Carraran Marble

The studio took a field trip to Carrara. It is an area which is known for its marble. We went there because part of our studio investigates ground and architecture. Carrara is near Cinque Terra. It was pretty cool, there are literally mountains that are cut in half and mined. The size of the chunks of marble was enormous, so I won’t be bringing a new kitchen countertop back with me. I never actually thought about where marble came from before this experience and I would have never imagined there would be mountains of marble in this world.

When we first got there, we got out of the bus and the weather was clear and perfect. About ten minutes later, we saw a thick gray cloud charging at us. The rain wasn’t really dropping, rather than just running into us, because it was a cloud. The streets were like the streets you see on a Porsche commercial, hairpin turns and only one lane the whole time. That was pretty nauseating.

When we were viewing one of the quarries from a birds eye view, a friend and I decided to scale the hill down to the quarry and actually get into it. So, I was inside a mountain that used to be pure marble. It was awesome to feel a 1:1 relationship with the quarry, rather than viewing it as an object. Everyone else in the group was pretty jealous. The climb back up the hill was work though.

These mountains have been mined for a very long time, and they will never run out. The area is known for its lard, which I tried and is surprisingly very good. I guess it is suppose to be a delicacy. I had a lard sandwich. I probably should have a few more, I wish I had a scale because I would guess I lost 15 pounds since being here.

These mountains are also where Michelangelo personally went and selected his chunk to carve ‘David’ out of. We hiked up a mountain and had some pretty great views of the area.