Pietro Nardini Alpine Climber

Dear Art Lover,

Pietro Nardini, long before I met him

     Last year about this time I met Pietro Nardini on the bus from Pescia to Sorana, Italy.  He is now mid-80s and quite thin.  He is no relation to the Nardini family who owns the last remaining stone quarry in this area called Valleriana, and sadly, Pietro has no family left.  He still chain-smokes with no desire to slow down in that.  We got into a conversation after I called my landlord to confirm that I was on the bus and would arrive to his village in about twenty minutes.  During the call, I handed my phone to Pietro.  It turns out that his house shares a wall with my landlord’s house.  Before we got to Sorana, Pietro asked the bus driver to stop the bus after a bend in the road.  He wanted me to get off!  But all was well.  He had seen my landlord working with a wood pile and did not think that I saw him.

     In late July of this year, I was invited to lunch by a friend and met a family that is new to Sorana, a village in Tuscany.  By chance, they are also neighbors with Pietro.  I do not know if he remembered me or not from the bus, but when he saw me outside, he invited me to come inside his home to see his little private museum. 

     He was a climber of the Alpine mountains!  This entry room to his home, which is upstairs, contains a good collection of minerals and gems, old photos, and mountain climbing and spelunking [caving] gear.  He started out the tour by pointing out an image of him with a cow who has quite the funny expression on her face.  He told me that this was his wife because he was too ugly to have gotten a real woman.

Pietro Nardini on 30 July 2017, in his private museum, Sorana

    Pietro is missing the index finger on his left hand.  I did not ask how.   In one of the photos that I share with you here, he pointed out that he is one of the ones dangling from a wire off the edge of a vertical cliff while the other rescue-workers stood on the flat plane above ready to help. 

One of those two suspended is Pietro.

 

     I hope that you enjoy these images.  I saw Pietro again last week and during Sorana’s annual bean festival [with dinner and dancing in the main square!].  He said that he never eats much and only once per day. It shows.

     I am currently working out details to offer an art workshop, perhaps focusing on anatomy and design since I will have a male model with the class.  This will be in mid-to-late May 2018 and will be near my home in the hills of Tuscany, between Florence and Lucca.  If you are interested and want to send me feedback on what you would like to work on to improve your art or even what you desire to see in Tuscany, please contact me.    

http://BorsheimArts.com/contact.htm

Peace,

Kelly Borsheim, artist

http://BorsheimArts.com

P.S. IF original art, while affordable, is STILL a bit out of your budget, or the piece you adored has sold?  Or do you like arty things in different formats, to surround yourself with art?  Looking for a gift?  See my store online for pillow, phone cases, shower curtains, towels, tote bags, and yes, even prints on metal, wood, canvas, and so much more:

https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/1-kelly-borsheim.html

Happy birthday, Jamshid! 

Pietro shows me some of his favorite old photos of colleagues

A much decorated climber and worker in the Italian Alps

simpatici! 

Sausage Buying in the Fog

Dear Art Lover,

 

    Today I would like to share some images from my Facebook post yesterday that had a much higher than usual response rate (positive).  I know that I have let this blog slip a bit, but I have been trying to get my art-making schedule back, as well as going through rehab for my injured knee.  On that latter front, I was relieved to have two specialists in January overturn the verdict for ACL reconstruction surgery that I received from another specialist on 2 Dec.  So, I was given electro-magnetic therapy (for bones) and electro-stimulation therapy (for atrophied quads), as well as a slew of exercises and instructions on how to retrain my brain to walk without limping.

     Another good thing is that I have returned to the mural painting and I hope to keep at it until I can finish it.  It turned out to be way more complicated than I imagined when I started it.  But only because it is not just any landscape.  It is a specific one.

     I also got the green light from my therapist to travel and have booked my flights to the US.  I will mostly be working in Texas, but will be traveling around a bit for family and galleries in April and May.  Drop me a line if you would like to try to meet up, please.

     So, here are the images of my walk yesterday.  A couple of friends saw me on the road and stopped for a hello.  Then Gianni invited me to tag along with them while they went into the small town to buy some fresh sausage from a kill made on Sunday.  I know that my vegetarian friends are cringing at that thought, but hey, at least the Italians here are raising only a few animals in lovely spaces and they use practically everything of the animal.  I was pretty impressed that the little scruffy dog, Gregory, was so well behaved around all of this raw meat.  Not all of it was packed under salt.  He was good even in the van with the meat in a bag underneath his little paws!  He seemed more interested in barking at the windshield wipers when they were in motion than in sniffing out pig. 

Enjoy…  

     If you like, please have a look at some of my sculpture online here:

http://www.borsheimarts.com/sculpture.htm

Peace,

Kelly

P.S.  Subscribe to the art newsletter here (it is FREE):  http://www.borsheimarts.com/contact.htm

Buying fresh made sausages in Tuscany, Italy

Salted pig meat in Tuscany, Italy, leave for TEN DAYS

Buying fresh made sausages in Tuscany, Italy

Surprised that Gregory behaved so well.

Tuscan Christmas Trees

Dear Art Lover,

     While Pescia is known in Italy, especially in Tuscany, for growing flowers and shipping worldwide, apparently the small village in Valleriana (the hills north of Pescia) called Castelvecchio is the home of Christmas trees.  Father and son team Renzo and Alfio Marchini grow the trees on various plots of land around Castelvecchio.  Renzo told me recently that not only are their trees shipped all over Italy, but also in Switzerland.  That surprised me, for I never imagined Switzerland having a lack of trees!

Alfio and father Renzo ship Christmas trees all over Italy and more.

