Capital M Beijing

Beijing is monumental. Masculine, strong and tough, some of the finest buildings in the world are here. Just arriving at Beijing airport is an amazing experience. Designed by Foster and Partners, the airport is massive and looks like it has just lifted itself gently from the earth, the roof line soft and undulating, but in its underworld, [read more…]

Tags: Beijing, Capital M Beijing Restaurant, Debra Little, design, fine dining, foster and Partners, huge painting, Michael Cartwright, Michelle Garnaut, Roger Hackworth

Our Beginnings

Twenty six years ago we came to Italy. We came young, enthusiastic, wildly idealistic and full of promise. We were going to spend the rest of our life dedicated to our art and we were going to spend it becoming great. We had met two years before in our final year at art college. We [read more…]

Tags: Carrara Ortonova Fontia Marble Quarries Mountains italy

Cycladic Art – truth to the spirit

Life is a cool thing. Its funny, not everything is meant to be known to you as you go about life’s lessons, maybe if they were, we would be too cerebral about learning, maybe you have to take things in through the osmosis of the emotions, the brain, the body, so that you really know [read more…]

Tags: African art, artist, Cycladic art, Etruscan art, influences, Shona Nunan

The bohemian

Sunday evening we went down to Pietrasanta to deliver Sollai back to his studio after he had a weekend walking in the mountains. Sollai in his usual generous and egalitarian way, invited us for dinner and extended the invitation to friends of ours as well as to Jacob and Jaqueline and her sister who were [read more…]

Tags: marble carving, Pietrasanta, Sollai Cartwright

A celebration of life on the river bank

Overhead, on the verandah, Sollai is cementing the patch work of canals made for recent wires and plumbing, cheerful and gung ho, cement is flying from his flailing spatula. The garden is water ridden and the river is swollen and brown, but today the sun is shining and we pull the geraniums back out onto [read more…]

Tags: artist, Michael Cartwright, painting triptych for Morgon Stanley Hong Kong, Summer in Tuscany

A day in the studio

Today is the 21st June and the weather is unseasonably cold and wet. People have lost their lives in the floods in Provence. We were just there picking up our youngest son, Sollai, from the airport in Nice. It rained so hard that we were completely drenched in seconds while walking on the Boulevard Des [read more…]

Tags: France, horse and rider sculptures, Italy, Pietrasanta marble carving studio, Shona Nunan in studio, Sollai Cartwright