Okay, before I start I have to say that there's a little old Italian woman who helps run the hotel and she is the most adorable thing ever. She only talks to us in Italian but she is so cute (molto carina!) and one of the girls on our trip just brought her a bouquet of roses. That was great.
Today we visited an Italian contemporary sculptor named Marco Zeno (and I really hope I'm spelling his name right). He lives in Grotto, about half an hour outside of Massa Marittima at his home/studio literally on the side of a hill. He makes sculptures out of wood from the olive trees on his land, and he has a fascination with the contortion of the wood and the designs created within the wood once it is carved. His work is displayed all around his home, and it is spectacular.
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| Marco talking to us about his sculptures |
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| He makes the most interesting heads! |
Before we had lunch, we all went into Marco's studio and he gave us each a slab of clay. He taught us how to sculpt heads and faces out of the clay like he does, and we all tried our hardest to follow his lead. A lot of our heads ended up looking alien-like... but watching him create a face out of the clay was so mesmerizing. In the end, drawing on my memories from my 8th grade sculpture and ceramics class, I came up with a sort of self portrait that I think truly captures how tired I am and how knotted my hair was from the wind on the side of the hill. (See below.)
After we made our sculptures, we had a delicious lunch prepared by Marco's wife. There was pasta, bread, sliced meats, delicious cake, pastries, coffee and homemade sweet tea (yessss) and lemonade. After lunch Marco brought us on a tour of the land next to his house and showed us all of the olive trees from which he drew his inspiration. He told us that he often goes up the hill on his land and sketches the olive trees, and some are better to sketch than others.
We had a wonderful time visiting this very talented artist, and it was fun to see the contrast between Marco's art and the classic Renaissance art that we were exposed to in Florence. Marco was fabulous, as were his wife and his son Akhenaton (like the pharaoh), and I am so glad we were able to meet them today! Also, there were two dogs, a cat, goats, chickens and roosters on their land so I was able to get my animal fix for the day. :)
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| One of the dogs chilling on the property! |
I'm super excited because tomorrow I'll be able to sleep in! We won't be leaving until 2 pm to go see another contemporary artist's sculpture gardens. I'm excited! More to come after that!
Arrivederci!
Dani
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