Italy

With Pietrasanta as a base camp and studio, I lived and created in Italy for six weeks- November 6-December 8, 2008.

The Italian Job
Carving Marble in Pietrasanta

Over the years, I have talked with several veteran stone carvers that trained in Italy when they were young men. My romantic vision of carving in Pietrasanta was strongly influenced by these veteran carver’s stories of arriving by train, walking into the Piazza Duomo and order a cupichino at Bar Michelangelo. While the parade of people in a village piazza walked by, the young carver would tell anyone that listened about him needing a studio space and maybe an apartment to rent. It always seemed to work out fine for the young carver. Usually another stone carver, that did the same thing ten years earlier, helped the youth.

“I’m not as good as I once was, but I’m as good once as I ever was” - Toby Keith. Taking inspiration from a country music star, I planned my stone carving trip to Pietrasanta. I made use of the internet for all my lodging reservations. One of these story-telling carvers gave me the contact with Giampaolo for my apartment, then I bought a plane ticket and by early November I was in Italy. After two nights in a Florence hostel, I was ready to have a place of my own. My apartment, the Barasanti, was my well-equipped base camp until mid-December.

I set out on my first morning in Pietrasanta to tour stone carving studios. With a list a twenty-three studios in the area, I visited nine. The first studio I entered, Rossi Pio, was were I chose to set up shop and I was carving a piece of statuario by the next morning. For the next several weeks, I would get up at seven and be working at the studio by eight. I never beat the Rossi brothers to work. They would already have stone dust on them by eight in the morning!

I studied Bernini’s sculptures in Rome and saw nine unfinished stone carvings by Michelagelo in Florence but Pietrasanta was my main destination. I carved two marble sculptures. I met and made good friends with carvers from Romania, Sweden, Holland and Italy. I got to see first hand how the Italians run their stone industry with a mixture of the ancient craft and he contemporary times. I acquired what I wanted to learn about the business of stone carving in Italy and I plan to return again to Pietreasanta.