     So, if you would like a happy tree that is freshly cut from the hills in Tuscany, contact Renzo or Alfio at (0039) 0572.40.00.86  Enjoy these selected images of the trees in their happy birthplace and the men who find them homes for their Christmas joy.  Vivaio Alberi di Natale!

Peace,

Kelly

P.S.  Please check out the “Raccolta e Regalo” sale I am having on selected artworks.. good through Dec 31, 2016.  http://www.borsheimarts.com/SaleArt2016-LaRaccoltaeIlRegalo.htm

http://BorsheimArts.com

Alfio and friends are filling orders for Christmas Trees!

Looking up towards the Pieve (Church) in Castelvecchio, Italy

Raccolta dei Alberi di Natale - Overlooking Sorana, Italy

Christmas trees grow surrounded by olive grove and beans.

Sorana Beans Fagioli di Sorana Tuscany

Dear Art Lover,

     I got to help my landlord and his brother pick the beans this year! These are the famous Sorana beans (fagioli di Sorana), a white bean widely known in Italy, maybe beyond.  I saw them in the grocery store in Firenze recently.  The price:  28.29 euro per kilo!  

   Normally the beans are planted around the end of May-beginning of June.  This year, we had a lot of rain.  That is no good since the seeds would rot if planted in soggy soils.  We had to wait for about two weeks.  Maurizio even joked that if we were lucky, we might have beans for Christmas!  I remember well that time.  One afternoon I took a break from painting to sit around with the guys after they cut back all of the weeds in the terraced campo around my home.  We sat on the hill just below my house and watched across the valley as a distant neighbor plowed his field and planted the seeds.  Our discussion was concern that he was still too early.  But he gets more afternoon sun than we do, and now I can see that whatever he did worked well enough.

Valleriana, Tuscany, Italy:  the beans of Sorana; fagioli di Sorana

     Some of the farmers used nets. They roll them up after each harvest, cleaning off extra plant material and often leave them on a vertical post at each end of the former bean row.  Others, such as my friends here, use bamboo cane and create teepee shapes.  They are secured by a plastic line so they remain upright despite any winds.  Both systems work, but the nets are quite expensive, I have heard.  Beans just need to go vertical, as Jack taught most of us non-farmers.

     The bean plant is a lovely shade of green, but as the beans mature, the plant starts to yellow and die.  It is quite easy to learn to know which ones to pick and which to leave on the stalk a bit longer.  The larger beans that are found lower to the ground are often picked to store as seed for next year’s lot.  My Italian landlord told me that tradition is to choose those lower to the ground because if the bean comes from too high up the stalk, the growth from that bean will only produce beans from that higher point and upwards, resulting in fewer beans.  But, he also said that he has no idea if there is any basis of fact in this. 

     My landlord does not grow food to sell so much and his beans are not regulated with the organization of Sorana beans.  However, another neighbor’s beans that ARE part of the organic, regulated trade told me that they also take the seeds from lower down to plant next year, but also harvest those sooner, in the case of rain… which we are experiencing now.  Apparently, beans near or in the ground at any stage of life do not like soggy soils! 

     We mainly picked the beans that are in the fairly dry and pale yellow pods.  Leave the green ones to mature.  There are some that are a deeper yellow (having emerged from or passed the green stage) in which the pod is still soft to the touch, as one can feel the beans inside are, too.  We picked some of those, but separated them.  Those go straight into the fridge or freezer for direct cooking and eating soon.

     
    The brothers laid out onto the patio some netting with only very small holes in it.  They then dumped the baskets of the collected bean pods on top and spread them out.  Before they ran off to lunch, they both told me to let the beans dry in the sun a bit and then come out and dance upon them, setting the beans inside free. 

     Seriously?  I had heard of grape stomping, but never bean dancing!  I was delighted.  In the early afternoon, I was enchanted to HEAR the beans popping out of the pods!  If you have ever listed to the cereal Rice Krispies when someone adds milk to it (that was never me, I never liked milk, but my brothers do), it is a similar sound… a soft sort of music in and of itself.  However, I had brought my little radio (thanks, Rusudana!) and an umbrella (I am not partial to direct sunshine) and started dancing!  What fun.

     The beans are heavier than the dying pods and the sun aids a lot on the harvest.  I had taken a break and sat at one end of the bean pile to start picking apart any pods not fully opened, when Paolo and two of his fellow ambulance volunteers arrived.  They knew that it was going to rain soon enough and lifted the net, carrying the beans into the house and left them there overnight.  Actually, they left them for the next round of bean-picking.  Sadly, I had to go to Firenze and then Cortona to meet up with a visiting cousin and I missed the rest. 

     I had assumed that all of the work with these special beans was done by hand.  But there is a machine that helps separate the pods from any stubborn beans.  It simply uses a small blast of air to separate the pods, a brilliant solution without being overkill!  I had hoped to see this machine, but will have to wait for another opportunity.

     The beans will be hand-sorted and bagged for sale.  One of the perks of living here is that ALL of the neighbors help out with the organic and bio-controlled labels for food here.  No one uses harsh chemicals in their gardens, even those who do not sell their food. 

    I must say that the subtle sunset before the rain hit was lovely.  The storm that night did not last long, but we have had rain for the last three or four days.  There are still lots of beans on the stalks that are still green, so the rain gave us a pause to relax (and in my case, paint!).  And no doubt the olive trees have been thirsty this summer.  Their harvest comes in November.  I hope that my knee has healed by then!  [I recently bought a bike for one of my studio rooms and have started a different therapy.]

    

Now, off to my studio!  Thank you for your interest in Tuscany, organic healthy foods, and art!   

Peace,

Kelly

http://BorsheimArts.com