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Puerto Rican born Nilda Comas tells how she came to create the first state-sponsored African American statue for the US Capitol’s National Statuary Hall, in Washington.
A podcast where artists tell their stories through the materials they choose.
The statue itself is a unifying dimension.
Speaker 2:To have her included means inclusion.
Speaker 3:To see her being honored in this way, it's amazing, and I do feel as if the whole world should know.
Speaker 4:She has captured her soul and her spirit.
Speaker 3:I'm proud. I'm excited. I can't wait to see it in Washington DC.
Speaker 1:The statue and the whole process is bringing a full light to the grandeur of her life.
Speaker 5:Hi, this is Sarah with another episode of Materially Speaking, where artists tell their stories through the materials they choose. Today's story starts in Pietro Santa, in Northern Italy, where generations of artists have been carving marble since Michelangelo first came here five hundred years ago to choose marble for his Pieta. Sculptor Nilda Comas tells us of her personal journey and of a special commission she recently completed, which speaks of the times we live in, the role that statues play, and some of the challenges of the last few years. It also tells of tender cooperation between old allies, both for Nilda on a personal level with the clay, bronze and marble studios which he has worked in for more than twenty seven years, and also historically between America and Italy on the world stage. In 2016, Puerto Rican born Nilda won the commission to create the first state sponsored African American statue to enter the National Statuary Hall Collection in Washington.
Speaker 6:I'm Congresswoman Kathy Castor of Florida. I represent the Tampa Bay area in the United States Congress. I was first elected in 02/2006, and it was at that time, after I was sworn in, I learned that every state in America has two statues that represent the state in The United States capital in the what they call the Statuary Hall Collection. I found out early on that Florida is represented first by John Gorey. He's the inventor of air conditioning.
Speaker 6:So that's quite appropriate for the state of Florida. Right? But the second statue is a a very obscure confederate general who was on the side of slavery, in the confederacy in the civil war era. He was born in Florida, but never really lived there. He is not a good representation of our beautiful, diverse state.
Speaker 6:But it took many years to get, people's attention on the need to replace the statue. It was after the horrendous massacre in Charleston, South Carolina in the Mother Emanuel Church where a white supremacist, shot people who were worshiping together and who had invited the shooter in. That after that massacre, states and communities started to reexamine their symbols and their statues. And we asked again the state of Florida, please, it's time to replace our statue.
Speaker 5:First, I met with Nilda in the summer of twenty nineteen at my home above Pietro Santa. Nilda picks up the story.
Speaker 3:The state of Florida decided to change sculpture that was at the National Statuary Hall. The governor appointed a committee to choose the sculpture. There were 1,600 entries. It was a nationwide competition throughout The United States. And from that they reduced it several times.
Speaker 3:I was here in Italy when I got there. There were 60 chosen now. And so I thought, oh, I was getting a little more serious about it. And then from that there were 10 finalists. Nine were men from all over The United States and I was the only woman.
Speaker 3:We went to Tallahassee, to the capital, and we made our presentations. And of the group, I was also the only one who could work in marble or bronze. And then I didn't know who I was going to sculpt because they had not chosen. This was three years ago. And then the legislature of Florida chose and just one vote she didn't get.
Speaker 3:Otherwise it was unanimous to have Mary Bethune.
Speaker 5:So I'd never heard of Doctor. Mary McLeod Bethune. I knew she was born in 1875 and died in 1955. But I was keen to hear who she was and why her statue going to Washington would be significant.
Speaker 1:I have always known her to be an iconic figure in my community. For me, she served as a model of possibility, even as a young child. She set an example of a way forward.
Speaker 4:Doctor. Bethune is best known by most people for her political activism in The United States. She was sort of the precursor to Doctor. Martin Luther King in terms of advocating equal rights for all.
Speaker 1:A little girl born on the heels of slavery starts her own college, integrates baseball essentially to serving as the advisor to four presidents, an extraordinary life.
Speaker 7:When you think about what was going on in The United States, the obstacles she must have faced, the doors that must have been closed to her, the people that didn't receive her, but she calmly but firmly persevered.
Speaker 8:That's just what Mary McLeod Bethune did. She rose above the obstacles, the circumstances, the issues, problematic people, and she founded one of the the best institution there is in the country.
Speaker 4:She makes a statement, faith is what makes all things possible. I think it was her faith that allowed her to believe because not only was she doing things that blacks could not do, she was doing things that women as a whole could not do at the time and doing them boldly and nobody was stopping her.
Speaker 2:This black woman who had 1.5 dollars and sold potato pies to provide educational opportunities, who was counseled to not just one president, but several presidents.
