Lucy Branch & Sarah Monk:

The Pull of Pietrasanta

Mike Axinn: 00:25

Hi. This is Mike with another episode of materially speaking, where artists and artisans tell their stories through the materials they choose. Today, we present a special collaborative episode featuring an interview with Sarah recorded by Lucy Branch of Sculpture Vulture, a podcast which Sarah and I have long admired. Sculpture Vulture is a journey into the captivating world of public sculpture, where art history meets our everyday spaces. Host Lucy Branch brings her expertise, delight, and passion as a director at antique bronze, who conserve, maintain, and restore bronze sculptures and memorials in The UK and beyond, including such icons as Nelson’s Column, Eros, Cleopatra’s Needle, and the Albert Memorial, as well as many bronze sculptures created by artists who have worked in Pietro Santa, including Henry Moore, Helene Blumenfeld, and Igor Mitterai.

Mike Axinn: 01:19

Lucy holds an art history degree combined with material studies from University College, plus a master’s in conservation from the Royal College of Art and Victorian Albert Museum. In her interview, Lucy invites Sarah to tell how she came to produce Materially Speaking and to talk about the historic community of Pietrasanta. Lucy raises the idea of sculptural tourism and suggests a sculptural passport to use while taking a trip. Together, she and Sarah discuss their favorite pieces and pool their expertise to get to some deeper insights about our experience of public art in the present day.

Lucy Branch: 01:56

So I began our conversation today by asking her if she would tell us a little bit about herself.

Sarah Monk: 02:06

Well, my name’s Sarah, Sarah Monk, and I’m English, but I now live in Italy, in Northern Tuscany, a place I alighted on about fifteen years ago that is near the Carrara Marble fields, and as a result of that, there’s a massive and rather fascinating international artistic community there. So my background, in short, is that I was brought up in the South Of England, and my father was a craftsman. He made musical instruments, actually Renaissance musical instruments, out of wood. He was pretty eccentric. And so my childhood was really, you know, calling over the sound of lathes to get dad to stop what he was doing and come and have supper without cutting his fingers off, and endless musicians coming in to test their instruments and their mouthpieces.

Sarah Monk: 02:56

And although we were four children, nobody really wanted to take over the business. My sister and I became his manager, and he performed a lot, the London Serpent Trio. Used to tour America and play quite a lot in England. And so I was a music agent for a while. And, basically, my working life, I’ve always worked in the arts.

Sarah Monk: 03:15

So I was a music agent. I usually took jobs where the the title was project or producer, and they were all in the arts, if that makes sense. So I was mostly freelance sort of working for the Japan Arts Festival. I worked for Elton John and his household as his wife’s personal assistant for a while. Worked EMI Records for a while, and then I went to America for five years.

Sarah Monk: 03:38

And then I’ve wound up in Italy.

Lucy Branch: 03:41

How lovely. That is the best place to end up in, I think. And you have a podcast, don’t you? Tell us a little bit about that.

Sarah Monk: 03:52

Well, we met through the podcast. Yes. So my podcast is called Materially Speaking, where artists tell their stories artists and artisans, actually tell their stories through the materials they choose. So the conceit is that, a bit like Desert Island is, you know, we’re talking about why do you work in this material and why, in in most people’s case, did they come here to work with the stone and what they like about working with stone. But actually they’re telling their life story.

Sarah Monk: 04:18

And I started it six years ago, just before the pandemic, I guess, because I thought there must be a few people here with interesting stories. And people said, oh, they’ll say the same thing, and you’ll get bored. But, actually, you know, 60 episodes on, people have very different stories, as you know, you know, even when they work with the same material. So I found the sort of three areas where the podcast can can go. Usually, they tell me about their life and why they came from Sweden, Denmark, Holland, California.

