Bulldozer getting 6' pieces.
Gordon working at studio.
Carrara studio on right side.
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Nine Months In Italy With Sculpture and
Drawing
By Gordon Punt, MFA
August 3, 1984
Two Six Foot Marble Rocks Delivered to
My Studio
Today was very exciting because I had two
six foot marble pieces delivered to my studio. The other amazing
thing was that they were virtually free! Janos lives right
next door to Agostino's small marble quarry and knows him
quite well. Agostino must have about seventy-five six to eight
foot tall chunks of "marmo" that he does not want
because of cracks, and he offered Janos many of these free
to build a wall between them to keep the quarry rubble away
from Jano's house. Because of this Janos assured me that I
could get one of those chunks free, or possibly for a jug
of wine. He was right, because several days ago I went up
the mountain in the old Vespa to ask Agostino that very thing.
One day earlier I spent two wonderful hours looking around
and climbing over all the fantastic, but cracked, pieces of
marble. I picked out two chunks that would suit my need to
latter get Jano's opinion on which one I should ask for.
The next morning at eight o'clock A.M. I putted back up the
hill, this time with Dionisio (my 19 year old Italian friend),
to meet Janos and go over to ask Agostino's permission. He
was very friendly, spoke a little English, because of six
years in Australia, and agreed to let me have a block free,
after Janos explained that I was a student studying with him
and that I had little money. He then showed us a spot at his
quarry where the Romans had left there mark some nineteen
hundred years ago. He pointed out the AD letters that they
had carved into a cliff, some twenty feet above us, and a
date that had been scratched out. Under the inscription was
a three foot example of how the Romans mined the marble. We
saw how they first dug a trough along the top of a piece of
marble attached to the mountain, using a pickax, and went
down about six inches. They would then force in dry wooden
wedges along this line and then soak them with water. When
the wood expended it would crack the marble and off it would
come, tumbling to the ground. Today the quarries use steel
cables imbedded with diamonds that are pulled back and forth,
lubricated by water, slicing down the marble wall to the depth
they desire. Dynamite is also used in tough places.
After the "Romans" we all went to check out the
marble pieces I had picked out and see if there was enough
good stone to be left after I would force the bad cracks open
to get at the good stuff. Both stones were good and Janos
told me later that I should take both rocks because they were
both available for the same price! The pay out turned out
to be, as Janos had guessed, a bottle of wine and twenty thousand
lira (only twelve dollars), for the bulldozer
driver.
The next step was to get a dump truck and driver to deliver
the marble to my studio. I had originally planned on having
Losi (Lotzi), do my hauling because he was a friend of Robert
Gove's, my friend and teacher in California who I am renting
this studio from. Losi also owed me a favor for hand carrying
a cowboy hat over for him as a gift from Robert, which was
no small effort on my part. But it turns out that Losi is
not very dependable and Janos knew Geno who was reasonably
priced and supposedly very punctual. After two days Janos
finally called Geno who agreed to meet us at Janos' house
at eight o'clock the next morning, Friday. I was relieved
and looked forward to the coming morning. At seven-thirty
I was at Jano's house where we waited not until eight, but
until eleven o'clock when Geno finally arrived, as is the
Italian custom. My two marble blocks were loaded on to the
dump truck and I gave Agostino a bottle of brandy and about
twelve dollars for his time with the bulldozer. He told me
anytime I wanted more marble I could have it free, unless
it was of some value to him, and we left. Geno followed me
down the mountain, I in Robert's Vespa (motorbike), that must
be the oldest operating one in town, and I took him to my
studio. Geno only charged me about thirty dollars for the
hauling, so all in all I only paid around fifty dollars for
eight tons of marble, delivered! Four years ago in California
I paid seventy-five dollars for one cubic foot of Carrara
marble.
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