Carrara Part II: Initiation into an Ancient Tradition

June 18 - July 3, 2012, recent Academy graduate Joseph Brickey (MFA 2012) lived and worked in Carrara, Italy as part of a two-week Artist in Residence Program sponsored by ABC Stone and The Oriano Galloni Foundation, and coordinated by artist Stephen Shaheen (MFA 2005).

The Apuan Alps, where white marble has been quarried for thousands of years

By Joseph Brickey (MFA 2012)
 
Upon arriving in Pisa, Steve Shaheen was there to greet me and drive me to Carrara. From the highway I could see the Apuan Alps, with large passages of white where the mountains had been stripped bare from thousands of years of marble quarrying. 

Looming above the Italian landscape with a kind of scarred majesty, the sight seemed to strike a chord deep within me.  The swathes of white marble appeared in the distance as patches of snow, reminding me of the mountains in my home state of Utah.  But there was something further, faint yet familiar, that I felt tugging at my roots.  These white scars on the mountain face seemed to whisper me a welcome, the ageless echo of a common cause, an ancient vestige of a shared passion.  I’d come to the heartland of a people who for countless generations had shared my deep and unique love for this material called white marble.  In a peculiar way, I felt I’d come home.

After ditching my luggage at Villa Acero, we went straight to Studio Corsanini, where I'd spend the next two weeks carving my piece in marble. The workshop owned by Luigi Corsanini is well known in the marble carving world of Tuscany, Luigi himself being recognized for his knowledge of the classical tradition, as well as the quality of his workmanship.

Three generations of Corsanini stone carvers

In this modern age of power tools and technology, very few learn the old ways of working with marble. But the craft lives on in the Corsanini family, a way of life and a family tradition.  It's a beautiful thing to see: a rare and difficult skill that just seems to be in the blood, unifying generations and preserving the mastery of an ancient method. Such a flame is easily quenched, and in the world at large it nearly has been, but it yet burns brightly in this little pocket of Tuscany, undisturbed by the changes all about.

Young Niccolo Corsanini at work

Among the dozens of marble workshops in the area, Studio Corsanini is unique in many ways, one being the way international artists work together with homegrown artisans.  Blood, sweat, and tears are not just metaphorical terms here, but the real ingredients of comradery.  Add marble dust to the mix, and you have a motley group of rare individuals becoming tangibly bound together, from being one percenters in the world to being 100 percenters in the workshop.  How fortunate that I'd landed here of all places!

Kuetani and Steve working at Studio Corsanini

Sculptor Itto Kuetani finishing his latest marble

Master craftsman Massimo at work

After selecting the stone of my choice, it was cut down to size.  This block of marble would become the island of my new adventure, the prison of my new labor, the field of my new battle.  Everything outside of it only existed to serve my life within it.  On it I would stake my claim in a tradition that makes the laborer noble, dirty work honorable, every move immortal, and—come to think of it—every failure famous!  I felt I had entered a marathon on a tightrope.

measuring the model

establishing cardinal points

Massimo blurring the divide between speed & precision

marking the marble block

marking the mastic on the model

finding point on the marble

Massimo measuring depth

the first cuts into the block

The marble block after the first stages

Check back here for more of Joseph's reflections on his residency and first experience working with stone.

Did you miss Joseph's other posts on his experience in Carrara? Read Carrara: The Impossible Dream and Carrara Part III: Reduced to the Dust by Marble.

Carrara: The Impossible Dream

June 18 - July 3, 2012, recent Academy graduate Joseph Brickey (MFA 2012) lived and worked in Carrara, Italy as part of a two-week Artist in Residence Program coordinated by ABC Stone and The Oriano Galloni Foundation.

By Joseph Brickey (MFA 2012)

By way of introduction, I've always felt I could do anything an artist aught to be able to do.  Can I draw? Sure. Give me a pencil, and I can move it in any direction. What about paint? Oh, you mean that soft, creamy stuff that comes in nice little tubes? Sure. I even know where to get special brushes so you can rub it around without getting any on your fingers. Can I sculpt? Well, I grew up playing in the mud. That's a material I understand.

But what about stone carving, you ask? What?? Did you say stone?? You mean that material that shooting stars are made of, that sinks ships, divides the oceans, forms mountains, turns aside rivers, crushes whatever stands between it and the center of the earth?  This is the material upon which all the world stands for support. A wise man might build upon it, but what fool would try to carve it?  Even Mother Nature herself only carves by the minuscule per millennium.

That's right, I know about stone. I've had my own experiences with it. I've climbed it, kicked it, smacked it, and stubbed my toes on it. Throughout my entire life, anytime I've come up against stone, it always wins. It's just instinctive now: when we cross paths, stone always has the right of way. It's simple, really. I'm made from the dust, the stuff smashed between the rocks, the stuff that is washed away by the wind and the rain, while the stone, well, it isn't. 

So if you ask me about stone carving, I'm thinking you must mean the stone doing the carving on me.  What then? Into a stone box I go, unto the dust I return, six feet under a stone marker that warns the world: "This man thought stone carving was a good idea."

So that's where I'm coming from. At least until the opportunity came to go to Carrara.

Hence it shouldn't seem so strange that stone carving--most certainly humanity's first dip into the arts--feels to me more like my final frontier as an artist.  But unwittingly my creative impulse had always been carrying me closer. All along it was a natural fit for my artistic identity, the eventuality of all of my efforts and interests. But aspiration cannot live without expectation, and marble carving was on the same list as cloud surfing and comet riding. 

I had thought that turning to sculpture a couple of years ago completed my ambitions. I had used drawing materials, painting materials, and now sculpting materials. But marble was an entirely different thing. In the court of the great masters, I had tried out every seat in the house, but I had never considered actually taking the throne. Not that I don't think big. I'm a guy who has considered planting a garden on Mount Everest, camping on the dark side of the moon, crab walking to the edge of the earth, and then rappelling down. But carving a marble sculpture?! It seemed so far fetched, so foreign, so unfathomable, that even to man prone to ambition, it remained the impossible dream.

Then came the generosity of Jonathon Tibett of ABC Stone, the groundwork of SteveShaheen (MFA 2005), and the great resource that is the New York Academy of Art. When the news came that I had received the marble carving residency, I was suddenly cloud hugging and comet kissing. Mount Everest could melt, the edge of the earth could go drop off itself---I was going to Carrara!!!

Part of my preparation was to decide on a subject and create a model to work from while there. I felt I should do something that would test me with the technique, something with nuance and detail, subtle shifts in form, demanding precise proportion and surface treatment. In short, something that would be a good test for future carving possibilities, for I felt that if the honeymoon went well, so would the marriage.

Michelangelo’s Maquette

There was no doubt that I wanted to do something figurative, but with forms conceived for the material of stone. This was new for me and my mind immediately sought answers from the great Michelangelo. I looked not only to his final sculptures but also to those sketches and preliminary works that demonstrated earlier conceptual phases.  Among his surviving works that were preparatory for his marble sculptures is a terra cotta maquette of a male torso done for his Awakening Slave.

  

Pen & Ink of Male Torso

Toned Drawing of Male Torso

This point of reference seemed to fit my native impulse, and as I began to work out my own interpretation, I felt a sort of dialogue develop, consulting the great master at every turn (and occasionally bickering with his counsel). It became a process where I either had to justify my own path or come to understand the reason for his. In the end, whether my model was a tribute or an insult to his wisdom, I’d made my case and was ready to stand by it.

 

Model of Male Torso

Now I simply had to go to Italy to make the same argument to some block of marble… and I was unbelievably excited!!!

Check back here for more of Joseph's reflections on his residency and first experience working with stone.