Sarah Monk: 04:49

Essentially, if you work in marble and you come here to Carrara to buy a pit of marble to work in, it’s too heavy to take it home. And if you work in the foundries here, there are a number of major foundries here too, you want to come back and check with a patterner, and they’re very, very skilled artisans here. They’ve been here for centuries. So each of them will tell me why they’re here. Maybe they came from Japan because their father wanted them to be a lawyer, or maybe they came here for one commission, maybe they fell in love.

Sarah Monk: 05:21

And then they tell me about their inspiration, you know, why why what inspires them to make art, and why they like this area. Because we are sandwiched between the sea and the mountains, so there’s quite an interesting sort of place to create art. And I guess the third thing is memorials and commissions. So if they like Nilda, who did the first African American statue to go into Washington, the story with her was partly about her, but it was also about the woman that she was carving, because it was an incredible story, why anybody had commissioned that person and what went into that. And likewise, Nicola Stagetti, his story was the relationship between him and his Indian client over four years, as they brought to life in stone a modern day saint.

Sarah Monk: 06:11

So, I mean, this community, are they coming here for a short time creating something and going back to their lives wherever they come from across the world? Or are they establishing studios there where they’re spending parts of their year creating in this place? Well, spot on, Lucy. I mean, they vary. There’s some of the big traditional studios here, like SEM Studios, Gervieti, Nicola Stagetti.

Sarah Monk: 06:41

They will host artists who are coming in. Maybe, you know, Damien Hirst or Mark Quinn or somebody will come in just to do a project, and they don’t want to set up their own studios. What they want is the facility. Somebody will help them go and choose the marble. The artisans will do the rough cut.

Sarah Monk: 06:57

Robots, if they’re using them, the polishing equipment. But then beyond that, there’s the second layer are people who come in regularly and use those studios or have a space at those studios or book a space at those studios. And then the third one is people who who sort of semi settle or completely settle here, and they create their own studios or go into a cooperative.

Lucy Branch: 07:19

Okay. So you’ve got this kind of free flow of international people coming in now, all with the shared love of art and obviously and specifically marble. I mean, you’re talking about foundries, there must be bronze as well, but I think Pietro Santa is very much known for its marble carving, isn’t it? I mean, that’s the that’s the the history of that that town, isn’t it?

Sarah Monk: 07:43

Well, it is, but I think what people do a bit the the short history of the is difficult to tell a short history, but Pietro Santa was always known, as you say, for for for the artisans and for carving marble. And then in 1963, the Vatican ruled that there was too much money being spent on religious artifacts. And so they said every time a priest took over a a parish or whatever the Catholic equivalent is, they were allowed to make their favorite saint, and that stopped. And Pietro Santa nearly went out of business overnight. And so some of the studio heads, Sem Gellardini of Sem Studios was one of the key ones, approached artists like Henry Moore, Lipchitz, and said, if you bring us a maquette, bring us a model, and we’ll make it for you.

Sarah Monk: 08:28

So a lot of artists come here with a model, and they might make a bronze one for somewhere, and they might make a marble one bigger because somebody really likes it and commissions it. So there is that connection between the two forms, and quite often people will come having made something in clay and they could go in either direction or both.

Lucy Branch: 08:47

Okay. Okay, so you’ve kind of got skilled hands in both fields. Yes. So lots of sculpt ors come with maquettes and set to, you know, foundries all over wherever they live and say, can you scale this up for me? So, it sounds like that’s a pretty big part of the business that they’re offering the skills to produce an object at large scale.

Sarah Monk: 09:11

They are. And in fact, Fernando Botero, who’s passed away a year ago, I think, I remember seeing him on a recording saying, no, I work with all of the foundries here because they’ve all got different skills. So some of them, of course, will be a particular person they like working with. Somebody’s got a particular feel for the patterners that they like to use. Maybe somebody else does small scale work very well or big scale work very well.

Sarah Monk: 09:35

So so, yes, they they they choose according to some of them stay with a a studio for a long time, and some of them sort of, you know, go wherever. I mean, are mould makers here. There there there’s the crating. There’s the cutting. There’s people who can help with every aspect of the business.

