Last April 30, the event STONE FLOWER, a sculpture competition organized with the valuable support of the Academy of Fine Arts together with Orti Dipinti and Grassi Pietre. took place.

The beautiful spaces of the community garden in Borgo Pinti 76 were brought to life for three days by the passion, creativity, and enthusiasm of nine students from the Academy, coordinated by Prof. Francesco Roviello, a professor of Marble Techniques, who worked with nine blocks of Vicenza Stone to create sculptures themed around Nature.

Sara Morandi, Antonio Fariello, Elisa Garro, Lorenzo Calogiuri, Maria Teodolinda Cennamo, Domenico Festa, Francesco de Tommaso, Wimar Van Ommen, Lugpliw Junpudsa are the nine participants in this contest, which revived the ancient tradition of working with Vicenza stone, often used for creating statues and ornaments for gardens and palace facades.

They created splendid works that can still be visited at Orti Dipinti. The awarded works were those of Lugpliw Junpudsa, who skillfully shaped the stone into an organic, curious, and original sculpture, and that of Francesco de Tommaso, who enhanced the grain of the Vicenza stone by shaping a form that can be a branch, trunk, or vortex, paying homage to the movement and life that nature is made of.

An event that was also enlivened by a clay workshop curated by Raffaella Rizzo, where both adults and children tried their hand at creating figurines, stoppers, or decorations, and by the concert of La Nuova Pippolese, which played typical songs of the Tuscan folk tradition.

A special thanks to Grassi Pietre, who supported the project by providing the blocks for the sculptures, and to Giacomo Salizzoni of Orti Dipinti, who allowed us to use the beautiful spaces of Orti Dipinti, a source of inspiration for young sculptors and a natural paradise in the center of Florence.

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