Materially Speaking

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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.

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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'.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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