Materially Speaking

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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