Sarah Monk: 09:54

And I think sculpture seems to be an art form that you it’s really like an axe. You can’t

Lucy Branch: 10:01

do it on your own. Need a You body of

Sarah Monk: 10:04

need your team.

Lucy Branch: 10:05

Yeah, and so this seems like it could almost be a form of kind of tourism to some extent, sort of sculptural, more artistic tourism, where if you have a passion for art, but you want to go and do it in somewhere really beautiful, maybe Pietro Santa’s the place.

Sarah Monk: 10:21

Well, funny you should say that. Actually, I got a text this morning, but whatever the communication on Instagram, the verb for that is from a

Lucy Branch: 10:29

young Messaging? I’m not sure. We’re so They they

Sarah Monk: 10:32

grammed me. They grammed me. They must follow us. And they said they’d been studying in Florence, and they had a few days in Pietro Santa any chance of knowing anybody they could stay with, and so we had a look. But anyway, they’d solved the problem.

Sarah Monk: 10:44

But people do come in because they want to experience. Some of them will pop in. There are a number of studios that do teaching. Christian Lang is a good friend of mine, and he does a lot of teaching. Marble arts do teaching.

Sarah Monk: 10:56

And then there are also other studios like Kevin Francis Grays who’ve who’ve got a new wing so that the equipment that they’ve invested in for themselves, they’ll also lease that out to artists who are doing a particular project. And so you see people coming in, some of them are already artists. And then in the summer, particularly, or this time of year maybe, there’s a lot of people who are coming in to give it a try.

Lucy Branch: 11:21

Okay. Interesting that because it used to mean, I remember in the years gone by, Florence had a thriving economy really satisfying the of amateur artist. No, that sounds really mean. They were very good, some of these artists, but they certainly weren’t doing it for a living. Yeah.

Lucy Branch: 11:40

And so they they would cater to that. It sounds like Pietro Santa has developed that as well, an arm of their business.

Sarah Monk: 11:48

Well, I think yes. I mean, actually, this guy had studied in Florence as well, and I think a lot of people do still go to Florence. Florence is quite expensive to live in, not that Pietro Santa’s a bargain. But I think the thing is that as an artist, I think a lot of artists do teach on the side, if you like. So Yeah.

Sarah Monk: 12:05

There are a lot of people here who I want to do a graffiti course or some fresco courses, specialist things, you know, clay courses. And most of the rest of the people on the course will be already artists. I’m not an artist. I do it for fun. I’ve done mosaic, and there’s certainly one of the mosaicists here does do lessons.

Sarah Monk: 12:26

So it’s all possible. But how many people come as tourists? I think I think the other play way that it’s good for tourists is that they’ve got a very, very big historical museum that’s actually growing year by year of the old maquettes from way back when. I mean, like, Cervieti does actually have the original cast of the David. So when the David of the inside needed to go outside, it was obviously remade in a tougher marble, not not not the one that was gonna be soft in the rain.

Sarah Monk: 13:03

And it was probably done in Bianco Pia. I can’t remember. But, anyway, he they’ve got the moulds. So the moulds, mean, all the three graces, a lot of other really amazing maquettes are here, and they’re really getting their act together, if you like, sort of curating them in places that people can go and look at them and see about them. And then there’s also a very big what they call an international sculpture park, which is to say that a lot of artists here donate work that turns up in the middle of a roundabout or in the squares.

Sarah Monk: 13:34

And, in fact, Sergei, a Russian artist or a Russian American now, had a piece that was waiting to be shipped to America. So that was sort of there for people to look at for a week or two. So there’s that as well.

Lucy Branch: 13:47

Okay. So you’re probably actually attracting a lot of art enthusiasts as well as artists themselves.

