Today…wow. What an A-mazing day. I was quite excited to get to class as I was hoping to be able to complete my project by the end of the day and (*spoiler alert*) I did! I ate a light breakfast and headed out like a giddy school girl. Upon arriving to class, the others were still eating breakfast but arrived shortly thereafter. Apparently Boris had been there since 7:30 and had stepped out for a moment, but the others arrived soon after me and it was nice to see my classmates again.
We worked quietly on our individual projects until around 11am when we got take the greatly anticipated tour the facility downstairs. Photos were allowed everywhere except in the room with the furnace. I text Guy and he ran over to take the tour with us. I was glad as he was listening intently as my mind swirled with so many other thoughts. He filled me in on anything I missed. Plus he is really good at interpreting heavy Italian accents. First we looked at where and how they get their deliveries, which come via boat right to their back door which is open to the canal. (It was so great to be in class with with windows open and occasionally you’d hear a little motorboat go by). Anyway, the tour showed us how the smalti was made, cut, and stored in the library. There are over 2,000 colors of smalti and the library holds most of the colors. They make every color of flesh tone for every race in the world. The flesh tones are the most expensive because they are made with gold. Nearly the entire section of flesh colors were gone because a client came in and “bought all of it”. She said it would take months to be able to have it back in stock. They make custom colors as well. Today they were making a blue color for a client and we watched as they dipped a tiny amount of the molten glass onto a table and pressed it into a patty. When it cooled just enough to harden they broke the patty in half and dropped each into a bucket of water to cool it so as to reveal the final color. Within a minute or two they took it out and evaluated it to see if it was the right color. If not, they would add more of whatever was needed to make it perfect. Once a client gets a custom order, the library will hold their sample for 5 years. After that it is destroyed because they can’t store it all. So the client must keep their personal sample if they ever want it matched again in the future. All of Orsoni glass is colored by the addition of metals only, not by any other means.
All of the glass is cut by hand. The gold smalti, we saw being cut for a client, were hand cut using a scoring tool with a metal guide. There were three ladies in this room. We were told the training is intense and once trained there is rarely employee turnover. The opaque smalti was being cut in a room with about 8 ladies and it was amazing how fast and precise they were. Nothing is machine cut like some other creators of smalti and they embrace the uniqueness of each piece because the mosaic art of the Italians utilizes the varying sizes to create movement and depth to their projects. Of course some are very flat and uniform and Orsoni glass is used all over the world in both exteriors and interiors. So in both art and architectural uses.
I’m certain I’m missing a lot of the tour’s information…especially about the Orsoni family, and the history, but the type of glass that Mr. Orsoni had learned to create was so different and new that he took a sample of it to the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris (32 million people were there - the same worlds fair that the Eiffel Tower was built for) and took THIS VERY FRAMED PIECE to show all the colors he could make and how it could be used by artists. Cool, huh?
So, even Guy was amazing at the factory, the history, the beauty of it all. It was absolutely fantastic.
After our tour we worked for a little bit more and then headed out to lunch. Guy came along, too, and we ate at a little off-the-beaten-path restaurant, called Osteria Al Bacco, that wasn’t much to look at on the outside, but had wonderful food. Boris wanted to try the Venetian sampler, which we shared, and we all ordered something different. Afterwards we had coffee and shared a tiramisu…which I have to say was so delicious I wish I had ordered one for myself! Afterwards, we took a leisure walk back to class (once again arriving late) but we all stayed after hours to get more work done, which for me meant finishing my project. Boris had some Prosecco chilling in the fridge and before I left we had a small celebratory toast to our time together altho brief, it’s been an absolute dream come true/bucket list adventure for all four of us. I cleaned my area and took one last look at my beautiful piece and told my friends that I was CERTAIN it was worth millions of dollars, but I would appreciate it if no one stole it so I could take it home. We laughed and I bid everyone “A domani” or “until tomorrow”. I will let my mosaic set up overnight and Antonella, my instructor, said it will be ready to travel at that point.
Speaking of Antonella, I learned so much about her today. She is Antonella Gallenda and has been doing mosaics for over 40 years. Her work is all around the Orsoni factory and she is an AMAZING artist. She was showing me some of her work today as we were choosing the perfect glass to create my Venetian canal with. When she showed me a piece she had created 15 years ago of a Venetian scene and it blew my mind. She is truly a master in the creation of mosaics and to think that she guided me through my journey here is a true honor. This is one of her works below:
When I got back to the hotel, I relived my entire day again with Guy as I soaked up the AC and exhaled after a three-day whirlwind. How can I be so fortunate? We were both still excited about the tour and the happenings of the day. I’m glad he is easily entertained as I didn’t have to worry about him being bored. He enjoyed his days exploring this side of Venice, eating gelato, reading, etc. It’s very crowded and we didn’t even go to St. Mark’s Square this time. He ventured toward that area today, but the crowds were just too much.
Guy asked what I wanted to do for dinner and I was so tired from the day that he suggested pizza togo and I was an immediate YES! He asked the front desk person for suggestions and he said there was a pizza place only a few minutes away in the Jewish Getto (so much history here) called the Arte Delle Pizza. It was a simple place and all they did was takeout pizza. We ordered then watched them turn the fresh dough into our evening’s cuisine. Simple tonight with just mozzarella and speck (ham). On the way back to the hotel I snapped a few photos of the happenings of our own personal street in Venice. Back in the room we opened some cokes we had in our fridge and enjoyed our meal.
In the morning I’ll head over to pick up my masterpiece and then we’ll hop the train to the mainland where we’ll get our rental car and head out toward Berchtesgaden. The forecast is for rain every day we are in Germany. I’m certain I might find the weather as an excuse to do nothing for a day or so. I’m looking forward to it!
Until tomorrow…
No comments:
Post a Comment