Cynthia Sah: We are all connected
06/23/21 • 32 min
See pictures and read more on materiallyspeaking.com
Cynthia Sah was born in Hong Kong and studied in the USA. She first came to Italy in 1978 to study and came back soon after to learn with the artisans. She has stayed ever since and now works in a studio complex with her partner, Nicolas Bertoux.
Inspired by the form, movement and colours that nature gives us, Cynthia tells how she always looks for the spine in a piece. She loves how the energy of a wave – of water, sound or wind – reminds her that we are all connected.
Gallery spaces being altogether different to her studio environment, Cynthia prefers to settle her pieces into their new home personally. But lockdown entailed her having to learn to curate a show long-distance this year. Here she describes the process.
Cynthia creates public art for all over the world. She talks about a special commission she did for a grieving daughter in memory of her father, called Balance & Counterbalance.
Underpinning her public art is the idea that sculptures should be friendly and invite you to touch or sit on them.
Finally Cynthia takes me to their basement, and what was originally a trout farm feeding the Medicis in the Palace opposite. This breathtaking long gallery is now their exhibition space, where they host events for their non-profit foundation, Arkad.
See pictures and read more on materiallyspeaking.com
Cynthia Sah was born in Hong Kong and studied in the USA. She first came to Italy in 1978 to study and came back soon after to learn with the artisans. She has stayed ever since and now works in a studio complex with her partner, Nicolas Bertoux.
Inspired by the form, movement and colours that nature gives us, Cynthia tells how she always looks for the spine in a piece. She loves how the energy of a wave – of water, sound or wind – reminds her that we are all connected.
Gallery spaces being altogether different to her studio environment, Cynthia prefers to settle her pieces into their new home personally. But lockdown entailed her having to learn to curate a show long-distance this year. Here she describes the process.
Cynthia creates public art for all over the world. She talks about a special commission she did for a grieving daughter in memory of her father, called Balance & Counterbalance.
Underpinning her public art is the idea that sculptures should be friendly and invite you to touch or sit on them.
Finally Cynthia takes me to their basement, and what was originally a trout farm feeding the Medicis in the Palace opposite. This breathtaking long gallery is now their exhibition space, where they host events for their non-profit foundation, Arkad.
Previous Episode
Anne Shingleton: Animal magic
See pictures and read more on materiallyspeaking.com
After studying zoology, then going to art school in Bournemouth, Anne tells how it was the traditional teaching of Signorina Simi in Florence that made her feel she was finally in the right place.
Anne stayed in touch with her fellow students who learnt with the artist and teacher Nera Simi (1890–1987) alongside her in the 1980s. Even when it was seen as out of fashion, Nera Simi continued to teach by the atelier method having learnt it from her father, Filadelfo Simi who had studied under Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904). This link with the past gave Anne a close connection to the classic academic traditions of the late 1800s. Recently she felt moved to do a bust of her highly esteemed teacher which she called simply, Nera Simi.
Anne has lived in Italy since 1980 and developed her own painting style combining her keen sense of observation, love of animals and Renaissance drafting skills. For many years she has also been coming to Pietrasanta to cast her sculptures in the foundries.
Facing the future, a bronze of a male mute swan flapping its wings after preening, is the culmination of Anne’s long-held dream to sculpt a larger-than-life-size swan. It was cast at Fonderia Artistic Mariani and in a PDF on her website she describes how the sculpture was created.
During the first, strict, lockdown in Italy Anne says she felt like a prisoner in her own home. Her painting Balcony expresses the fear she experienced during this period. When it became apparent that she might be at home for some time, she decided to set achievable goals to give herself a routine. Every evening she painted the sunset from her balcony initiating a project involving the close study of light. You can read more about this on her blog.
It was during this project that she noticed how each evening a passenger train passed by and the moving carriages picked up and reflected the setting sunlight. As well as the train, little glints of strong light could be glimpsed elsewhere too — on the gutterings, the aerials and the shiny-leaved magnolia tree, the top of which Anne could just include in the foreground of her painting, The 7:30 train.
Anne describes the close relationship between sculptor and model, and the moment the sculpture ‘comes to life’ for the artist. She references the painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme (below). The motif is taken from Ovid’s Metamorphoses and depicts the sculptor Pygmalion kissing his statue Galatea at the moment the goddess Aphrodite brings her to life.
Next Episode
Neil Ferber: Carvers or modellers
See pictures and read more on materiallyspeaking.com
Born in Wales, Neil Ferber started his creative life making models and objects in his parents’ garden shed. After art college he made his way to Italy with his wife, writer Kathleen Jones, where he discovered the artist community working in marble and based himself in several of the studios there. At the time of our interview he was packing-up from Studio La Polveriera in Pietrasanta and now mainly works in Cumbria at his Mill studios.
Neil’s sculptures are abstract and often architectural or geometric in form, initially created in clay or wax before being cast in a variety of more permanent materials. He composes fully three-dimensional pieces where no one view dominates, all being of equal interest. Neil’s work is held in private collections in Italy, Sweden, England and the USA.
Neil speaks of his friendship with Italian-born Fiore de Henriquez in Peralta. She was sculptor to the famous, a flamboyant character and proud hermaphrodite who created portrait sculptures of John F Kennedy, Igor Stravinsky and the Queen Mother and is credited for introducing Cubist sculptor Jacques Lipchitz to Pietrasanta. In love with clay, a film of her life by Richard Whymark, tells more of her story.
Our interview took place in il CRO di Pietrasanta, an historic workers’ restaurant which has fed generations of artisans and remains a meeting place for artists. On the walls frames have been painted in which artists can sketch their contributions, while live music nights are a popular fixture here.
Materially Speaking - Cynthia Sah: We are all connected
Transcript
Marble is alive. It has a lot of grain and hard parts, soft parts and surprises. So it's a lot of fun to work. But it has a life. To work in stone is not beating it up. Caress it. Stone, any kind of material in nature is a gift from nature. So we have to take care of it. Art should be part of your life. We are all connected. Everything is connected.
Sarah MonkOf Materially Speaking, where artists tel
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