Pietrasanta Bronze Casting Residency 2010

Tonight’s meeting:

As I only mentioned this briefly in my post last night – I thought I’d post the information I got on this.

Pietrasanta 25^th of February 2010

Dear artists, artisans and citizens of Pietrasanta, Citta d’arte:

On the 5^th of March at 17.00, you are invited to an open meeting in S. Agostino

Sala dell’Annunziata, Pietrasanta, Lu Italy

Pietrasanta and the Versilia area is by now world renowned for the exquisite craftsmanship of its artisans in mosaic, clay, metal, bronze, plaster and marble sculpture and ornament for centuries.

Today the artists and artisans are concerned that the future of Pietrasanta as a thriving centre for artists and artisans is at risk.

In 1979 Pietrasanta boasted 120 marble studios; today there remains less than 20. Young people seeking to apprentice the trade of marble carving are few, in part due to the labour-intensive work with stone and in part because of the current social stigma of earning a living working with their hands.

The artists, since the 1960’s had found Pietrasanta and its citizens open to embracing the young sculptors flocking here, having followed in the footsteps of some of the most celebrated sculptors in the world. Housing was inexpensive and many found lodgings in single rooms let by the citizens. Today because of the evolution of the town and surrounding area the cost of housing is prohibitive for young artists.

The cultural legacy of the Versilia and of Pietrasanta in particular is not only a local but also a national treasure. Given the current direction, Pietrasanta will soon become a museum city, losing its capacity to produce works of art; hence, losing the artists, clients and the tourist trade so vital to keep alive this “City of Art”.

Many businesses in Pietrasanta and in Versilia owe a large part of their income to the presence of the artists and their clients, as well as a huge number of tourists who flock to the area year round to see the marble workshops and the fascinating array of international sculptors working in Pietrasanta.

This meeting serves to create an open forum to discuss the current status of the city and its future; to listen to observations, ideas and possible solutions from all those interested in the preservation of a unique town and its magical draw to so many.

We need your participation and ideas.

All are welcome on the 5^th of March at 17.00!!

Talk to your friends and pass this email on to your contacts. And invite them all to come too. We need to solve this together.

On behalf of Comitato Artisti Artigiani,

Julia Vance

Contact: [email protected]

Foundry Life

Sometimes I feel like I’m in a bit of a surreal environment, and I don’t think it is just my partial italian only understanding part of what is going on. It becomes far more surreal as I understand more.

Little Carlo in the wax casting room was 8kgs when he was born – that is over 17lb! (He definitely wasn’t little then, and still isn’t!)

Alfredo was telling me how he likes eating raw garlic and bread. However one day he accidentally ate his mother’s black tulip bulbs! (he pollished off 2 of them even though he thought they tasted a bit strange…)

Yesterday I learnt a new word: Campanilisma – from Campanile, the bell tower that every town has. I was asking Ste and Carlo if they were both from Pietrasanta, and Ste wound up Carlo by telling me that the later had actually been born in Camaiore (the nearest town, only about 20mins away). Pietrasanta and Camaiore have a lot of rivalry, also know as Campanilisma.

The other thing I find amusing in the foundry is the different taste in music in each area. In our wax room we tend to have slightly slushy music – we’ve even had ‘dipinto di blu’! yes, they are still playing it. And another current favourite is ‘da mi tua amore, chiedere mi niente, ho bisogna di te’ yes, lots of love, and then something about green eyes. And to this the artigiani carefully retouch and smooth wax sculptures.

In the wax casting room they are doing more manual work, using the gantry crane to lift and empty moulds full of wax and welding external armatures together. They tend to have more rock and contemporary pop, which also tend to be english speaking music (generally better!).

However, the large metal workshop downstairs has far more pumping music, to go with the sound of hammering metal and angle grinders – the other day they had Dizzy Rascal’s ‘some people call me crazy…’, and this morning they had some pumping harsh italian rap, which really made me smile as I walked past up the stairs.

All in all, I feel very at home in the foundry, and it is sad to think that I’m already over a 1/3 through my stay here.

In other news – tomorrow evening there is a big meeting in town about the future of Pietrasanta for Artists and Artisans. It is organised by some artists who are worried that the local council are forcing most of the marble workshops in town to close. Apparently 15 years ago you would hear the sound of marble being worked all over town, but now is it only in a few places. I get the impression it is due to a combination of new laws about health and safety standards and noise polution, along with the increasing affluence in the town due to tourism encouraging properties to be redeveloped for restaurants or chic appartments.

Anyway, I’ll probably let you know more about this later.

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Enlarging

I have started enlarging one of my small maquettes – the whale head one from the last post. I am only doing it 3 times in size, and as it was only 8cm to begin with, the new piece is still quite small at 24cms.

I was encouraged to enlarge in wax by Helaine on Monday before she left, as I think she is keen for me to try to learn stuff from the foundry. Its working as they have taught me the scale of proportion to use when enlarging. I already knew how to draw 2 lines to help you scale down when you are doing figure sculpture, say 1/2 life or another proportion. But it doesn’t work for enlarging.

