SWALLOWS AND SWIFTS

Summer Newsletter from Quattro Archi Art Centre, Barga.

Welcome to the 2026 season at Quattro Archi Art Centre.  We were delighted to welcome our first visitors last week attending a silk painting course with Carole Waller.  A lovely gang and one of them, a keen 'twitcher' informed me that many of the wonderful swallows that swoop between the ancient buildings of Barga are, in fact Swifts.  Swifts have a distinctive crescent shape and lack the white colouring on the front.  But whatever they are, and there seem to be both, it is truly a privilege to be able to watch them in the late afternoon flying with spectacular speeds almost putting on a show for us as we relax on the terrace.  Some may be reminded of DH Lawrence's poem 'Bats' which explores the sunset transition from bird to bat...

And you think:"The swallows are flying so late!"

Swallows?

Dark air-life looping

Yet missing the pure loop ...

A twitch, a twitter, an elastic shudder in flight

And serrated wings against the sky,

Like a glove, a black glove thrown up at the light,

And falling back.

Never swallows!Bats!

The swallows are gone.

And we were fortunate that one of our students this week painted her silk scarf with the image of a Swift.....beautiful.

Gearing up for an exciting set of retreats, courses and workshops.

So now we start a busy period with six exciting workshops.  After the current silk painting (plus) course led by Carole Waller who is known for her 'Wearable Art', we have two specialist workshops from Jo Horswill at Paper Cloth Studio.  Jo comes from Melbourne Australia and has a worldwide following of those inspired by botanical printmaking.  Jo has with her, her infallible assistant Warren who is responsible for manning the boiling pot of natural due derived from plants that Jo and the class have foraged.  As the week progresses, buckets of soya milk, peroxide and green tea appear to add subtle changes to colours and textures of the prints.  And this year there is an exciting add-on, Victoria (Toi) who ran a tremendous bookbinding course with us last year is returning for a couple of days to help the class put their prints together into an artists book.  This should be great fun.....a great idea. And the multinational twist to the courses is interesting.  We have people from Australia, India, Switzerland, Norway, Germany, Netherlands, UK and USA.

After the dramatic botanical printing courses we tone it down just a touch with the subtle quality of a Drypoint Masterclass.  Drypoint is a modern version of intaglio printing where the image is scored, scratched, scraped into the surface of an acrylic sheet.  The indentation and associated 'burr' hold the ink and impart a soft image to the wet paper pressed into it with the printing press.  It looks like it will include other media like water colour and collage too.  Should be wonderful.  Michael Waight, Master Printmaker and former artist in residence at Quattro Archi is leading this course.

Following the Drypoint we have the return of Susie Hunt who will run a Water Colour retreat, taking students to the very best parts of Barga to sketch and paint outside, always with the option to return to the studio for follow-up.

And finally for the first part of the summer, we have the ever-popular lino printmaking course from Jane Richardson which promises this year to add on even more options....lino with bells and whistles!

Republic Day Street Printing Community Project

Republic Day is quite a new thing it Italy.  In the context of a nation where everything from the buildings to the bureaucracy seem so old, the republic of Italy is only 80 years old.  When Michelangelo Buonarroti was carving David from the Carrara mountains we gaze at from our terrace, the Italian Republic wasn't even a twinkle in anybody's eye! In fact Italy as a nation wasn't born until 1861....and the delivery of the infant Italian state took some 10 years to complete.  And the republic didn't materialize until 1946 after WW2.

So apart from being the 80th anniversary of the formation of the republic,  it is also the day that Quattro Archi have been invited to participate in a community project.  The whole town centre in Fornaci di Barga is traffic free and full of stalls promoting sports or selling every variety of things.

The Quattro Archi stall offered a 'street-printing' experience to all, old and young alike. The kids love it.  They got to choose a ready cut lino plate to print from showing various elements of St Christopher (Barga patron saint) or draw their own and then choose a colour.  Then over to the relief printing press to realize their creativity.  It can be more difficult to get men to participate but we did have a cardiac surgeon who was very precise and an amusing teenager who really wanted to print the Madonna but reluctantly settled for Jesus on the shoulder of St Christopher!

