the sun.’

She had the idea to carve limpet fossils on some river rocks of marble she had, adding a natural iron-coloured patina. Though fossils don’t appear naturally in Carrara marble, Rita played around and carved ‘fossils’ into the marble so that they look almost real.

Rita Meier at INTRECCIArte

instagram.com/ritameiersculpture/

Californian artist Neal Barab says his work is variously influenced by Mexican pre-Colombian art, art from the Cyclades, African art, Japanese anime such as My Neighbor Totoro by Hayao Miyazaki and cartoons.

Recently he’s been working on a series of ‘personaggi’, or characters – human and animal – carved from multicoloured stones, some painted. Neal says ‘I’m wanting my pieces to be not just sculptures but living creatures.’ Their personalities are deliberately vibrant.

He talks about particular pieces he prepared for his show. Big Dog and Lil Dog are made from marble and olive wood from his own olive trees. When Neal does his ‘potatura,’ or pruning of trees, he’s always on the lookout for bits that might contribute to a sculpture. Trav Fem is a female form with splendid hair made out of crystal formations.

He also shows one of the ping-pong tables he created, this one made from four pieces of marble with a yellow piece acting as a net.

nealbarab.art

instagram.com/nealbarab

When Almuth Tebbenhoff came to London in the late 1960s she started from scratch: learning a new language, finding a job and studying to be a potter.

A decade later, a lucky meeting with Eduardo Paolozzi gave her the chance to study at the Royal College of Art where drawing classes, lectures and conversations with other artists led her from the world of ceramics to a wider range of materials.

Almuth first came to Pietrasanta to work in marble in 2006. She talks about a few special projects she created in stone including a series of interlocked nutshell type boats, which appear to toss and turn on their journey.

Another commission, Flow, lived outside the Salisbury Museum and reflects Almuth’s fascination for patterns made by water. It’s this piece which she was restoring on the day Sarah Monk went to interview her.

tebbenhoff.org

instagram.com/almuthtebbenhoff

Almuth is vice-president of the Royal Society of Sculptors

After what he describes as a ‘very free’ art education, Australian-born Michael Francis Cartwright first came to Carrara in Italy 35 years ago with his wife Shona Nunan. Michael says ‘the main thing in my life is about creating something the whole time’ and discusses the many mediums he employs.

Michael likes drawing, painting, printmaking, working with beautiful red hardwoods and carving marble. He also works with found objects, often discarded items, ‘old toys, bits of stick, anything’, and takes them to the local art foundry to get them cast in bronze. Once he ripped the back off an old truck and used the metal to make a sculpture.

nunan-cartwright.com

instagram.com/nunan.cartwright.art

Liverpudlian Martin Foot always loved learning and since childhood dreamt of carving in stone. At the age of 13 he worked weekends for his uncle, a stone mason. At 19 he took a one-way ticket to Australia to try his luck and found himself carving in the company of Italians, who spoke of home. This sowed the seeds in Martin’s mind of some day working there himself. In 1996 he finally came to Italy, arriving in Pietrasanta at the end of a golden age when small sculpture studios still existed throughout the town.

Martin speaks of his essential faith in today's youth. He believes if we give them an opportunity they’ll take it. ‘We’re responsible for them’ he says. He helps young carvers where he can, adding, ‘what’s a mistake? It's a mistake if you don’t learn by an error.’

He finds working in restoration invaluable because by looking at the original pieces, he's made aware of the level he needs to achieve. As Martin says, 'if you’re not studying it, you won’t know how high the bar is. If you want to know how good you are, don’t compare yourself to the person standing next to you, go into one of the beautiful art galleries'.

martinfoot.com

instagram.com/martin.foot.sculptor

Shona Nunan and her husband, Michael Francis Cartwright, left Australia for Italy to tell the world, and themselves, that they were committed to being artists. They arrived in Carrara, near the white marble mountains 35 years ago, without even enough money to eat the workers’ lunches. She tells her story, from peering longingly into the bronze foundries of Pietrasanta to finally realising her dreams.

During Shona’s career, recurring themes have emerged in her work: ancestors, women, guardian figures and horses and riders. She reflects on the various influences that have shaped her and how her art has changed over the years. Now living in France, she speaks of the people and travels that have helped make her the artist she is today.

nunan-cartwright.com

instagram.com/nunan.cartwright.art

Eilis O’Connell studied at art school in Cork, Ireland in the early 1970s. She was fascinated by making something small and then realising it big. Here she shares with us the amazing range of the materials she’s worked with and her new-found admiration for marble.

Eilis says ‘I just love experimenting, as a natural thing. I’m a real messer. I like to see what a material can do and play with it.’