To enlarge it is quite easy to construct. On a large sheet or board, you first draw a horizontal line. Then you draw a perpendicular vertical line (around the middle) the height of your original – in my case 8cm. Then, to the right of the sheet, you draw another vertical line – this time the size you want your enlargement – i.e. for me 24 cm. Finally, you draw a line that connect the tops of the 2 vertical lines, and extend it to the left until it crosses your horizontal.

Your scale is now ready to use. Take a measure off you maquette – for e.g. the max width. Mark it on your maquette vertical (the smaller vertical line). Then draw a line from the origine (where the 2 long lines intersect) through the mark on the maquette line, to the sculpture vertical. This then gives you the sculpture’s max width.

So, I am now using this technique, and a new set of beautiful hand made calipers I splashed out and bought from Milani’s, to enlarge my maquette.

I wasn’t sure what Helaine had in mind with the enlargement, but I thought I would try to produce a wax that could be cast directly (i.e. needs to be hollow and not too thick). The other option would be to work in wax on a solid piece but this would then need a mould to be taken of it, before a second wax could be made that would be of the correct thickness.

So, I am making the sculpture out of thin sheets of wax. Raymondo has made me up a modelling wax with some of the brown hard wax added so it is a bit stronger than the normal black modelling wax. I am slowly bending and shapping the sheets, trying to get the subtleties of the original maquette, as well as understanding the complex forms and curves.

I am learning quite a lot about wax and what it is and isn’t capable of. I learn to heat locally with a hairdryer to warm the wax that needs to either be streatched or compressed.

I feel slightly that I am doing something a bit strange and giving myself a mountain to climb to get the subtleties of the original maquette, and its probably not the most efficient and quick way of producing a sculpture, but we will see what I end up with. I started yesterday afternoon, but had to discard that 1/2 days work and start again this morning, having worked out better how to use the sheets of wax. I’d like to finish it by lunchtime on saturday – or at least have it all in place and constructed by then, even if I then work into it again next week… (you can see progress in the final image attached)

At lunch I popped in to the other foundry again, as Julia had told me that the italian girl who is using expanding foam has nearly finished the piece I saw the other day.

It was great meeting her, she is Morgana Orsetta Ghini http://www.mog-art.com

She seems to be very prolific as there are a lot of works on her site. But despite this (or because of?) she has done some really interesting work, using lots of different materials, marble, iron, resin, even watercolour, jewelry, cushions!

I showed her a couple of my wax maquettes (at Julia’s suggestion) and was telling her how I was thinking of enlarging the vulture-like one, about 3 times (Marcello had told me the pantograph only really works accurately 2.5 – 3.5 times). She though I should do it a lot bigger, at least 6 times. Then she said it would look good the size of her piece (over 2m high!) – hmmm, that would be exciting…

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Molten Wax Experiments

I’ve been doing some experimental pieces involving pouring molten wax into a basin of cold water. It is quite tricky to control, but I find with wax that has cooled a bit, I can get some really interesting forms and beautiful natural textures.

I’ve then been cleaning them up to find interesting mini sculptures. Or with the hollow pieces, I can really push and pull the wax around to model it.

Here are 2 examples.

I find the second one (vulture) really intrigueing and strange. I said to Helaine that I liked it, but I wasn’t sure it was very ‘me’. She said sometimes things you don’t think are you, are actually more like you than you think.

But in another discussion we were having she was talking about people who carve stone directly and are lead by it. I can’t remember her exact words, but she was saying how important modelling was to be consciously involved in the piece. My worry with the MWE is that the found forms in the wax are leading me too much. But I also think I have a lot to learn from the process, so I am happy to continue with it for the moment.

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Something very strange has happened…

My younger sister gave me a great book for Christmas: “At work in Paris – Raymond Mason on Art and Artists”. I started reading it when I got here on the 1st Feb. As I was saying to my parents last night, I don’t know his work, but I think he should be a lot better know than he is.

Unfortunately he was not only a figurative sculptor, but also one who believed that art should be about real life and appeal to the public. His concern for content was against the fashion and flow of his time as he was working during first the modernist era with the primacy of the object and ‘how’ (not why) of art, then with pop art.

His memoirs are great – he is amusing and at times quite cutting about his contemporary artists and gallerist, then very challenging and insightful about art and artists. He was friends or aquainted with an amazing roster of artists, Giacometti, Francis Bacon Balthus, Jean Cocteau, Alexander Calder, Cartier-Bresson, Picasso, Henry Moore… he was “admired by artists whom the public admire and ignored by most critics”.*

It has been weird reading about his ideas and opinions at this influencial period for me, where I feel I’m going through a real period of growth and change in my practice. I almost feel like he has been a second mentor – not that I always agree with him, but I do respect and listen to what he has to say.

Then as we were talking last night I decided to googled him (I had already been looking up and investigating photos of his work). And there on his wikipedia entry I saw that he has just died – on the 13th February! It really shocked me, and seems strange that he should have died whilst I’ve been getting to know him. It also seems that his Obituary is just hitting the newspapers yesterday and today (in fact it is the lead Obituary in yesterdays Telegraph that my father had just brought from London – how strange is that!).

Please do look up and find out about this fascinating artist.

Raymond Mason RIP
March 2, 1922, in Birmingham, England – February 13, 2010 in Paris, France

* Telegraph Obituary: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/art-obituaries/7318726/Raymond-Mason.html

Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/feb/25/raymond-mason-obituary

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