Dearest Creative Friend,
I was so excited to unexpectedly see this enormous painted mural go up earlier this week... right in the middle of town, and a rather beautifully-radical design.
The short video above is the chaotic inaugurazione, where the town hall brought out a bottle of spumante, as is the tradition with all things here!
Though the conventional view of mythology doesn't interest me much, my other artist friend in Guardia, Giacobbe, did let me know that the figure is based on the story of Ampelo - which you can read about here on Wikipedia
I happened to bump into the artist doing the mural, Vittorio Valiante, from Naples, in the bar that night :-D - which was great - chatting to other artists 'in gambe' is exciting - and he thought he was coming to an uncultured wee town in the hinterland :-D but I gave him a list of the great artists who also live and work here - mostly unappreciated by the town (i.e. none of us were offered the commission to do a mural! ;-P)
You can see some of Vittorio's beautiful large-scale artworks on Instagram
...and here is a nice article Art Tribune magazine site, where you can also see him working ...
I heard someone griping on behalf of folks in the town (generally very darn superstitious and in fear-consciousness), suggesting that kids might be spooked or older folks are commenting that it's frightening or 'dark'. I had a good chuckle with Vittorio about that; we agreed that art is not meant to be pretty pictures that are sactioned by all - it is meant to make us
F E E L !!!
This big new image right in the heart of the town, to me, is a potent symbol of the sacred masculine: the man returning to the earth, via the heart - the fruit of his heart, the metamorphosis to (or from?!) Nature, the releasing of the fearful attachment to the physical body, even... For myself, a figurative artist and deeply aligned with Nature and the intuitive, this image is so profoundly enriching a Gift for us all in this town.
Very auspicious also, the mural being completed on the solstice!
