About This Project
286. The Great Clearing – Project
1973, bronze, h. 16 x 78 x 68 cm
Photo Mario Mulas
The vast clearing: another sorrow, another renunciation. It has often happened that with such projects I would get all excited about them and then suddenly give up, overcome by my own suggestions which turned out to be utopian. It was Dr Max Stern who told me about the project of a garden of sculptures to be created in the middle of a forest on the majestic banks of Lake Ontario. I had only seen those banks in the photos he showed me. It wasn’t an actual proposal but more something like «Think about it, then we shall meet».
I thought about that for an entire summer, and I remember that where I was it was possible to find just plastic-wood, the only mouldable material available in the local shops. It was used by the local carpenters to putty and by the secondary school pupils in their class works. I shaped over some small scraps given to me by the carpenter five elements which melted architecture and sculpture together and, to my mind, shared the foundations and rules of both arts. It was rather difficult to accomplish what I wanted because the plastic-wood dried quickly, becoming hard when exposed to the air.
When I got back to town, I left them there for some time, waiting for the right moment to look at them again. Then, one day, I placed them in circle and in a certain order over a surface which I filled up with plaster of Paris and moulded according to the idea I had in my mind. I imagined a vast clearing with a wood, almost rectangular in shape, and within which there were circles at various levels. One could get to the clearing only through long and narrow paths in the wood. Only when everything was finished, did I realise that it looked a lot like Stonehenge or, if you prefer, like the Avebury or Callanish stones in the Hebrides. That was the price I had to pay for not realising it beforehand. However, please believe me, I had not based my project on the Druidic monuments, but it was my subconscious that fell under their influence. The following summer Dr Stern came to my studio as he used to do. He kept to his words and he immediately told me about the project but when I showed him my work, which he actually liked, after having listened to my explanations and ideas he said, «Too much expensive». And that was it [M.N.].