Story

The Laboratorio d'Arte Menconi was founded in the 1970s by Giorgio ‘Giolera’ Menconi. At the age of 13, together with another boy and his master, he would leave before dawn from the Gatto Rosso area, following half a dozen donkeys laden with sacks of sand on their way to the quarries. The first trip took place while it was still dark, and others might follow during the day. A sawyer in various sawmills, he was in charge of the mobile cranes during the first editions of the Carrara Sculpture Symposium. Then he decided to set up a workshop and try his hand at sculpture. Most of the work naturally involved making objects for tourists and those who came to visit the quarries. His approach to stone, as with people - even given the trials that life has imposed on him - is rather rough, but beneath the surface he reveals sensitivity and a clinical eye. This is how Romano Bavastro describes him in “Artigiani e artisti nella Carrara del 2000” (Artisans and Artists in Carrara in 2000), published by Bandecchi e Vivaldi in 2006.

The workshop, located in Via Carriona di Colonnata, has always attracted the attention of many artists looking for a place to work, surrounded by nature and halfway between the city of marble and its quarries.