Sarah Monk: 13:56

Yes. I think so. Art enthusiasts, people who who sort of want to sort of breathe it and touch, you know, touch the artistic community. And, of course, traditionally, it’s been a little less easy because with gentrification, with with health and safety rules about dust and noise, A lot of people have moved out of the center. A lot of the artists have moved out of the center of Piet Santa.

Sarah Monk: 14:18

So when I came here fifteen years ago, it was all moan and groan. I know it isn’t what it used to be. But I’m glad to say that we were part of a group of people who proved them wrong this summer. We arranged something called the, which is that we talked to all the artists that we had interviewed and a few others besides and said, I know you don’t want to be open all weekend. I I can imagine how boring it would be to have an open studio like that.

Sarah Monk: 14:43

But can we persuade you to open just for three hours? And we’re gonna do a tour. Yeah. And we did a self guided tour. So people Helene Blumenfeldt kindly opened up for two hours, Antonio Pisano and Kevin Francis Gray and Emmanuel Giannelli.

Sarah Monk: 14:59

And you just had to look at your map and just run, really, between the ones you really cared about. And I think in this world where there’s so much available all the time, it was kind of fun to have, like, just a special offer. If you’re quick, these guys are opening their studio. They might give you a drink. They might talk to you, but you’ve got the chance to see how they make it in the place they make it.

Sarah Monk: 15:23

And I think that’s the difference in Pietro Santa. Some places have sculpture gardens and lots of sculpture around, but it’s not made there. Whereas this is all made here, and the people who do the making are here at least some of the year.

Lucy Branch: 15:37

Yeah. Gosh, because, I mean, I can’t really think of anywhere else on the planet that is quite like that. I mean there’s plenty of places that people might visit because they’re interested in sculpture, so if you think about Hepworth and St Ives, but Florence is an obvious one and the David, but the thing is that not actually anywhere that makes and that has such a strong community of artists in a very, very small location

Sarah Monk: 16:08

I have to say, I would love to know about it if there is. Yeah. I mean, there’s certainly lots of artists, and I think I think it’s the sculpture that’s the clue here, Lucy, because I was thinking about other sort of well known art communities, and I I think of Soho in in New York, which gentrified, and, you know, there are a million places. But, you know, you can paint a picture wherever you like. You might get lonely.

Sarah Monk: 16:31

You might need framers and canvases and oils and some company. But as we said earlier, with sculpture, you really need people. And in fact, there was a Dutch girlfriend of mine, and she was saying, because she trained as a lawyer before she trained as an artist, she went back to Holland, and she was rather appalled that there weren’t 10 mould makers. She said, in Pietro Santa, I’m so used to there being 10, at least, mould makers, that every element. And other people were doing their old moulds, and I thought, well, why would I do that?

Sarah Monk: 17:04

I want to do my art. You can subcontract whatever you want. Some people do everything, but many people will get an artisan involved or somebody to do some of the finishing. Certainly, they’ll need the crating, and maybe they’ll buy the plinth and take advice on that. So it’s a kind of a team teamwork, and there is a really nice community of Italians and foreigners here.

Lucy Branch: 17:27

I’m quite keen on the idea of sculptural tourism. Maybe one day we might be able to create some kind of sculptural passport that we all could say we visited this and have a little stamp in our passport, not about the countries, it’s about the sculpture. And so, what would you say in Pietro Santa might be something that we would put if we were going to, you know, create What such a could what could we say would be in it?

Sarah Monk: 17:53

Well, that’s a hard one, you know. I mean, I think I’d love to know what yours are. I think I there’s certain places that when I go into a place, I think, oh, I’m going to look for that because it’s always there. And the reason I mention it is that Pietro Santa, a lot of the things change. So the bigger big things in the center aren’t there.

Sarah Monk: 18:12

You know, they’re not the same every time. But I I’ll always remember when I was very little, we had a home up the coast in near Rapallo on Portofino, and I learned to swim in a little bay called Sanford Chuoso. And there was a sunken Jesus Christ there, which was a statue, looked a little bit like the one in Rio De Janeiro, and it was underwater, and people used to dive down. And, in fact, scuba divers get married there and all of that. So I’ve never been to that part of Italy without taking a pilgrimage, if you like, to go and see that.

