A Folk Art Family Tradition

“A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist.”

photos by author

The above photograph needs some background.

My wife's Nonno (Italian for grandfather) was born in the late 19th century in Italy, in the ancient city of Lucca. He emigrated to the United States as a young man in search of his fortune, along with a number of his brothers. They went out West to California where they eventually flourished in agriculture, eventually owning Brussels sprout ranches and peach orchards. Nonno stayed back east and opened an Italian cafe' in Pittsburgh. He ran it with his industrious wife, Mimi, also a Lucchese. Nonno and Mimi's cafe' thrived for decades, allowing them to consider selling out and retiring at about the time their two daughters were of marrying age. In the late 1940's they did it, they decided to cash in their chips and move to a warmer clime, near family.
But before leaving Pittsburgh, Nonno and Mimi's younger daughter Helen married Angelo, a young man with movie-star good looks. Angelo was all in for California.
The sale of the cafe' provided enough capital for Nonno to build three nice homes. One for himself, and one for each daughter. Two of these homes were on adjoining lots, a very common practice with Italian immigrants at the time. Nonno and Mimi were in one home while their daughter Helen and Angelo were next door.

Helen had her first child, a girl, in 1950. She continued having girls, five in all, until 1962.
Now here's where the horse picture comes in. Old Nonno had a little work area - you couldn't call it a shop - in the corner of his one-car detached garage. With the most rudimentary tools, saws, chisels, hand-drills, and such, he fashioned for each of his granddaughters, a play horse. Helen's sister Mary eventually married and had two daughters of her own, each of them also receiving a handmade horse from their Nonno. He made seven in all.

My wife was born in 1957. Nonno probably made her horse around 1960 or so. After she outgrew the horse it spent years in her mother's attic. When our first child was born we took the horse down, dusted it off, and put our son on it. Her heart was warmed at the sight of her little boy riding the bouncing horse she enjoyed as a toddler, the one her deceased Nonno made with his own hands. Our other two children, born in 1982 and 1985, also rode Mom's horse. Time passes, children grow up, and now they have families of their own. So once again my wife's horse sits neglected, unridden, a child's plaything turned into a family heirloom.

In 2011 our first granddaughter was born. I took a look one day at the old warhorse in our front entry and decided to honor Nonno's memory, carry on a family tradition, and provide a future heirloom to our newborn granddaughter, all at the same time, by replicating as close as possible, Nonno's horse. The two horses below were made over 50 years apart.

The horse in foreground was made by Nonno over 50 years ago

Having no guide or plan I simply made templates of the appendages and took measurements off the body and frame.
I wanted to make the 2011 horse in the same homespun fashion my wife's Nonno from Lucca used. Speaking of Lucca, I was surprised to learn that the author of Pinocchio had the woodcarver named Geppetto come from a village near Lucca.
I made a few changes, upgrades if you will. I used real leather rather than vinyl for the saddle and bridle. I used real horsehair for the mane and tail rather than synthetic material.

I felt a real connection to this man I had never met while handling and examining the well-used toy he made so many years ago. I admired the folk-art quality of his work. He's long gone, but the physical manifestation of his love remains, for his posterity. This can't be purchased in a store. It doesn't arrive on cargo ships from distant lands.

The quote at the top of this article is by no means a pompous boast of any artistic talent, real or imaginary, that I may possess. To the contrary, I consider my artistic talent to be almost nil. I was referring to Nonno, and his seven horses for seven granddaughters. He was an artist by the definition above. He worked with his hands, his heart, and his mind, to fashion something beautiful and useful, out of raw materials, for his granddaughters. He was a gentle, quiet, man, who would walk my wife to school, and be waiting for her on the corner when she got out.

The value of handmade goods, especially by loved ones -a quilt, a painting, a piece of furniture - should be cherished and handed down. It's organic. It's human. It provides deep roots and a sense of continuity to our posterity.
My granddaughter has already outgrown her horse, but she will, as long as she lives, remember that her grandfather made it for her, just as her grandmother had one made for her many years before by her Nonno.

The picture below shows the horse in the shop before painting. You will notice five separate pieces of wood to create the horse's body width. The dowels holding on the head can be seen. This toy was built to last generations. From this stage of raw wood it required a lot of sanding between coats of primer, multiple coats of paint, followed by a few coats of clear sealer, to create the finished product seen in the picture above. Excuse the picture quality, it was taken on a flip-phone. Yeah, I know, I'm old.