See pictures and read more on materiallyspeaking.comOriginally from Zurich, Maja was always keen to leave Switzerland and with an Italian grandmother perhaps Italy was always going to be her destination. She moved to Italy in 1991.She speaks to us about how her approach to work has changed. When she was young she liked seeing the impression her hands made on the work, while now she seeks smoothness and perfection.We meet Maja at her home - Artists Hill - an old farmhouse, surrounded by olive groves and a huge vegetable garden, which she has renovated into a home, studios, and a part that she rents out.First Maja shows us the room where she draws, and then we move over to her new modelling studio, opposite the house.In the middle of this room, towering above her, is a spiral column. It’s a plastercast - soon to be realised in acrylic resin and earth.Maja tells us about a bas relief project in 16 panels called dressing. The question she originally posed was, “Can we change religion like clothes or is religion something inherent to us, you know, is it like part of us?"One of Maja’s first pieces was Extension of Ego and now it takes pride of place in her studio. Maja still loves it and it represents the theme she still develops of externalising human traits in her work.Labrynth is another of Maja’s pieces that follows the theme of a body’s outside reflecting what is inside.majathommen.chinstagram.com/thommenmaja
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27:38
Ursula Corsi: Mosaici (lingua italiana)
Guarda le foto e leggi di più su materiallyspeaking.comUrsula è nata a Seravezza e vive e lavora ancora nella zona di Pietrasanta e ha anche trascorso un periodo di apprendimento delle tecniche speciali di mosaico di Ravenna e Spilimbergo.Facciamo un giro nel suo studio e tra le sue numerose scatole di tessere.Quando le chiediamo quanto sia importante la luce nella composizione di un mosaico, Ursula ci spiega che una delle prime cose che fa quando accetta un incarico è vedere dove verrà collocato il mosaico.Le sue commissioni la portano in tutto il mondo e, quando l'abbiamo incontrata, era appena tornata da un lavoro a Filadelfia, negli Stati Uniti.Ursula ci racconta della sua formazione e di alcuni dei progetti speciali a cui ha lavorato, compreso il primo, per una sinagoga.Vedere i suoi lavori su Facebook “mosaici Ursula Corsi”facebook.com/mosaiciursulacorsiinstagram.com/mosaiciursulacorsiEnglish translationSee pictures and read more on materiallyspeaking.comUrsula was born in Seravezza and still lives and works in the Pietrasanta area and also spent a period learning the special mosaic techniques of Ravenna and Spilimbergo.However, her commissions take her all over the world and when we met her, she had just returned from a job in Philadelphia, USA.Ursula tells us about her education and some of the special projects she has worked on, including her first one, for a synagogue.Let's take a tour of his studio and his many boxes of tiles.When we ask her how important light is in the composition of a mosaic, Ursula explains that one of the first things she does when she accepts a commission is to see where the mosaic will be placed.
