L'Italo-Americano

L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, JUNE 27, 2019 www.italoamericano.org 6 NEWS & FEATURES TOP STORIES PEOPLE EVENTS Continued from page 4 known outside of Italy and why did you decide to open your own atelier? As it often happens in life, it was by chance. After meeting, five years ago, my husband Alessandro and I immediately started working together. He used to work with his brother Gabriele, himself an artist, and that's how our team was born. We shared incredible experi- ences: we collaborated with Dolce&Gabbana and promoted safety gear company Dike; we got interviewed by RAI and par- ticipated to exhibitions along with art critic Vittorio Sgarbi; we gave portraits to Gianni Morandi, Beppe Grillo, MP Ignazio La Russa and Nello Musumeci, among others. We were only 27 when we met, but some of the paintings we created in those early years are now in many churches of the Catania province and we did have many an exhibi- tion, both in Italy (in Milan) and abroad (Lisbona). My husband, Alessandro Forte, made his first carretto when he was 17. It was a private commission and many people asked him about making more, but nothing concrete really hap- pened. In September 2014, in occasion of an exhibition of his paintings, the owner of the exhib- it's location spoke to Alfio Pul- virenti, a master carratore (maker of carretti), about Alessandro's work. Pulvirenti decided to come and visit the exhibition. Mr. Pul- virenti, had already heard of an artist called Alessandro Forte, because of that first carretto Alessandro had made years before. Yet, he did not imagine the two Fortes were, in fact, the same person. From that very day, Mr. Pulvirenti invested in us and helped us get our first commis- sion. It was a Catanese-style car- retto and we only had to decorate it and then varnish it. Today, we can work on more than ten carretti at once in our atelier and, in the last five years, we have delivered more than 50. We work on commission and the waiting list has been gradually increasing over time. You are all formally trained artists. But who did you have learn the art of carretti deco- ration from? Our team consists of three people: the Forte brothers (Alessandro and Gabriele) and I, Flavia Pittalà. All three of us attended the Emilio Greco Art School in Catania and I also graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts, always in Catania. Our training is purely academic, we mainly painted on canvas, then my husband and my brother-in- law deepened their pictorial knowledge focusing on life paint- ing. We learned about Sicilian decorations by ourselves, so it was fundamental to study and deepen our understanding of the works of traditional masters. Every cart that comes out of our shop is highly personalized by the artistic tendencies of the Forte Brothers (there is, for instance, a strong religious inspiration behind their work). While we strive to keep a tie with tradition- al methods and themes, we have been trying to improve style in our own way especially when it comes to figures' proportions and the details of each decoration. What is the link between Sicily and the carretto? The history of the carretto is very old and long. It started as a means of transportation, and only later it began to be use for leisure, after having been cleaned, polished and fitted with seats. Whoever owned a carretto was considered wealthy, because there wasn't only the price of the cart in itself to think about, but also that of maintaining and feed- ing the donkey that pulled it. The more the carretto was decorat- ed, the richer the family. After the coming of the Americans dur- ing World War Two and the rise in popularity of cars, carretti became fully artistic objects. Carretti are decorated and made following different styles, each tied to a specific Sicilian town: which differences are there, and why did they devel- op in different ways? Every carretto fully mirrors the area it represents. For instance, Palermo's carretti' s sides are larger than those of Catania's carretti, which have a characteristic 45° cut. The color of a Palermo's carretto is orangey yellow, a clear reminder of the typical colors of nature in that area. In Catania, carretti are red, just like the lava of Mount Etna. Who commissions carretti today? All our carretti are made on order and our customers, i carret- tieri, are often amateurs who inherited their carretto from their parents and now use them during special folkloristic occasions or festivities. Some of them want them restored to sell them. In Sicily, you'll find parades where carretti and the horses pulling them are richly adorned and move to the rhythm of drums and fischialetti, traditional Sicil- ian musical instruments. Do you have any interna- tional customers, maybe some- one from the US? Our clients come from every- where in Italy and we have recently collaborated with Dike and with Dolce&Gabbana, with whom we worked on the creation of 5 artistic fridges. One of them has been sold in the US! Last, but not least: is there any curious or special anecdote about your work you'd like to tell us? In the past 5 years, we have created carretti in different styles, sizes and stories. We decorated them in blue and green, with depictions of Jesus' miracles, French Medieval Knights (anoth- er popular theme for the decora- tion of carretti), Ulysses' voy- ages. Yet, the most special are those where our clients give us full artistic freedom. In the past 12 months, we created a carretto depicting the Bronte Massacre, which was carried out by Garibaldi in 1860, a piece of Ital- ian and local history that not many people know, but that truly happened. And we are proud of many of our creations. We always strive to reach the best results, and we always work with dedication and passion. Carretti Siciliani are not only part of our regional heritage, they are our job: we are proud and happy about many things we've done in the past years, including having the opportunity to share our story with you. But we don't want to abandon our roots, so we keep on working on religious paintings and portraits every time we have a spare moment. We think it is important the world rediscover its traditions, that people begin to truly value them, lest they get irremediably lost and that artists can work and make a living with their cre- ations. If only our politicians invested more on arts and on us classical artists and not only on those who follow modern trends … If you want to check out Flavia, Alessandro and Gabriele's work, or contact them, you can do so on their Facebook page (DADAme-artisti e decoratori di carretti Siciliani), or on their website, www.carrettisiciliani.net. The details of DADAme's paintings is breathtaking: here, images inspired by Greek literature aree delicately createed @ DADAme Artisti Decora- tori di Carretti Siciliani A typical subject of carretti Siciliani's decorations is the Charlemagne literary cycle and the adventures of Medieval Fren- ch knights @ DADAme Artisti Decoratori di Carretti Siciliani

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