Speaker 7:She represents a a person who fought for the education of African Americans, but fought for education in general in the sense that she really believed education was a key to the future.
Speaker 1:She moved to Daytona Beach where she decided she would start a school there, and the Ku Klux Klan said, not here. But she said, yes, I will build it. They said, no, you will not build it here. We will burn it down. She said, if you burn it down, I will build it again.
Speaker 3:And she achieved things that were actually more important than anyone else, I believe, because, okay, Martin Luther King was pacifist and he was an amazing orator. And he guided towards what actually Doctor. Brithun achieved in law, because it's really what's written and what's the law is what at the end counts. They call her the mother of civil rights. And the way that she achieved this was such a very intelligent way, because at that time she had to be so diplomatic about her ideas, about what needed to be done, what had not been done, what was an embarrassment, and what needed so badly to become law.
Speaker 3:She rented Abraham Lincoln's office when she moved to Washington DC. So all of a sudden people are talking about who is this person? She's an African American woman and she's right across the National Gallery and she's having this tease and inviting every head of the movements for the African Americans like the Veterans Movement, Education, all of the heads of those movements were invited to tea on Fridays. And she there, very diplomatic would ask, would you please write down what you're trying to accomplish for your group? And with that she would take those to Franklin Roosevelt, she would actually hand it to him.
Speaker 3:I asked when I went to the Library of Congress, how many times a month do you think that Doctor. Bethune would go to the White House? And remember the times, the only African Americans at the White House were the help. Nine times average they say that she would go to the White House in a month.
Speaker 5:It's unbelievable.
Speaker 3:Yes. She found a way to get things done and become law and also help in a way that no one else had helped, because we didn't have, they didn't have the representation in the Senate or in the House of Representatives.
Speaker 9:In these times, missus Roosevelt, we feel that in order to achieve the goal of civil and human rights for all, It is necessary for women of all races and creeds to know and understand each other. The National Council on Legal Women serves now as a clearing house for the women of our major organizations. But this is not enough. We need the strength of all women who believe as we believe and they need us for none of us can do much alone.
Speaker 3:She wanted to start this university and she started in a dump ground that she paid a dollar for this land. So she had this dream about this school and she went over to Rockefeller, who had been buying land all around there. She made an appointment to go see him. She talked to him all about the university. And he said, I should take some time and go and see the school.
Speaker 3:And she said, Well, the school is only in my mind. But if you help me with some money, I will make it a reality. It was just a dream, she said.
Speaker 5:Nilda will be the first Hispanic master sculptor to create a statue for The US Capitol's National Statuary Hall. And I asked her to tell me how she became an artist.
Speaker 3:I was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. And I used to go to the museum when I was like seven, eight, nine and copy paintings. My grandparents gave me a French easel and I used to walk from their house, which was at the end of the street, to the museum and sit there and paint. And I guess I was nine when some lady offered me $500 for a painting that I did a copy of one of the red cardinal dressed Velazquez. And so I copied that painting many times because I love the painting and I'm very fond of Velazquez.
Speaker 3:I didn't know that that was the way to do it, you know? I was just a little kid, but I just said, and I'm not happy with this one, I do another one. And I would just do it until I was like, I was sitting painting when this lady comes and she said, Is this finished? It looks finished. And I said, Yeah, I guess it is finished.
Speaker 3:And then she said, Would you sell it to me for $500 And I said, Well, yes. I never worried about being an artist, you know. I just like said, Yeah, I'm going to do that. I was always doing things. I made puppets and we had these puppet shows with my brothers and friends.
Speaker 3:Our neighbours looked forward to our puppet shows and they would pay to come to our puppet shows and buy popcorn and everything. Did you make up the stories too? We made stories. We had a whole group doing different things, you know. Fabulous.
Speaker 3:It sounds so fun. Yeah. So it was growing up very easy in Puerto Rico at the time. It was very nice times. And my father had all these friends who were artists because he used to teach at the university.
Speaker 3:And then he stopped because he wanted to make more money and they didn't pay very much. And so he was kind of a frustrated artist in a way because he had business and his friends were all artists. But he never disconnected from that. So we would go to their shows and openings and we would play in their studios. I used to post for one of them.
Speaker 3:And so it was really fun growing up, but it was natural to be an artist, I think, in my mind. And from there, did
Speaker 5:you self teach or did you go
Speaker 3:to art college? First, I went to University of Puerto Rico my first year and they didn't have a good art program. So I was in the humanities and philosophy taking some classes. Then I went to Texas. There was a teacher that I like and I thought I was a painter, but anyway, ended up being more of a sculptor than a painter.
