I return to Bagni di Lucca with some sadness at two events that have recently hit it during my absence in London.
One is the devastating fire last Sunday that burnt down the Mirafiume, tennis club. We are clearly not only talking just about the structure but its equipment, which included rafting that is used in the highly successful white water courses on our Lima River.
The other is the closing down of the ‘Borgo degli Artisti’, a cultural association founded in 2005 in Ponte a Serraglio. This, too, is quite devastating. The Borgo was responsible for two major events in Bagni di Lucca: the extempore painting competition in the summer and the women’s week in the spring.
The events for the women’s week will continue, but in all likelihood ‘Colori e Sapori’ – the extemporaneous painting competition, attracting artists from all over Italy in the summer – will be no more.
“It has been decided with regret to close on January 15th”, states 76 year old Pilade Togneri, president for eleven years of the ‘Borgo degli artisti’, “since there were no positive answers from other associations we had asked to collaborate to ensure the continuation of the ‘Borgo’. The board was composed of eight people, while its members were more than sixty. It is with great regret that we are closing but organizing the events is difficult and tiring”.
The association’s honorary president was Mario Lena the former mayor and wonderful poet, and the Borgo was based in via Serraglia at the start of the bridge that crosses the Lima stream. Its founders included Damiano Marino Merlo, hotelier, Candido Martinelli, photographer, Morena Guarnaschelli, painter and several volunteers. The vice-president was the writer and local historian, Natalia Sereni.
Clearly, the real reason, in my opinion, for the Borgo’s demise was the fact that there were insufficient younger people willing to take over its running. A volunteer is worth ten pressed persons and sadly there weren’t enough of them.
It is incredibly sad to re-read my posts on the extempore painting competition, in which Alexandra Cipriani, my wife, was a keen participant.
Here are my main posts to show what Bagni di Lucca has lost:
https://longoio.wordpress.com/2013/06/30/painting-the-town/
https://longoio.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/painting-is-fun/
https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2014/07/15/exquisite-extemporaneity-at-bagni-di-lucca/
https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2014/12/10/christmas-conviviality-for-the-borgo-degli-artisti/
https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2015/07/12/a-time-to-paint/
https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2016/07/11/early-morning-at-villa-fioris-extempore-painting/
If you are interested do buy and read my poems and Alexandra’s paintings done at the extempore competition. The publication is available at https://www.amazon.it/Septet-Francis-Pettitt/dp/8869700526, at https://www.ibs.it/septet-libro-francis-pettitt/e/9788869700521 and at https://www.libraccio.it/libro/9788869700521/francis-pettitt/septet.html
All things must pass. Last year, among other things, we lost ‘Shelley House’, that exceptional bookshop and meeting place for writers and artists at Bagni di Lucca Villa. This year has started badly with the loss of two prestigious and loved centres.
Like the phoenix from the ashes let us truly believe that Bagni di Lucca will have new, good things happening to it this year.
Meanwhile let me regale you with the magical snowfall we have recently had over our valley.
Truly, out of the ashes, a Phoenix will rise., 360, I believe in all areas of life…. like the Church, will go very low, then the young, the lowest of us, will be the new life. The Eucharist is not a prize for the perfect.. but a powerful medicine & nourishment for the weak….. mankind
Thank you Colette for your positive thoughts.
It is all very sad indeed I keenly and religiously participated in colori e sapori extemporaneous art event not so much for the competitive element but for the amusement and fun of the day and I have to admit that for me it was certainly quite an arduous task to focus the mind and achieve the completion of a whole painting in the given time considering the heat of the day the brightness of the light but I managed to get through the day and produced my adorable little naive paintings. I then challenged Francis as a positive exercise to write a poem for each one and I must say that he rose to the occasion so admirably and penned away in his magical way and crafted those wonderful words into intriguing and compelling poetical works of art. Thus combined we produced our first colourful book as we were encouraged to so do that in itself I felt was a great contribution and achievement and demonstration of time well spent of former happier days and I am most grateful to everyone for the experience of happy days spent amongst well entrenched artists. I must say that so many other artists painters in our area could have contributed to this event but as you well know artists are quite temperamental creatures and when asked why they did not attend the answer curiously and understandably was that they felt that when constrained and compelled to achieve a painting in a myriad of ways or collaging or constructing a piece of artwork in public in the fresh air in one day that was too great a challenge and I certainly wholeheartedly agreed it was indeed a great challenge but very compelling and exhausting. I must thank the Borgo degli Artisiti for doing such a valiant job each year in organising this fun event.
Sadness all around regards the tennis club we had always intended to have a few rounds there I had even bought our tennis rackets at Petri for our Birthday present to achieve this somehow we felt having visited the once that we were not really up to form. So sad to hear about the rafting equipment too but hopefully this will as you said like the Phoenix arise from the ashes!
Thankyou so much for your heartfelt comment.