Materially Speaking

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.