| Hot-Tacking in Tuscany By Eric Snowden 845-691-6198 Like most things these days, it began with a phone call. A European gentleman had long fancied a large kinetic sculpture I made for a client in Haverford, Pennsylvania. The property was being sold, and now that it was on the market, he wondered if I would be interested in causing it to be dismantled, crated, and re-installed in Italy. Freight costs and airfare would be covered and I would stay with the buyer and his wife in their villa in Tuscany, outside Siena during installation. It was sounding quite interesting. There would be, of course, a semi-generous artist’s fee. It was suddenly sounding quite vital (see Woodstock Times, August 2003). Despite six time zones of distance, arrangements were quickly finalized by telephone and email. The world will always love a motivated buyer. Having contracted to do it, the questions of how the project would be done, and even if it could be done, could be ignored no longer. # # # # # # # # # # # Of the project’s three phases, the toughest was the first. At fourteen feet high, the welded steel sculpture weighs more than a half ton, and has four large, moving elements. Setting it up or taking down required a large fork lift or a lot of serious muscle. When it was commissioned in 1989, New Paltz was brimming with roadies and roustabouts who would reliably and effectively tussle with large pieces of steel any time, any place, for a C-note, a twelve-pack, and some Big Macs. Alas, these brave men have died off or gone to law school. The search for a work crew was therefore long and frustrating. It finally ended on the outer fringes of Philadelphia’s demolition society, with some men who didn’t seem to have last names. Their fee was more like a ransom, payable in cash. They had no references and would issue no receipts. Over the phone it sounded like they were deeply embedded in the pages of Treasure Island. Even though they had almost no rigging equipment, and were missing some personnel, it was a great relief when, more than an hour late, their old truck chugged and rattled up to the site on the appointed day. With few formalities they cussed the weather and set to work. Like pirates everywhere, they moved quickly and efficiently, paying little heed to suggestions or warnings. Like pirates everywhere, when the heavy steel sail slipped their grasp and clattered down on us, they simply rubbed the hurt places and kept working, while uttering high-definition oaths. Like pirates everywhere, at the first opportunity, they took all my cash and vanished. My Baby Doll and I were left to load the trucks in the rain. Mercifully, that night the state troopers were willing to overlook a couple of dangerously overloaded small trucks plowing along the storm-swept turnpikes, heading for Highland. # # # # # # # # # # Crating the six components of the piece was the most straightforward, least perilous aspect, requiring little more than two or three times the anticipated amount of lumber or lumbar distress. After a neighbor’s tales of warehouse atrocities, the large crates were heavily fortified and all shafts and bearings were packed in a jelly that suggests the State of Kentucky. When the freight forwarder’s truck arrived, the crates passed their first test with flying splinters. The sea voyage would take nearly a month. # # # # # # # # # # After a sleepless but convivial night on Alitalia, I met my hosts at the airport in Florence. They could not have been more charming or worldly, and made this hired hand feel like minor royalty. Not surprisingly, it turned out that the host had spent several decades as a hotelier in France, Germany, and North America. His wife is a talented painter, fluent in several languages, and, I soon learned, one hell of a cook. Their villa sits atop a low hill, surrounded by olive groves and vineyards spreading toward the rolling horizon in all directions. In the nineteenth century it had housed several farm families. After several years of renovation, it had been transformed into an elegant contemporary living space with high vaulted ceilings, ornate windows, and tall, thick doors. Antique Persian carpets lay over polished stone floors and works by Miro and Christo, cohabiting comfortably with the art and furniture of other eras. Little about the house would have been out of place in a painting by, say, Rafael. The guest rooms had a simple warmth and charm, possible only in a house with no television. I confess I had never actually used an armoire before this visit, let alone a bidet. I can now report that the former worked well for shirts but not for sport coats. The mysteries of the latter have been left for other to plumb. # # # # # # # # # # With a caper like this, every quarter-hour counts. Not only are there the many unforeseenities that attend all installations, there is the un-refundity of the airline ticket. The days were getting shorter and much cooler, which would not favorably influence the chemistry of curing concrete or drying paint. As befits a hired hand, an agrarian rhythm was established to best use the limited daylight. After sunrise, while the mist was lifting, we had a continental breakfast by candlelight. Work proceeded until lunch, the resumed until well after sunset. Each evening, after a shower and a change of clothes, we sampled the local wines, seated before the most mammoth fireplace I have ever seen. It was more an open thick-walled cottage with iron grates the size of a train trestle, and had the capacity to easily roast a Fiat 500. (They never, ever, asked the driver to warm up their car.) Not having gotten much beyond Peace Corps cuisine, I have scant ability to convey just how perfect the dinners were. I can say that the olive oil was recently and locally pressed, and all vegetables were vividly fresh from their garden. The table looked like every picture I’d ever seen in Gourmet magazine. # # # # # # # # # # On my first day there, Italian Customs agents stopped by to pronounce on the question of whether what was contained in the battered crates was actually a work of art. This mattered to my hosts because customs duties would be far lower if it were. Looking down at the scuffed steel pieces, dull with sea salt, they were not impressed. They agreed, however, to suspend judgment and return once it was properly put together. Although the crates looked like they had been worked over by a pod of orcas, all of the parts of the sculpture had arrived intact. A site was chosen behind the house, near a vineyard. Digging commenced. We used a large, borrowed tractor to ferry the heavier parts from the courtyard. This site was subject to very strong winds, so the foundation was going to have to be much larger and deeper than usual. My host had already laid in sixteen giant wicket-shaped pieces of heavy re-bar. These would be woven together, European style, into a large reinforcing cage, which would be sunk into five feet of concrete. Lashing 20-millimeter re-bar together with steel wire would be so time consuming, I would be lucky to even make the flight home, let alone steal an afternoon’s sight-seeing in Siena or Florence. Happily a gasoline-powered welding machine was lurking behind the gardener’s shed. We dragged it out, fired it up, and with the power maxed, tack-welded the reinforcing cage together in no time. The borrowed tractor had been fitted with an industrial fork lift, so lifting the heavy parts of the sculpture into place could be done quickly, without the services of any Tuscany pirates. Thanks to luck with the weather, the presence of a forklift, and some furious hot-tacking, the piece was fully assembled and re- painted by the day of my departure. Although not yet landscaped, and surrounded by piles of earth, it moved as never before. The newly colorful elements rotated easily and bobbed jauntily in the Tuscan breeze. A transplant form the Hudson Valley, re- born and now deeply anchored in the cradle of the Renaissance, it seemed very much at home. The customs agents arrived and declared it an Actual Work of Art. After a last lunch, I caught the bus to the airport, bearing a liter of the finest, freshest olive oil in the world. This particular bottle of olive oil, with its magnificent spicy taste and perfect light green hue, may not, in fact, have been smuggled into the country. Instead, it is altogether possible it was sold, given away, abandoned, or consumed somewhere in Italy. Besides, any sin that might have been committed would have been more than offset when I rid the country of the half case of K- Y jelly that was used recently to pack those bearings and shafts. © Eric Snowden 2004 |