Speaker 3:Even though I do, I just finished two life-sized portraits when you asked me if I was doing in oils. Were they commissions? Yes, they were commissions. And so I studied in Houston, I got my BFA there and then moved back to Fort Lauderdale where I had been going as a college student and my grandparents owned a home there. So as a child, I used to visit my grandfather was in the rum business.
Speaker 3:He was the president of Don Quit Rum and the sugar business. So we used to go to Florida because they had a lot of land there for the company. And that's how I ended up staying in Florida because I got married and my husband was from Texas. Then I had a real estate office with my husband for seventeen years. I always had my studio, but, you know, it was like I always been an artist.
Speaker 3:I always thought of myself as an artist. And this was just some some way to make more money. But, you know, my other thing was always having my studio at home and working and doing different works and exhibitions and so on.
Speaker 5:It's so refreshing to hear you say that because I think a lot of people feel you have to be one thing or another. And actually realistically, it doesn't always work that way. And I think people get put off doing artistic things when it doesn't immediately pay.
Speaker 3:I think anything that you get up every day and you do all day, you get good at it. It doesn't matter what it is. You'll eventually find your way with that. And so I had a visit from a sculptor named Bruno Lucchesi. He looked at my work and he said, You know, you shouldn't be doing real estate.
Speaker 3:You should just do this. And so that kind of got in my mind. And he called me. This was like in April, and he called me in May. And he said, What are you doing this summer?
Speaker 3:And I was so proud of myself. I said, Well, I just booked a flight to go to Arizona and to New Mexico, and I'm going to see some shows and some workshops that are there, some sculptures. And he said, Why? You should go to Italy. Why don't you just cancel that?
Speaker 3:Just go to Pisa, fly to Pisa and take the train and go to Pietro Santa and I'll write some letters for you. And I thought, why not? You know? So I did. I canceled the other and I came to Pietro Santa with Bruno Luguesi's letters.
Speaker 3:One was to the Charbieti studio.
Speaker 5:And how long ago was this?
Speaker 3:Twenty six years ago.
Speaker 5:Well, how was your first impression? How did you feel when you got Oh,
Speaker 3:I was so excited. Leo Mutti was working at the Charviati studio and he happened to be around when I came in And he saw me with this big suitcase and he said, Do you need help? Yeah. I told him, I said, I have these letters from Bruno Kessie, and one is to the Cervieti studio. I work there, he says.
Speaker 3:Then the other one is to Marcello. Oh, I know Marcello. Oh, yeah. And then the other is to the Oh, yes, I'll help you going over to Ivanos, which was Albergue Italia right there by the Palazzi. And then I saw the whole street and I could hear ting, ting, ting, ting.
Speaker 3:The whole street were studios then. And he walked me and introduced me to everybody around from one studio to the next, to the next, to the next. And I couldn't believe I thought I'd die and gone to heaven. But my letter was to go to Marcello Tomasi and that was Clay's studio. He really knew a lot, so I was really lucky to have been there first.
Speaker 3:And I used to go and ride my bicycle. But on the way there were some studios and the windows were up high. So I used to stand on my bicycle and watch Enzo Pasquini. Days and days I was like that. And I started coming earlier and earlier and watching him.
Speaker 3:And I said, my God, he is just so good. And then I would go on to Marcello. Then one day he comes out. I was scared because he knows that I'm watching. I thought he never knew.
Speaker 3:But then he said he could smell my perfume. He knew that I was gay. Oh my God, I didn't know it was so strong. But anyway, so he said, Yeah, come on into the studio. Would you like to draw the sculptures?
Speaker 3:You know, the plasters? I said, Yeah, why not? So I came even earlier. And he said, I brought you, you come in earlier and earlier. I'm here 06:30 in the morning.
Speaker 3:I had to be at Marcello's like at nine. That's a lot of time. Then I started drawing the plasters and he said, If you can draw like that, I can teach you, you know, I can teach you to carve marble. So I went over to Marcello and I said, Listen, I really want to learn how to carve marble. And he's given me an opportunity.
Speaker 3:And he said, Who is it? Enzo Buscreeni. Oh, Enzo. Oh. So I went to Enzo.
Speaker 3:I finally met Franco, which I already knew from going up in the mountains because we had what we call the scuptoristas on Sundays and go up climbing in the mountains. And so I only knew most of them just by their first name. So I knew Franco as Franco. But there are so many Franco's. But I should go to where Bruno told me.
Speaker 3:He told me to go to the Cervieti studio. I go over there and I see Franco standing there. Cervieti, Franco Cervieti. And I didn't know. I just knew he was Franco.
