GOLDSMITH'S TOOLS

Works by Piero Porta

 

Piero Porta (Valenza, 1925-1996), studied at Scuola Serale di Disegno in Valenza. Since 1948 he  worked as a goldsmith in some city companies until 1963 when he opened his own workshop.  His choice to dedicate himself only to painting, taking part in exhibitions and cultural events dates back to 1976. From 1994 to 1995 he was a goldsmith master at the school For.Al “Vincenzo Melchiorre” in Valenza.

 

Since I was a boy, I have been fascinated by drawings and in my free time it was my own world.

[…] I think that it’s a cultural fact to pass down the history of an ordinary person living in Valenza, like me, who ,from his beloved country, used his talent at moulding metals to deliver his knowledge to places beyond frontiers.

 

In a lapse of time I saw the socio-cultural changes of my generation and with these memories I paint the tools that every worker […] left in the past, not so long ago,  created and gave the irrefutable fact of art  to all of us and  Valenza.

 

The humble tools, which show the attachment and desire of our old goldsmith to hand over the art of craft to posterity, are still today “artisan” objects , useful to  work and, because of their low possibility to survive in the future, I depict them with love and poetic sensitivity. With these humble tools I paint nature , which  under human control , takes on its personality.

 

Describing  each goldsmith tool is like seeing all  them working ; painting these shapes on canvas I never feel lack of creative inspiration to render the power of still nature in a self confident awareness of harmonies : pliant thicknesses softened with a bright ray, the still nature made unchanging by a colour and tone intensity that suggests a prompt elegy without hesitation 

 

(Piero Porta (1980), Cultivate my vocation…, Piero Porta, from Piero Porta  a quiet converesation. Works and ideas from 1942 to 1996, 2007, Comune di Valenza – For.Al)