An interview by Elisabetta Pescucci;

E. Are you glad to see your work of art published on a magazine dealing with marginal art?

L. Yse of course! Not only because I could be known out of Verona. I think it’s symbolic for one like me. It’s since the beginning of the year I’ve been trying to explainit deeply in Verona, looking for someone who can help me with the frames. My stones, so piled up, can’t say anything to anyone. That’s why i’m talking about frames. Six little stones with an explanation maybe are not sufficient. The frames could increase their value. But it’s not possible for me, all alone, cause I’m not rich. From an artistic point of view I’m satisfied, I couldn’t do more. I know my research is an historical document of great value. When things will be well arranged, even a child will see them. My present effort is getting home as many stones as possible to make these explanation panels. To save as much as possible because in a few years I’ll not be able to go to Adige no longer.

E. And so you’re going on carrying stones.

L. Yes, I go everyday. I look for the most movable shapes, that can be removed and showed so that the panel is as clear as possible. Since shapes repeat, it’s very explicative to bring near the most beautiful and similar. Then I draw a sketch and under it I write “dog-head” or “pig-head” or “male-symbol”. In the end, when I’ve prepared key stones, others come by themselves...I interested in the possibility, through Region, to recuperate a metal and cement structure for gravel excavation to put my stone collection inside.

E. It would be wonderful! A possible art exhibition in open on the river.

L. Yes, i would bring gravel in a structure once used to destroy gravel. But this is only a dream...cause I looked around and I saw cold, terrible cold. So I thought about another project: there’s another very ancient structure, here, of XV century. It’s three chilometres from here and it’s called “Il torrazzo”. If someone would buy it, it would be possible to obtain meny rooms, a bar, something to make it a public thing.

E. The first heads you discovered were sheep and fish ones...

L. First of all I discovered shiver!! The first time I interpreted the sheep head was for me an enormous emotion. I said to myself “Dear me but this is sculpture!”. I had found it in a stream and then I looked on the banks of Adige river too.

E. And there were other....

L. It was shocking! At first I didn’t understand cause I didn’t understand places. I saw the stones, the gravel, stones were beautiful, sometimes they were green. I picked them up because I liked their colour. But then I found the right place. Look, when I started here there was a surface pit. There were tens, a disaster! In the 70s, in Italy, there was a building boom. They crushed everything. When I started my research i looked around me and said “but they’re crazy!”. A really impressive thing. The top of speculation. Scrapers, shatterings. A terrible mess. They even made roads in the scree. In the morning hundreds of trucks came. It was my despair. Anyway on Adige banks I didn’t see the sheep head only, but an immensity of other sculptures. Ans so I had to pick up all of them and it was difficult, for me, to interpretthem. I didn’t understand because I saw they were similar and so I ran as fast as I could. It’s incredible and if my wife was here she would tell you that in that period it was a madness. In fact I worked and when I stopped I spent four, five, six hours to seek stones...Sometimes Adige even dragged me... One morning my wife called the Police because I hadn’t come back home. The lock had been risen up in the river and I, in the middle of the scree, decided to go. Water arrived to my neck and had stones on my shoulders holding me. But water was dragging me! And this didn’t happen once but many times...this is my life at Adige river.

E. So the research could never stop...

L. Thirty years. It’s stronger than me. Sometimes I decide to give up because my wife doesn’t understand me. I can stay away in the summer, since stones are more visible when it’s foggy.

E. you said stones were gifts to water.

L. Yes, gitfs to water. Gifts to water that came out of water. And they were always linked to animals and sacrifice...tha lamb turns into a religious symbol cause it’s the mildest animal. And fish too. The mildest animals become myths. What a pun! And this is poetry too. Stones were something sacred.

E. It must have taken a long time to carve heads...

L. They need sand and patience. But I think a lot was already present in the stone. They choosed stones with shapes already outlined by nature.

E. Did they accentuate preexistent shapes?

L. As artists always do. The most beautiful aren’t the most accurate but the most abstract. And what is art after all? It’s saying a lot with almost nothing.

E. What did you read on prehistoric men and their art?

L. This research of mine is out of prehistoric literature. I’ve read “Prehistory men”, a little book i had found in San Giovanni Lupatoto library. It impassioned me because it discussed the argument not from a lexical, scholastic point of view but as a tale of past times with kindliness. I remember an advice I’ve always followed, to be careful, when you dig, not to destroy layers you can’t compose again. I think it’s right. I never digged in my life. What’s the sense of doing so? You can find a hut bottom but then what can you keep? The point of an arrow? Instinctively I always referred to water. Animals and men need water and I looked for it everywhere. Water guided me very well, I’m sure.
What I’d want to be understood, the message, is what i know, what I completely accepted, and put on my shoulders. And it’s heavy, heaviest, an enormous reality. To throw away sub-culture is the mistake other cultures did. Real culture is an embrace and a smile. For me real culture is an embrace and a smile to other cultures...