Speaker 3:And so I gave him the letter. I said, I'm supposed to give this letter to Franco Cervieti. And he looks at me because he didn't realize I didn't know he was Franco Cervieti. And he said, I am Franco Cervieti. I'm the big boss here.
Speaker 3:And I started laughing because I waited and waited because I was afraid to come and bring this letter, you know, to Franco Cervieti because I didn't think I knew enough yet. And then he said, Of course you can come to my studio, you know, and work. I used to see people on the fence wanting to come in, you know, from all over the world. And so I said, How lucky I am.
Speaker 5:A day or so after I first interviewed Nilda, I drew up in front of the famous Cervieti studios on the edge of Pietro Santa. A small white Fiat 500 is dwarfed by a towering marble statue of a man in ecclesiastical robes brandishing a book. Around him are large cubes of marble, and behind him, a building with a pink facade. Nilda told me how much she had learned from the artisans at Cervietes, how she served a kind of apprenticeship moving from one to the other, learning their specialities. One artisan only carved drapery, another hands, a third just faces.
Speaker 5:Over time, some have died, but the skills often pass on to the next generation, and the studio still has a family feel. Tall front doors open into a hangar like building. There is noise and there is movement as the truck carts marble around. And in the distance, I see an artisan wearing overalls and a boat shaped newspaper hat bending over a chunk of marble suspended on a sling. Mildred and I browse the photo gallery of past visitors on the walls and meet Franco Cervieti and his staff.
Speaker 5:He
Speaker 3:owns the original plaster cast, the only one ever done directly from the David when they decided to make the David a second one to put in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, the copy. And over there, they cut the marble. That was my dream, know, to do a big piece in Sattuario marble. And it's almost impossible. Everybody said to me, you're not doing her in bronze and a dark patina?
Speaker 3:I said, no. Through history, I think that one of the highest honors that you can give a person is to do a marble sculpture. All of us sculptors wish to find statuario, which is the finest of all marbles. Soft, easy to carve, but it is so compact that we can get a lot of detail. So it is the best all through history.
Speaker 3:However, a big block like that is very hard to find. Franco knows how much I wanted to get the best marble for this work. And he's been to the National Statuary Hall and he said, We have to get a really good marble for this work, okay? I used to go up in the mountains and see the different caves. And so I went with him in July.
Speaker 3:There wasn't any available. But then, three weeks later, he called me and he said, They have gone to an area from the cave where we visited, Michelangelo's Cave in Carrara. They think they can get a big block. Maybe it's been over thirty years since they've gotten a block that large from that cave. I was just so surprised that from that cave where all of it was just all broken up, there would be a piece that large.
Speaker 3:He said, bring it down, bring it down because he knew what would happen, a bidding war. But he called me and I called the president of the university and I said, we have found a piece of marble. We will never be able to find another one like this. I am going to go ahead and purchase it. And so he said, we will wire the money right away.
Speaker 3:And they did. The last time I was here, someone came by the studio and offered me five times what I paid for it. And here is Mary Mary Bethune. See?
Speaker 10:She's in the plaster Beautiful.
Speaker 3:Waiting for the marble to get her marble. And so she'll have the rose. Of course, there's a lot more finished work to be done, but this is the model. And from there, we take off. And so the rose will be in black, all in black.
Speaker 5:I see that Mary Bethune's contribution to education is shown through the cap and gown she's wearing. But I wanted to know more about Nilda's research and how she created her vision for the statue.
Speaker 3:Her granddaughter took me to the the log cabin where she was born and where she lived with her sisters and brothers, 17 in total, with her parents, a two bedroom cabin. And so I saw that and I read farther about those days and how she picked a book and the little girl took it away from her, from the plantation where her mother and father work and brothers and said to her, it's against the law for blacks to read. And that stay with her all through the night, that night, she thought to herself, well, you know what? I'm going to learn to read because I love books. And I think that's the difference between blacks and whites.
Speaker 3:And it just happened that this group of missionaries knocked on the cabin. They just knocked on it about two days after this happened and said, any of the children want to learn to read and write. And she was there and everybody pointed at her because they knew. And so that's how it all started. After picking about six or eight bushels of cotton as a little girl, eight years old, she used to walk six miles to go to this minister's home.
Speaker 3:She would walk all that every day to go and learn how to read and write. When she visited Switzerland with Roosevelt, they took them to a garden and there were some bushes of black roses. They gave her a black rose and she wrote a beautiful short essay about the black rose and the interracial garden. Through her life, people gave her after that black roses for birthday and different occasions. And I noticed at the museum, at her home, in her desk, there's black roses, dried black roses.
Speaker 3:So I have her holding the cane that Roosevelt gave her. And then on her other hand, she has a black rose. It really symbolizes the interracial garden that she wanted. And so I think that it will catch people's eyes. I'm doing it in black marble from Spain.