Sarah Monk: 18:47

In Pietro Santa, what would be the answer to that? I’ll tell you one. I’ll tell you one, and I’m ashamed to say I can’t think offhand who whose it is. But at the end of one of the Pietro Santa’s sort of six streets that are pedunale, as they say, walkable, No cars. And there’s one which is like an arch that you can walk through, and it’s very elaborately decorated.

Sarah Monk: 19:08

Beautiful sculpture. And people do tend to take a selfie there. They tend to stand in it and take a selfie. And I know now selfies are considered a bit like, you know, could we be in the moment, please? But there is something actually quite nice seeing families stand together and smiling.

Sarah Monk: 19:25

So occasionally I’m in favour of a selfie and I think that is one of the places people do tend to go.

Lucy Branch: 19:30

Yeah, and I mean, do you know, it’s interacting with sculpture, what can be wrong with that? I mean, yes, photographs maybe we never look at them, that’s maybe the problem is we just do it for that second, but there is that other aspect of the fact that actually it does anchor you to that place. Nowhere else has got that particular feature. I was thinking about the rest of the world.

Sarah Monk: 19:52

The other one I love is the War Memorial To Animals In War, which is in Park Lane. I always get stuck in the traffic there anyway whenever I’m in a car. I find it very soothing and uplifting. I mean, you know, it’s sad as well, but I love it.

Lucy Branch: 20:08

Yeah. We look after that memorial.

Sarah Monk: 20:10

Oh, do you?

Lucy Branch: 20:10

So, yes, it’s one of my favorites as well. I mean, it’s just, it’s beautifully done, isn’t it? And it’s got, it has got a real sort of pathos with the stone, it’s sort of whether they’re walking towards that gap in the stone and it’s just, yeah, it’s very poetic actually and yes, unfortunately no one’s going anywhere when you’re on Park Lane.

Sarah Monk: 20:29

So, about you? What

Lucy Branch: 20:31

are

Sarah Monk: 20:31

your I top

Lucy Branch: 20:32

think I’d have to go by something like religious sculpture and like, you know, have to or you know, something like monumental sculpture. So you know, it would have to be like categories and in that category, you know, background, I am a Catholic by my family a Catholic. I must say a little bit lapsed perhaps Catholic, I’m sure. We used to have, when I was growing up, we used to have a priest that came round every Friday night to see our family. He was great because what he’d do is he’d come and whip us up and make sure we would be in church on Sunday.

Lucy Branch: 21:04

Oh. Because you know, if you knew he was coming on Friday, you’re like, oh no, he’s gonna nag us because we haven’t been, you know. So, it was all very social and done very well, but I think it’s given me a particular interest in religious art and although I’m horrified to hear that the Vatican reduced the number of saints that were allowed be produced from Pietro Sanchez. Why did they do that?

Sarah Monk: 21:27

The money went to the poor. So Oh if that’s a consolation, it was a financial decision.

Lucy Branch: 21:31

But to me the Catholic church just epitomizes wonderful sculpture. I don’t know if you have seen any of the work of Timothy Schmaltz, he’s a contemporary sculptor but he does kind of Catholic art. He’s a Canadian and he he’s got a fabulous one in the square St Peter’s, outside Saint Peter’s and he’s also known for his Angels Unaware is a sculpture which he created, I’d love to see that one. And the Homeless Jesus where he’s like sleeping on a bench.