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14:10
Anne-Claire van den Elshout: Icarus
See pictures and read more on materiallyspeaking.comDutch artist Anne-Claire trained and worked as a lawyer until she followed her heart to become an artist. She moved to Pietrasanta, where she lived, and worked, for 15 years. Now she divides her time between the Hague and Pietrasanta.After the pandemic she was looking for a way to capture peoples’ thoughts and emotions in order to make a three-dimensional sculpture of them in clay. Having discovered that a traditional scanner was unable to grab the emotion she saw in a split second, Anne-Claire was happy to meet Claudio Giustiniani of ArtaxLab in Pietrasanta, who showed her how he used 30 Nikon cameras in conjunction with a 3-D printer. Working with Claudio she could get what she wanted and began her project to capture the emotions around the experience of COVID-19 called My Collection of Souls.To create her My Collection of Souls Anne-Claire talked to the person about COVID-19 and, at the exact moment she saw their strongest expression, she pressed the button on the cameras. Claudio and she discuss in this episode how they created the work - from taking the photograph through to the finished collection.Another collaboration Anne-Claire made was with photographer Gail Skoff.Gail came to this part of Italy in 2017 to photograph the quarries of Carrara but soon became fascinated by the artists working in marble. When she met Anne-Claire they instantly clicked, and embarked on a collaboration with Gail’s photographic collage technique. Gail likes to enter the world of the artist and elaborate on their process, creating more of an impression of the artist's work rather than its ultimate reality.Anne-Claire tells us how it was working with Gail and how happy she was to have Icarus flying.From her childhood, Anne-Claire was inspired by how Michelangelo expressed such soft emotions in hard marble. Below is a piece in tribute to him. Anne-Claire thought David’s victory over Goliath was an excellent metaphor for our battle and the optimism needed to succeed during COVID-19.anneclaire.nlinstagram.com/anneclairevandenelshoutArtAxlab aims to build a bridge between the artisan world and digital technologiesartaxlab.cominstagram.com/artaxlab
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25:22
Usama Alnassar: I could build a theatre here
See pictures and read more on materiallyspeaking.comA sculptor and painter born in Damascus, Usama tells of the impact of being brought up in Syria and of continuously dealing with people from different religions with diverse ways of looking at things. Usama’s studio space, and home, is tucked away in the shadow of the statuario marble quarries. Usama bought the space in this historic marble area because he felt an urgency to build a stone amphitheatre there. Initially he dismissed the land because he feared flooding. But he worked non-stop his first winter to build his theatre. He tells us about his childhood and how it informed the person he’s become. His uncles are both sculptors and their books on marble, in his grandmother’s library, inspired him from a young age. First he studied art in Damascus, where he carved in wood, and then he came to Carrara to study sculpting in marble. Usama talks about his relationship with nature and his love of plants. He grew up in Syria with a family garden of fruit and vegetables, and always loved working in nature. He has planted many trees and plants in his Carrara home.Many of Usama’s pieces are inspired by immigration There’s a wall of marble blocks sculpted with luggage handles, straps and zips. He tells how immigrants who used to carry lots of luggage now find their luggage has become much smaller, sometimes even just a mobile phone.Usama created a series of sculptures of women depicting the life of women in the Middle East and their freedom to travel around. His sculptures explore how women have sometimes been transformed by religion into more of an icon than a person, and how this can also become a prison. However, they often find virtual freedom through the internet.This piece is a woman on one side and on the other side a horse, her hair represents an extension of her thoughts.Usama loves teaching and sharing his skills whilst allowing his students to develop their own personalities in their work.alnassar.itinstagram.com/alnassarsculpture
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28:57
John Fisher: Carving lines
See pictures and read more on materiallyspeaking.comOriginally from Oregon, John moved around America a lot as a child. Although he was not formally schooled as an artist, he received his education at a young age while travelling with his family through Europe and the Middle East. There he took in many of the great works of antiquity.John came to sculpture in his thirties from a background in painting, and very quickly began carving monumental pieces which he was able to sell. It was at this time that he experienced a revelation when he began to imagine how stone carvers worked in the past.Although this technique is much less practised nowadays, he believes that for thousands of years sculptors worked without eye protection. They discovered what John refers to as profile carving. John describes himself as a direct, flexible, profile carver.The first piece John mentions is a big reclining figure which earned John enough money to allow him to come back to Pietrasanta and work. Recently the owner of that piece died and John was able to buy it back in an auction.John also tells of the gravestone he carved which is in the cemetery of Querceta, near Pietrasanta which is a Pieta of 5 life-size figures.Another piece, a pair of lovers, John carved from a special piece of marble he had kept for 16 years. As he was carving the embrace he had a moving experience as he felt them pushing themselves into each other, as though they couldn’t get close enough. Now John divides his time between the Redwood forests of California and Pietrasanta - drawing inspiration from the world around.He acknowledges a great debt to the cavatore, the quarrymen. Without quarrymen, artists don’t have the material to work with.johnfishersculpture.cominstagram.com/giovannipescatore51
Netherlands