Italians as sculptures: a series
In 2004, after I returned home from a trip to Italy I challenged myself to create a series of life size bronze sculptures of influential and great Italians, from any era in history through today. Niccolo Paganini was the first life size cast in bronze. And this of Alberta Brianti was the second one finished in bronze.
Why create sculptures of Italians?
My grandpa Betti’s family came from Lucca which is a small city in the Tuscany region. On this trip I visited the small city of Lucca and went to a phone book just for the heck of it and saw several pages of Betti’s listed. I never felt so at home seeing Betti after Betti listed! I wanted to call each and every one of them and express the joy I felt and make a complete fool of myself. “Hi I’m a Betti too!!”. But I didn’t. As an American I was usually “Betty” first then Sutton. It used to make me so frustrated as a kid. But when I saw how common of a name it was, not only in Lucca but in much of Tuscany, I connected more to my roots then I had before.… this idea was born from that experience and its one I’ll never forget; sculpt Italians and do it well.