Sarah Monk: 22:03

Jesus, I Yeah. Have seen pictures

Lucy Branch: 22:06

So, I would love to kind of go on a little Catholic sculpture pilgrimage. There’s obviously endless amounts in Rome, renaissance type style, but nice to see some contemporary stuff as well. You can go with marble as well with somewhere like, I mean, Rome, you’re you’re awash with religious I mean, Bernini, you know, can’t beat can’t beat Bernini, marble sculpture. And

Sarah Monk: 22:32

the theatres as well, lots of theatres done by many people in different ways. You know, one of one of the artists here that we interviewed, Mariana Bleier, she had done a theatre which was it could have been a man a woman and a woman, or it could have been a man and a woman, or it could have been any combination. She did it to be being held. Okay. I mean, I don’t obviously, it’s not religious in the conventional.

Sarah Monk: 22:56

Maybe it’s religious with a small r or something. But the idea was that being held by somebody else or even holding yourself Yeah. And it wasn’t something I’d really thought about. And whatever you think of her idea, it really did get me thinking about what the theater was about. So I guess all thought is good.

Lucy Branch: 23:14

Yeah. It’s astonishing how many versions of the same stories and the same themes have been done. And you think to yourself incredibly creatively as well, so that you’re like, well actually even the oldest ideas are still not stale, they’re still being reinvented and there’s still fodder for creativity. So whenever you think, oh maybe that’s been done, I always think, no, there’s something more to say every time.

Sarah Monk: 23:45

There is. Funnily enough, another artist I was talking to recently, Alex Seton, and he did a piece which was about a homeless man, and he installed it outside a hotel. It was part of a symposium, I believe. It was a long time ago. And he said it was really interesting because the concierge at the hotel came rushing out and said, are you the young man who did the homeless guy on the lawn?

Sarah Monk: 24:09

And he said, I did. And he’s the concierge said, it really sorts out our visitors from those who say, what are you gonna do about the poor man on the lawn? And What

Lucy Branch: 24:20

are you going to do about the poor man on the lawn? You know?

Sarah Monk: 24:24

So the idea of charity, redemption, being sympathetic towards people who are in need instead of walking by, that’s never more important than now, is it?

Lucy Branch: 24:35

No, absolutely. And also one of those things that lots of the time when everybody’s very busy as well, it’s quite easy to push to one side, whereas public art really presents you with it and says, Think about this. Even if you are dashing past me on the way to work, it makes you think. One of my reasons I love it so much.

Sarah Monk: 25:01

I agree, I agree.

Lucy Branch: 25:03

I was thinking about needing a monumental category because there’s something about colossally large sculpture. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the most subtly represented ideas. Sometimes I think the most subtle ideas are done in quite small scale, but the really large things you have to really pare what you’re saying down I think because the scale is going to speak for it. And I think something like the Kelpies up in Scotland, you know, Angel of the North as well, quite obvious ones that everyone knows in The UK at least, Gormley’s, Angel of the North. They, they have got to have a category of their own I think because they speak to so many people, so many people identify their regions by them and even though I’m not sure it’s a kind of tourism that you might go to that area just to see that sculpture, I think that might not be the case.

Lucy Branch: 26:01

But I do think that people have decided that it represents them in some ways, their area. So, I think that’s the kind of category I would have to add maybe Lady Liberty, she’s she’s one that

Sarah Monk: 26:13

we’ve got to include, haven’t we? We have. I agree with you. I think something about and I haven’t really thought that about the detail, but, of course, you don’t see the detail if it’s really large. But I think it’s also the wonder of the creation.

Sarah Monk: 26:26

When you see something that big and you realize, you know, the perspective, how the head how what size the head would be, which is sort of one of the things that robots don’t do so well. They don’t understand how when you’re standing below, you would see things in a But different I think also it’s always special, isn’t it? Like being in Notre Dame or something, to be made to feel small in some way and insignificant. I find that quite empowering. It’s like, nobody cares whether I finish this or do that.