Speaker 5:I just want to mention here that Mary Bethune was invited to help draft the United Nations Charter. And as well as her close friendship with Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt, she was an adviser to other presidents, including Truman. Another feature of the statue is a pile of books at her feet.
Speaker 3:This bottom is important because it has the two feet and the third leg, which are the books. I decided that we needed a third leg for balancing the weight. You can remember the David having a tree trunk as the third leg, and so I'm using the books and since she was in education, what took her so far was her education and her desire for every African American child to be educated and founder of the university, the books would be important. And on the spines we wrote from her last will and testament, the titles on the spines are from that.
Speaker 5:I then asked Nilda to explain the process by which she got to this stage with the eight foot clay model of Mary Bethune waiting for approval from the architect of the capital so it can be roughed out in marble. Nilda told me, after refining her ideas, she made a foot tall plasterline model in her studio in Florida. She brought that maquette to Italy and enlarged it to a two foot model. Then she took a mould of the two foot model to create a positive copy in plaster. Then a pantograph, an instrument which traces the movement of one pen to produce identical movements in a second, produces a double size four foot clay model.
Speaker 5:Then the process was repeated again to create the final eight foot model in clay. Nilda explains that with every enlargement you lose sharpness, like when you enlarge a photograph and it goes fuzzy. So you have to put in more detail.
Speaker 3:Right here, you see this is flush on the outside, the block, and so this machinata is measuring the distance of how far you have to carve. And they are, you see, so many points. Yes, they go to the highest point, and the medium point, and then deepest point. And that is a guide for carving.
Speaker 5:Although the delays in Washington meant she was only authorized to work up to the maquette stage, Nilda had taken it upon herself to press on to the eight foot clay model before she left Italy. This turned out to be very lucky because none of us had any idea that a few months later, she would be separated from her work for many, many months. The autumn of twenty nineteen rolled on, and we entered 2020 talking about Brexit, riots in Hong Kong, and the bushfires in Australia. But these concerns were soon eclipsed by the arrival of a virus in the Chinese city of Wuhan. I'm recording the Zoom.
Speaker 5:Are you okay with that?
Speaker 3:Yes, that's fine. Yes.
Speaker 5:Is to really to get an update from, because last time I met with you at Cervietes, you had the eight foot model of Mary Bethune in play.
Speaker 10:Right.
Speaker 5:And then I think you were waiting to hear from-
Speaker 3:See what's happened is when I made that sculpture, I still did not have the approval of the maquette. I took a chance because I am doing everything as they had me agreed at the Library of Congress. So you were- So I was very, very worried about it, you know, even though the money's there, even though it was a law, I mean, you still have to go through the process. And I've learned a lot about the government and politics and going through the process through this. But now it has been approved, only two weeks ago.
Speaker 3:And it got approved because of Nancy
Speaker 5:Pelosi. Nancy Pelosi is the Speaker of the US House of Representatives and quite a powerhouse in US politics.
Speaker 3:I'm so happy I took the risk and made the big one because it's in plaster, it's at the Trivia Disk Studio, and they can start. And the bronze that is
Speaker 10:eight feet goes to a park in Daytona and the El Chiaro Foundry is going to cast this sculpture. Great. And it will go to a new park by the Intracoastal Waterway, which is a beautiful, beautiful place next to a brand new bridge that goes over to the island of Daytona Beach.
Speaker 5:Oh, that would be fantastic.
Speaker 10:Yes, where the university's main building is. At the end of that street is the intercoastal, and that's where the sculpture will go. And they have just renamed the street Marekatoon Boulevard.
Speaker 5:We're now in October, and we're in the piazza in Pietro Santa, and we're still allowed to meet, albeit outside. So I really wanted to find out from you what's been happening since we last spoke in the spring because you're now back in Italy from Well,
Speaker 3:since the spring, a lot of things have happened in America. There was Black Lives Matter, and this gave more interest towards the sculpture of Doctor. Batoum. I am back to work, and I'm working simultaneously in the marble and on the sculpture in bronze. So the marble will go to the US capital and bronze will go to a park in Daytona Beach where she actually founded the university.
Speaker 3:So I'm going back and forth between Cervieti and El Chiaro.
Speaker 5:I think you've been at Cervieti's checking the measurements with the machineterists. Yes, because this part
Speaker 3:is a very important part because all the measurements, the capo punti, everything has to be perfect. And then the artisans will follow. And right now they're working with a disc and it's just very, very rough. But those main points are very important. So we remeasured and also to make sure that we get the prettiest part of the marble.
