Just passed Piazza del Duomo, walking towards the old Porta a Lucca, we turn inwards and, before seeing the walls of the Rocca di Sala above, we find one of the artistic areas of Pietrasanta.
Right, just after the Musa (Virtual Museum of Sculpture and Architecture), there is La Polveriera, a recently founded cultural association, which brings together local and international artists… but above all female artists! After the previous visit to other workshops, where mostly men who have handed down the trade for generations work, three girls welcome us here. They guide us to the first room, where two of them work, Veronica Fonzo and Flavia Robalo.
With that calm and sweet cadence typical of Spanish, they tell us that they met at school in Argentina and then came to Italy "to stay only two months and be able to see how marble artists work". I've been here for 15 years.
Thus they gave life to La Polveriera, a “space for the creation and dissemination of art and culture”. Not only are born here marble works (including those by Szymon Oltarzewsky, two of which are currently on the wharf of Marina di Pietrasanta), but also paintings, jewelery and theatrical performances that combine art and music. Sebastiano Leta, a goldsmith originally from Sicily, creates unique pieces (such as a pair of pendants with Roman coins or jewel buttons), but also everyday objects, such as handles, vases and bowls for customizable dogs.
Looking for suitable spaces, these young artists they stopped in this area of ​​Pietrasanta, already discovered by many others previously to install their work spaces. The choice of the name "La Polveriera" came spontaneously: marble dust sparkles everywhere, to indicate the great work of creativity and manual skill that takes place there. The name also refers to dynamite, still used today to extract marble from quarries in the Apuan Alps, the mountains that overlook Versilia looking towards the sea. Thoughtful or serene faces of children and young women (the favorite subjects of the two artists) observe us, as they walk among the various rooms - one of these houses on a wooden mezzanine a real plaster cast gallery, in which hundreds of works in marble and sketches line up from floor to ceiling.
The association often organizes exhibitions and performances, and the works are accompanied by phrases, poems and quotes.