We don't charge for the street printing and we are happy to offer it to the community as part of our contribution to art in Barga.  We were delighted to have the help of Kristin who was a real asset....Thanks.

Simply Spectacular Stunning Silk Scarves

There's quite a buzz in the studio with nine enthusiastic students busily creating on silk.  Firstly on paper (you don't want to mess up your silk....it's pricey) then on the gorgeous silk.  Some people using the very finest see through fabric, others with textured silk and some plain.  Applying special mixtures of viscous and lucid colours which combine to create a kaleidoscope of colours and patterns ranging from birds to landscapes and buildings. Some abstract, others deeply rooted in the imagery of Barga.....but all...universally beautiful.  And after hours of washing, ironing, steaming and drying, the final product emerges like a butterfly from the chrysalis. Fine, colourful, flowing and hopefully longer lived!  The week progressed very well with no hiccups and it was fun to see the frenzy of activity to get things finished as the course drew to a close! The final result was a spectacular show of scarves in the Quattro Archi gallery with a good attendance from the local community.  These pop-up exhibitions are always good fun.  And thanks To Carole Waller for tutoring.

Pay-What-You-Can

You may have seen our emails and posts offering places on three of our workshops in June and July for whatever you can afford.  Unusually there were some empty spaces on these courses which I think was due to the global tension around us and people feeling a little nervous about travelling.  It is better for those on the course if there is a good number.....probably 7-8 is the optimum, so we thought we'd try and fill thoses spaces.  At the time of writing, seven people had taken up the offer including two from Ireland, two from England and two from Scotland.......anyone from Wales??  There are still a couple of places left, so please get in touch if you are interested.  The courses are Drypoint on 19th June, Watercolour on 26th June and Lino-Cut on 3rd July.  Six nights, 5 studio days each. Accomodation included.

Pop-Up Exhibition Friday 5th June 18:00-19:00 Botanical Printing

Our super-creative botanical printmakers are busy as I write this, making cyanotype prints.  The garden at Quattro Archi is a hot-bed of alchemy with baths of tea, coffee, soya milk and more....not to drink but to add colours to the cyanotype prints.  If you would like to see the work they have created under the guidance of Jo Horswill (Paper Cloth Studio), come to their Pop-Up exhibition on Friday 5th June 18:00-19:00.  Free entry.  Refreshments served.  Please join us for a glass of wine.

Naked Men in Barga

It's not often that you get out of your car in a small town to the sight of a naked man staring at you.  Well that's what you will find in Barga this summer.  In fact there are lots of naked men ranging from 20cm to nearly 4 metres.  They are part of the spectacular sculptural installation by the artist Emanuele Giannelli titled 'The Visionaries' or more correctly 'I Visionari'.  The statues are placed in various places around the old town and in some buildings.  We caught a couple of young art enthusiasts doing their best to fully appreciate the creativity of Emanuele and make their own interpretation of his work. Thanks to Donnie and Chris for their creativity.

Return Visitors

It's always a pleasure to welcome people back to Barga and Quattro Archi and we have a growing list of repeat visitors.  I think we offer a safe reassuring location in a lovely Tuscan town and an in-house studio and gallery.....it just makes life easy...and those views are always a reason to return.  This week Sabine and Lillian returned.  I was thinking about who has had the most visits.....it must be close between Sally (who returns later this year) and Lillian.  Both have not only visited many times but also visited multiple times in one year.....very dedicated!

I think Bill is our most frequent male visitor and it was a delight to hear that Bill is now engaged to Sheila who he met here at Quattro Archi.  So we are hoping to hear of a our first wedding soon. Congratulations.

More Info....

Vicolo del Duomo, Barga, Lucca

Queens Road, Aberdeen

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