“ I feel that each sculpture is a metamorphic expression that is developed even further in the eye of the beholder. ”
Nola Pardi Proll is an artist who expresses her love of stone and nature’s found objects in her imaginative multi-faceted sculpture. A sense of the primitive pervades her work. Nola was born in North Beach to Italian American parents. Her mother’s family included generations of master wood carvers. She studied dance with Walton Biggerstaff and then launched a solo dance career performing throughout the United States, Europe and the Far East. Her interest in African culture was reflected in her dance choreography and in her self-taught wood carving. Marriage and motherhood followed. Creating her own papier mache puppets, she was a professional puppeteer in the Bay Area for any years. In 1999 she enrolled in the Marble Arts Workshop in Pietrasanta, Italy and has since sculpted in marble at her studio in Danville. She returns to Pietrasanta annually to carve and relish the immersion in the ambiance of marble art.
Artist Statement about Museo show and Heritage:
My sculpture has been motivated by a lifelong love of nature, stones, rocks, shells, driftwood and the sea. My dance background and my interest in African, Etruscan and Near Eastern art have influenced my approach to stone. As I sculpt, the marble lends itself to a form I have been sketching or molding or am visualizing at the moment. An artigiano in Italy told me that a chisel is similar to a brush in painting a picture. Sometimes a piece of marble chips off and the sculpture seems to take on a persona of its own. Certain marbles sing as you strike with the hammer and point and this too binds you to the stone. I feel that each sculpture is a metamorphic expression that is developed even further in the eye of the beholder.