Sarah Monk: 26:57

You know, forget your anxiety. You’re a tiny little ant. And I think, you know, in the same way that being in a big cathedral space gives you a certain sort of religious moment, I think, to a degree these big monuments can also make you stop in your tracks, really. Also, what we’re going back to being stuck on Park Lane, quite often, I don’t know

Lucy Branch: 27:20

why traffic traffic is clearly very much on my mind, but having zoomed through it this morning, but essentially, sometimes these big pieces are not really made to be looked at right in front of them. That when you get right in front of them, if you park in the little car park and go and stand under an angel of the north, it’s not how it’s supposed to be seen. It’s much better whizzing past it or maybe being stuck on the motorway going past it. Same with the kelpies, they’re kind of, it’s a funny environment that they’re in and actually being far off them is actually more of a pleasurable viewing experience than being right on top of them. They’re almost too big to look at close-up.

Sarah Monk: 28:02

Yes, that’s a very good point. I think I think some of the sculptors I’ve chatted with over the years have a background in architecture, and they often talk about, you know, location. It’s the first thing that they’ll want to know. Some artists here, some sculptors who are doing commissions, for example, don’t even know where the pieces will go, especially the artisans. They’re commissioned to do something, but the context isn’t their problem or decision.

Sarah Monk: 28:26

But other people who do public art I’m thinking of someone who does quite a lot of public art, and they train as an architect. And so the first thing they want to know is where is it gonna go? What’s the impact? And, obviously, sculpture’s meant to be. The defining thing is it’s meant to be looked at and experienced from all all sides, unlike other art, unless it’s bas relief, obviously.

Sarah Monk: 28:47

I have to tell you something else, Lucy. I haven’t been to them, but down in down the coast in Italy, almost the same distance as Liguria is to the north of us. To the south of us, there’s a man who has a submerged sculpture park which has been installed in order for two things. One, to stop the fishing boats coming in too close and destroying the wild the nature there, and the other to host growths of underwater algae.

Lucy Branch: 29:14

Yeah. Is it Jason De Carries Taylor?

Sarah Monk: 29:17

I don’t think it is actually, but I’ll look it up.

Lucy Branch: 29:20

Have a look.

Sarah Monk: 29:20

Well, he’s called Paolo the Pescatore, please. Paolo the Pescatore. I’ll send you the Instagram link.

Lucy Branch: 29:27

I love I love this, like, repopulating the sea with sculpture idea, which is I mean, I know Jason DeCair is tailor for that and his underwater sculpture, I think they obviously must be working along similar principles.

Sarah Monk: 29:41

Where’s his, where’s his?

Lucy Branch: 29:43

There’s lots of international sculpture parks on in, but it’s to repopulate coral. And the thing is that and there’s some in London, we’ve got them over in South London. Down that way.

Sarah Monk: 29:54

Down that way.

Lucy Branch: 29:55

Down that way. We’ve got North Londoners. North Londoners, so you know, it’s down south. Also, Jason’s sculpture is amazing, but when the coral come along, you’re like, oh, that’s what it needs. Even though his stuff’s good enough without it, when they add to it, you’re like, wow, they become aliens And I just love it, the abstract and the colors and the so yeah, I I’m I haven’t been brave enough to sort of learn to

Sarah Monk: 30:22

scuba dive.

Lucy Branch: 30:23

I haven’t done that yet but I feel like that needs to be on my bucket list because I want to see these underwater sculpture parks.

Sarah Monk: 30:29

Well, I’ll come with you because I’m the same, I’m a big swimmer, but I’m very I tend to do it with just that,

Lucy Branch: 30:34

being above the water or hold my breath. Exactly. Exactly. Crawl is fine, but I haven’t sort of submerged yet. So, okay, we’ll have to do that together.

Sarah Monk: 30:44

We will do, that’ll be our sculptural tourism trip.

Lucy Branch: 30:47

The gentleman who I spoke to just shortly ago, his name has now escaped me, but he runs the Tremonier Sculpture Park and he looked around lots of different sculpture parks, as a form of kind of inspiration for his own sculpture park and it suddenly struck me that that should be a thing. Travelling around sculpture parks in Europe seems like a very civilized holiday to me and, you know, I would definitely I would definitely be the market for that.