Speaker 5:Ah, so that's the stage you're at at the moment then?
Speaker 3:Now we have decided all of that and we will keep checking these measurements in the next few days and then all the points will start, which will be about 3,000 points. Wow.
Speaker 5:So you're working with artisans you worked with before presumably? Yes.
Speaker 3:Marco is the son of Leo, Leo Mutti, and I went to the capital working in the basilica. That's the first time that I actually saw the National Statuary Hall. I remember that. That's wonderful. It's his son.
Speaker 3:Leo's retiring. His son, he's been working since he was very young, Marco. And then the other fellow, Francesco, is Cervieti's nephew, which I've known also since he was a kid. Going back, I worked in Pietra Santa on the largest relief in The United States, about 62 feet long. It's in the Basilica in Washington, D.
Speaker 3:C. I was one of three people who they chose to go to the Basilica and finish the work. And while I was there, CNN came and took some videos of us working and a congressman from Florida saw me. I had done his portrait years before when he was the mayor of Fort Lauderdale. He saw me and he called and asked if I wanted to have a tour of the Capitol with a curator.
Speaker 3:So we went and we had a beautiful tour of the Capitol and we went to the National Statuary Hall and in front of one of the sculptures, Leo Muthi started crying. Leo, what is it? And he said, you know, I was 18 years old when I did this sculpture for a sculptor who could not work in marble. And I never thought I would see it again and much less see the sculpture in a building like this, the Capitol. And so he was crying and I looked around and I said, Yeah, actually it would be something, you know, to have a sculpture that you've done here in this building.
Speaker 5:That's fabulous. So how long would this process take?
Speaker 3:Maybe January. And then more points will be set. So I don't think I will start working till probably February or so.
Speaker 5:On 01/06/2021, the National Statuary Hall was infiltrated by a 2,000 strong mob attempting to overturn the election results. By March 2021, when I next met Nilda, we'd been living with the pandemic a year, and by the time she landed in Rome, the last direct train to Pietro Santa had left. But, ever positive, Nilda told me how she enjoyed a spectacular dawn view from the window of the overnight train she finally took, and it reminded me of her pluck arriving here twenty seven years ago with just a handful of letters of introduction. What was the first thing you did when you got here? I rested after
Speaker 3:the two days and then I was able to go to the foundry and start work right away. And I was quite happy and surprised that the waxes that I needed to retouch were already made. The three large pieces of the eight foot sculpture in bronze had been cast, and so I saw the three pieces, which are almost finished, finishing the detail and patching all the holes from the casting. And also the top of the hat and the rose, everything has been cast already. So they're working on the finishing and then they will weld everything together.
Speaker 5:Beautiful. How is it in the pandemic? How different is it working in the studios? You said earlier that they close-up and the cleaners come in to
Speaker 3:make everything hygienic. You were quite lonely. I am there all day by myself, maybe with one other person in the large wax room, retouching the waxes, maybe with one helper. But we're very careful. We wear the mask all day long and our temperature is taken.
Speaker 3:But I think the biggest difference is a little bit of a loneliness when you work because before several artists would be there, but now artists cannot travel. So they're not there retouching their waxes. At the Trebia T studio, the same also. We're working in separate areas by ourselves.
Speaker 5:Are you using new technology? When you were in Florida, working with the teams over here, do you do it differently than before? I actually
Speaker 3:chose to work the traditional way. We did not use the robot. We used the pointing system with the machineta and the crochetto like it's been done for hundreds of years. And I decided this would be a good opportunity to have a classical sculpture and do it in the classical way. Since it goes to the capital in The U.
Speaker 3:S, so all those other sculptures in marble were done the same way, using this scorchetto and machineta and pointing system, which is a dying system, because now it's being replaced by the robot. And so many sculptors do not know this system. It takes roughly about ten years to learn. And have you
Speaker 5:been working with artisans you've worked with before?
Speaker 3:Yes, I have. The two artisans were actually the sons of artisans that when I arrived in Pietro Santa I worked side by side and I learned from. And these boys were coming to the studio when they were about 12 and they would work sort of like apprentices. It's beautiful to see that the tradition was passed on to them.
Speaker 5:It's a wonderful family feeling here, isn't it?
Speaker 3:Yes. Yes, it is. Of course, we have specialists in the studio for each stage of the work. First, I used Marco and that's when we were doing all the pointing. And now that we are working at a different level, I'm using Luca and his father was also at the studio for his whole life, pretty much.
Speaker 5:How long are you here and what's going to be the process from now on?