She touches upon a wide variety of subjects in this episode: copyright, the power of the plinth, her love for archaeology, cleaning sculptures, churches, and of course her passion for exploring different materials.

eilisoconnell.com

instagram.com/eilisoconnell_sculptor

Canadian Douglas Robinson arrived in Pietrasanta in 1979 to learn from the artisans. He worked with Jørgen Sørensen and took to stone as his main medium for expression. He explains how the support network for the marble industry makes the area unique for artists to work in.

He talks about the enormous range of stone available there and why the artists are particularly drawn to work with the famous white marble of Carrara. He recommends the cemetery in Genoa, northern Italy, as a place to see detailed work of artisans which has lasted for centuries.

douglasrobinson-sculptor.com

Eppe de Haan was born in Arnhem, Holland and studied art at the Royal Academy of Art in the Hague. Originally a painter, he came to Pietrasanta to try his hand at carving marble in 1995. There he started carving in a studio in Querceta before joining SEM Studios where the artisans shared their skills and experience.

As a figurative painter his work followed a similar theme as he moved to carving in marble and he specialises in the nude figure and face fragments.

Eppe is a fellow of the Royal Society of British Sculptors.

eppedehaan.com

instagram.com/eppedehaan

Jim Hager, from California, has been carving marble in Pietrasanta, Northern Italy, for almost 30 years. He talks to us about his Sculpture for Homeless Project where he has captured the images and voices of the homeless in his home town of Oakland, California, and is creating an exhibition which will feature a cardboard “House of Cards” carved from one block of marble.

He speaks of his inspiration, and how he hopes his art can be a vehicle for social change. In a strange twist of fate, the studio he works in in Italy, La Polveriera is also under threat from the developers.

hagersculpture.com

instagram.com/jimhagersculpture

Stephan Hamel – a brand catalyst who divides his time between Milan, Vienna and Pietrasanta – tells the story of his Italian grandfather laying marble in palaces in India in the years both before and after Independence from the British. 

Stephan reflects on the many ways in which marble has represented power over the generations, and observes that the artists may not always support the politics involved. He ponders on the number of dictators whose effigies have been commissioned in marble, and how many of those subjects were toppled from power before their statues could be installed.

stephanhamel.com

instagram.com/stephan_hamel

A woman artist often has to juggle family matters at the same time as fulfilling her own creative dreams. The seeds for Turid finding her way to Pietrasanta came from a chance meeting with the esteemed sculptor Helaine Blumenfeld when Turid was 18. However it took nearly 40 years for her to make her way to working in marble. Her story is one of strength and determination. 

She tells us about her Nuova Vita project - a series of baptism dresses, about 50 cm high, carved from a spectacular range of beautiful stones - and what she is expressing through them. Her inspirational journey shows how  we can all make strides in the face of life’s setbacks and how she took a chance on a new life.

Turid’s interview took place in the peach gardens of Studio SEM, founded in the 1950s by Sem Ghelardini and now run by American Keara McMartin. SEM collaborate with artists and sculptors from all over the world to produce marble and granite sculptures of all sizes and you’ll be hearing more from them during the series.

turidgyllenhammar.com

instagram.com/gyllenhammarart

Some materials are more resistant than others. They always say no. Armen tells us how he discovered a material that suits him. He speaks about marble, basalt and granite and the pros and cons of working in a close artistic community like the one near Pietrasanta.

Giorgio Angeli Studio di Scultora D’Arte is where Armen Agop works and it was here that Armen and Sarah spoke. Armen mentions how he first came to Italy when he was awarded The Rome Prize.

Armen exhibited at the Meem Gallery, a leading institution managing and promoting contemporary Arabic, north African and Iranian art.

Check out Armen’s website to keep up with his current activity.

armenagop.com

instagram.com/armen.agop

Maria is a figurative artist working mainly with the female figure. She was born in Caracas, Venuzuela, but studied at the Pratt Institute in New York before coming to Pietrasanta in 1973 where she was one of the few women carving in marble.

More recently, Maria helped fulfil the dream of a grieving mother who wanted a special memorial to her daughter who was killed by a drunk driver on a busy stretch of road by the seaside. She tells how the two of them came together to create the sculpture Spirito Libero to remember the girl and act as a warning to drivers.

mariagamundi.it

instagram.com/mlgamundi

Materially Speaking starts with stories from the community of artists working in stone near Pietrasanta,​ a town in northern Italy. Successive generations of artists have been coming here to source the marble available nearby and work with highly skilled local artisans.

When Sarah saw how fast the lives of artists and artisans in this area were changing, she decided to capture their experiences. They share incredible tales of migration, identity and the strange effects of random acts of kindness. Additionally, they reveal stories of how one community dominated by a single natural resource adapts to constant change.