10th September, Pietrasanta
I am staying in Pietrasanta, life here starts to feel a bit more familiar, the owners of the ‘Caffe al Teatro’ know which coffee I want, the woman in the bakery recognises me, and the smell of freshly baked bread at 4.30am woke me up before now.
Sitting at the ‘Piazza del Duomo’ the wifi is good, writing, reflecting, sending pictures out on Instagram…starting to draw ideas for a carving.
It is warm, history of hundreds of years of the sculpting and carving stone surrounds me. I feel at home.
Back in my flat I am playing with pieces of marble, trying to photograph the shifting of light but experience difficulty with the tripod and my time-lapse is not successful.
There are several things that come into my mind here and I would like to use this in some small way in the carving I am going to make.
-On Saturday when visiting the studio I noticed a circular cut through a stone, a linear shadow stretching along into it. I thought about how this linear shadow will change in due course on this sunny day.
-The weight and density of marble is all around this place, I would like to tip this small carving slightly off balance, with a leaver? a counter weight?…or by natural occurrence? The latter would be inspired by Giuseppe Penone 1968, ‘pietra, corda, albero, sole/ pietra, corda, albero, pioggia’
I am venturing out to visit the library and the Museo dei Bozzetti http://www.museodeibozzetti.it/
full of models for classical and abstract sculptures.
I feel drawn to the work of Kan Yasuda https://youtu.be/qkgs6IeRris
This japanese sculptor lives and works in Pietrasanta.
The minimal form of ‘Shyosei’ captures my attention with the soft shadow on the plinth created through an undercut on the baseline of this two part sculpture.
This work in progress photographed in it’s overexposed way (photo taken in the Museo Dei Bozzetti) represents well how I feel about the intense affinity of marble with light.