Speaker 3:Well, right now I am working at Del Chiaro, and I will be here until the May, so three months. And we should finish the marble sculpture towards the April and also the bronze. Finish, finish. Yes, finish, finish and we will have to take photographs. We are on the seventh step and the eighth step is the inauguration.
Speaker 3:So the seventh step is finishing and taking photographs for the final approval of the architect of the capital. It will not take that long because we're doing the sculpture exactly like the model and so there are no changes to it. So it should be just pretty much like a stamp.
Speaker 5:When we were last together in person over here, I think there were a lot of delays
Speaker 3:that Yes. And because of COVID, there's more delays. And then the event of January at The US Capitol.
Speaker 5:So what was the impact of that?
Speaker 3:The U. S. Capitol is closed to the public right now. So the official unveiling of July will be moved because at that time they don't expect the Capitol to be opened yet. And being that it is Doctor.
Speaker 3:Bethune and she will be the first African American in the National Statutory Hall, they would like to have an inauguration up to par to her importance. And so they prefer that we reschedule at a time when the public can be part of this inauguration.
Speaker 5:How do you feel differently about the project, working on it in the light of what we've all been going through this year?
Speaker 3:Well, still the project is an enormous achievement to have an African American in The US capital. In a way, the delays were good also because I think that time has a healing element. And with Doctor. Bethune, I believe that the more people know about her, the more they realize the importance of her life and that perhaps she will be more of a unifying person for The United States right now is so divided. And I think they will see her achievements without seeing the color.
Speaker 3:I really believe that this will happen, and I'm hoping that having her in the capital is going to bring some peace too.
Speaker 5:The day before the unveiling of the statue in Pietro Santa on July 2021, I met some of the fundraisers, state legislators, students and staff of Mary Bethune Cookman University, who had flown over from Florida to attend the ceremony. First, I talked with Nancy Lohman, the president of the Doctor. Mary McLeod Bethune Statuary Fund.
Speaker 7:I'm very proud that the state of Florida is bringing the first African American into Statuary Hall. I think it's fantastic. People of all colors, people of all backgrounds, people of all ethnicities, people of all interests, passions, everyone can find some common ground with Mary McLeod Bethune. I think it's a unifying event, and I think in America we need a unifying event like this.
Speaker 2:I'm Yolanda Cash Jackson, and I am a lobbyist. That means that I help Bethune Cookman University obtain funds and influence. I championed and advocated for the legislation that created the bill that allowed the statute to go forward and go into Statuary Hall. The racial discussions that are going on in The U. S, George Floyd, whether or not we take a knee, so many discussions about diversity and inclusion.
Speaker 2:And here we are with people from across the country, across the world, celebrating this woman of color. So it was a very emotional time. To have her included means inclusion, that we are finally represented in all aspects of the United States government, that we are influencers, that we've reshaped influence, that things will never be the same because we are there. It gives me chills just to think about that. That no longer will little black girls like myself, feel that they're not a part of what the world sees as The United States Of America.
Speaker 8:My name is Jakari William Harris. I've had the honor to attend Bethune Cookman University. I'm 25 years old. The journey is just beginning. This occasion today is historic.
Speaker 8:The work that Doctor. Bethune did, it is still being spread today, and we are committed to bringing about change and being the change that we wish to see. Because change first starts with us inside. Before we can begin to change others, we have to change ourselves, the way we think, the way we process, the way we do things, way we act.
Speaker 5:For
Speaker 1:Doctor. Bethune to be etched in marble at the epicenter of the Renaissance With the quality of marble that she has been memorialized with, the location, all of the symbolism of it really is extraordinary and reflects her life. She is the model of what we like to be as a community in terms of a spirit of having open hands and open hearts for diversity and difference.
Speaker 7:We decided as a board to raise an additional $150,000 for a bronze statue that will be made, of course, from the same maquette. So that bronze statue will stand in the middle of a brand new park called Riverfront Esplanade Park in Daytona.
Speaker 1:The bronze statue will inhabit a main park. I am so excited about it because we see this park as being the place where the entire city will come. This will be the spot that we will come to as a community to rally behind one another, to express that sense of togetherness and that resilience that has always been with us. We will do as we have always done, which is overcome.
Speaker 5:The visitors from The USA have seen Michelangelo's quarry, the studios and foundry where the marble and bronze statues were made, and now excitement builds for the main event, the unveiling of the statue outside City Hall. The audience gathers and prayers are said. Officials cluster next to Nilda, the mayors of Pietro Santa and Daytona Beach, translators, the heads of the clay and marble studios and of the bronze foundry.
Speaker 11:Read with these words, and may these be part of our prayer and part of our excitement for this day. I leave you love. I leave you hope. I leave you the challenge of developing confidence in one another. I leave you a thirst for education.
