An Art Appetizer

Have you seen something like this before?

La Scarpata by Ciro

Yah, really cool right?

If you have a fancy for shoes, you would easily notice that the base of this artwork called "La Scarpata" is an old Forma de La Scarpa (Shoe Last) used in shoemaking. On top of that, Ciro created a Paessaggio (Landscape) using teracota (clay).

First time I saw this, I was really blown away. For a year, I have been working together with shoemakers in Carcar, Cebu and shoe lasts like this were common to my eyes and 'lo and behold, someone uses this material for another purpose: Art.




THE ARTIST and the his shoe size.

For me, it is a big task to be a sort-of-biographer/documentarist/curios-wannabee for "Ciro".

Who is he anyway?

Ciro (pronounced as "Che-Roh") is an Italian mixed-media artist who creates artworks / compositions using a diverse range of materials: wood, iron, stone, cloth; also,  waste material (i.e. old farm materials, drift wood, clay, any kinds of metal, mushrooms, thrown-away-photoframes, waggon wheels, etc., etc., etc.) , which he considers more full of life.

Inspired by the Persian King Cyrus, he labeled himself the Italian version of the name: "Ciro".

He was born in Pescara (a seaside town in the Italian Region of Abbruzzo) in 1947, Roberto Cipollone (Ciro) spent his childhood and youth around the foundry craftsmanship of his father.

Driven by a deep love for nature and together with a strong spiritual force, he tries to take every opportunity to express himself, through small artifacts, paintings, drawings, engravings and compositions.

Pescara Harbour

Rocca Calascio in Abbruzzo

As you can see, he was endowed with beautiful scenery all around him. A sense of aesthetics that inspired him to pursue, by instinct, this passion for Art.

For a long period in his life, he lived and worked in the Tuscany Region of Italy, embracing the majestic hills, beautiful sunsets, and surreal lanscape that the region offers. Most of Ciro's artworks depict the heavenly scenes that Tuscany paints in the minds of each visitor or traveler.

Postcard-worthy view of a cottage in Tuscany

I would like to have a house like that :3

This is how Florence looks like when it's winter, and yes, it is part of Tuscany.

Ciro grew with this - it is his breath.

Soon enough, his city saw him as a partaker in various artistic initiatives.  

After a period of 6 years in the Netherlands, in 1977 he arrives in Loppiano, near Florence. It is here that Ciro took the opportunity to devote himself full-time to the activities where he expresses his artistic talent with inexhaustible imagination. 
 
Since 1982 he has been highly-esteemed in Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria.  

From 1991 he made commissioned works of sacred furniture and restoration work  for the environment, both in Italy and abroad.

So, that's his shoe size. Quite awesome but actually simple; and absolutely fantastic.

Ci Vediamo! (See you again!) 

Ciro in his bottega.

#ArtistaCiro
@ArtistaCiro

www.labottegadiciro.it