Sarah Monk: 31:16

Well, I think you’re better right you’re better right one. I think I think I think it’s I think it’s definitely something that people are thinking more about. And maybe it’s just me that I’ve been drawn towards this world, and I’m finding it more and more enriching, although I really traditionally know nothing about fine art or sculpture. But, also, I do think that, you know, during the pandemic, there was a big change. I remember Isabel Langtry of Hampstead School of Art, she was saying that it was just so brilliant in the in the during the pandemic to see people meeting at the sculpture.

Sarah Monk: 31:48

It was their place that they met. And when people weren’t allowed to touch anybody else, they could touch the sculpture. So we had a big discussion about touch and the whole importance of touch, you know, in life generally and how sculpture gives us that. And I was also thinking when you were talking about monumental sculpture, sometimes there’s sort of series of a sculpture, so the sculpture is somewhere, but it’s also somewhere else. And so there’s that experience of two people in two different countries, but the same sculpture by the same artist, and that’s kind of cool.

Lucy Branch: 32:22

Yeah. Very much, like a kind of joining. And maybe if maybe if we could have portals, that would be the other thing. I’ll have to write another novel immediately about that. Where you know, instead of going through the stones like she does in Outlander, they go through the sculptures.

Lucy Branch: 32:41

Would be even better. The thing is I love that idea that different people in different locations and I don’t know how that sort of unites you in a way that you’ve, you know, you may be very different in lots of culturally and educationally and you live in different parts of the world, that sculpture actually is something that’s drawn you to both. And so it’s like an artistic meeting, even though you’d never really meet in person. That’s a lovely idea.

Sarah Monk: 33:13

Yeah. Well, I lived for five years in Philadelphia and the Robert Indiana, the love sculpture there, the the red love wood, is I’m sure there are loads of copies of that. You certainly see it on T shirts and everywhere. I mean, I can’t think there are many people who don’t know of it. But that became such a wonderful focus for stuff.

Sarah Monk: 33:33

You know? Whenever there was something bad going on or a feeling that people could have a little less hate or they could have a little more unity or, you know, the the demonstration would be around the love. Yeah. Or people would use the photograph, and and Philadelphia’s traditionally known as the City of Brotherly Love. So it served quite an iconic purpose, really, and as I say, I don’t know offhand where else they are, but I’m sure there’s more than one.

Lucy Branch: 33:59

Oh, thank you so much for chatting to me today, Sarah. I was hoping that you might just tell people where they could find out a little bit more about you, and particularly where they can find out more about your podcast.

Sarah Monk: 34:12

Oh, thank you. Yes. Please do listen in. So our website is materiallyspeaking.com, and on Instagram we’re materiallyspeakingpodcast. And materially speaking as a series is on every, I think, most normal podcast players, and we’re just starting our autumn series in a in a week or two.

Sarah Monk: 34:34

We’ve got some really nice people coming up. So we’ll be doing four people before Christmas, and we’re interviewing another four after Christmas. And then if the stars align, we’ll be creating a day at the May when people who wish to can come and meet many of those people in person and spend an hour with them in their studio.

Lucy Branch: 34:53

Thank you ever so much.

Sarah Monk: 34:55

Thanks, Lucy. That was really fun.

Mike Axinn: 35:00

So thanks to Lucy Branch. You can hear her conversations with living sculptors, investigations into historic statues, and discoveries in the world of public sculpture on Sculpture Vulture, wherever you find your podcasts. Her website is sculpturevulture.co.uk, and you can find her on social media at lucy brauch underscore sculptor vulture. As with all episodes, you can see some photographs of what was discussed on our website, materiallyspeaking.com, and on Instagram, materially speaking podcast. If you enjoy materially speaking, please join our community.

Mike Axinn: 35:35

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