Speaker 11:I leave a respect for the uses of power. I leave you faith. I leave you racial dignity.
Speaker 5:July is not only Mary Bethune's birthday, but also Italians celebrate the start of the campaign, which swept up the coast from Sicily in July 1943, finally causing the defeat of Mussolini. The African American Buffalo Soldiers played a big role in this and have always held a special place of affection in the hearts of people in this part of Tuscany.
Speaker 12:We have wonderful friendship with The United States Of America. Thanks of them, we do really feel freedom, democracy, and justice since 1945, and thanks for being together with us.
Speaker 5:I heard emotion in foundry owner Franco Del Chiaro's voice as he added that his artisans felt honoured to be part of this project and to learn about Mary Bethune. As if symbolic of the frustrations of the last year, the sheet covering the statue snags, but as people gently tease it, it loosens and reveals Mary Bethune. And there she is, Doctor Mary Bethune carved in white marble, standing eleven foot high. She has a warm smile, kind eyes, and seems to be tilting forward slightly, as though listening to someone's point of view. She wears a cap and gown, and in one hand holds a black rose carved in black marble.
Speaker 5:In the other, a walking stick, modeled on the one Roosevelt gave her. At her feet are a stack of seven books with words from her last will and testament carved on their spines. Love, faith, hope, racial dignity, courage, peace, and a thirst for education. She wrote these towards the end of her life, hoping they would be her legacy and inspire the next generation. Carved on the base are her name, birthplace of Maysville, South Carolina, her birth and death dates, and one of her most famous quotes.
Speaker 5:Invest in the human soul. Who knows? It may be a diamond in the rough.
Speaker 11:I look at how we will see her position, her body stature, her eyes, her positioning on the balance on her feet, talks about both grace and power. And it is amazing to see how one statue can encompass all of this.
Speaker 4:She has captured her soul in a spirit.
Speaker 1:Yes. I can hear angels singing when I look at the statue.
Speaker 5:And then an evening concert at Cervieti's Marble Studios to celebrate the life of Mary Bethune on what would have been her birthday. Arriving early, find the four student musicians, Khalil, Hannah, Sarah and Chanticoreca warming up in the car park. The evening's program is kicked off by Nancy Lohman, chair of the committee.
Speaker 13:And of course, the star of the show, the person that we love so so much with all our hearts, and the person who has made all of our dreams come true.
Speaker 5:Nilda Comas gets a huge cheer and makes a short speech of thanks. There is music, and readings, and a lot of gift giving and thanks. It has been a team effort, and Nilda's close relationships with the studios of Pietro Santa have certainly paid off during the challenges of the last few years. Giancarlo Boratti's clay studio, Franco Cervieti's marble studio and the bronze foundry run by Franco del Piaro. One says, I'm just an artisan.
Speaker 5:I'm not used to this. Some of the visitors from The USA take turns reading from Mary Bethune's Last Will and Testament. True,
Speaker 9:my worldly possessions are few, yet my experiences have been rich.
Speaker 2:Yesterday, our ancestors endured the degradation of slavery, yet they retained their dignity.
Speaker 5:And then before the birthday cake, shaped like the books at the base of the statue, is cut, The alumni of Bethune Cookman University come up onto the stage to sing the university song.
Speaker 1:We are beyond elated and appreciative of Nilda and of the people of Pietro Santa for blessing us with such a beautiful gift. And though Doctor. Bethune had long passed long before I was born, Today, I felt like I was in her presence.
Speaker 5:Statue was shipped to Florida and went on view in Daytona Beach before taking a short tour to her birthplace in Maysville, South Carolina. Finally, it will make its way to The US capital for an inauguration in the summer of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3:I'm so lucky and so blessed to have such great support behind me because Del Chiaro and Terbieti, they know my hand, they know how I like things and I'm a little bit fastidious sometimes about things because I like everything like I did it and there's really not a lot of room for changes or anything else. But they are so proficient and so good at it that they are able to follow that instead of making changes or going on their own, you know, to like say, okay, this should be like this or like that. They're following exactly how my creation was, you know. So I'm very happy with that. I think anything that you get up every day and you do all day, you get good at it.
Speaker 3:Doesn't matter what it is. If you always do this every day, get up and do this, you'll eventually find your way with that.
Speaker 5:Our thanks to Nilda Comas. You can see her work on her website, nildacomas.com. Thanks too to the many contributors whose details can be found on our website, materiallyspeaking.com, along with some photos of Nilda's project creating the statue of Doctor Mary Bethune. Special thanks to my sound recordist, Andrea Gorby, and editor Guy Dowsett. If you're enjoying Materially Speaking, please follow us on