Life's Purpose and Seth's Mantra

Some decades ago, I was very interested in exploring ideas about death, afterlife, souls, etc. At that time, I had read a large number of books on this theme. Among those books, there were some by an American writer called Jane Roberts, which had a lasting impact on me.

Recently, by chance I found some of those old Jane Roberts books that I had bought during a stay in the USA in the early 1990s. They reminded me about that period of my life when I was utterly taken up by their ideas.

I also discovered that Jane had died in 1984 and they have an online Seth Centre, where you can learn about those books and they have a podcast on YouTube.

This post is about the Jane Roberts' books and about some of its enduring learnings for my life.

Finding the Old Books   

My wife said that the attic is full of useless stuff, and that I should go up and take a good look at it and decide if there is anything worth keeping, otherwise one day she will throw away everything. I know my wife, she does not make empty threats. She did throw away things from my cupboard, after telling me a couple of times to clean it.

So yesterday, I went to the attic. Our attic is underneath sloping roofs, so it is difficult to reach the stuff along the walls (roof is so low at the sides that I need to almost crawl to reach there). It was along one of the walls that I found a plastic bag full of old books, that some ten years ago, I had told myself that I will sort them and decide which ones to keep.

In that bag, I found some Jane Roberts' books, that brought back so many memories. One of the memory was of a cryptic motto, "Why did I Ask for This?", that I had as screensaver on my old computer and which was my mantra for dealing with any challenge.

Jane Roberts' Books About Seth

Jane Roberts and her husband Robert F. Butts had written 8 books in the 1980s - Seth Speaks, The Nature of Personal Reality, Adventures in Consciousness, The Nature of the Psyche, The Seth Material, and 3 volumes of The Unknown reality.

Jane was a medium-writer, writing in a state of trance. She used to channel an "essence or a personality" called Seth, who was defined as "an intelligence no longer focused in physical reality, who has communicated with our world through writer Jane Roberts. During Roberts' trance-like states, Seth has revealed to her startling secrets about life, death, the universe beyond the five senses, and an amazing potential within us that is just waiting to be tapped."

My Ideas About Soul, Life and Afterlife

Like everyone, I had also wondered occasionally about the purpose of our lives - why do we have an conscience and how are we supposed to live our lives. I had lost my father when I was 21 and though I was not new to the idea of death, his sudden death had raised many questions in my mind about souls, what happens to it at death, and what, if anything, is afterlife.

When I was 16, I had once taken part in a seance at a neighbour's house. There were six of us. We had put our fingers on an upside-down empty glass on a chart on which boxes were drawn, with an alphabet in those boxes. We had held hands and invoked a spirit, asking it to come and help us find answers to our questions. I was very surprised when after each question, the glass had moved on the chart, pointing to a "yes" or a "no". I think that it was some kind of self-hypnotism that had made our fingers subtly move that glass, and it was not a real spirit inside it!

I had also tried looking at some of the religious books and their ideas about death. The biblical ideas of heaven and hell, followed by resurrection and restoration of the dead did not convince me. Similar Islamic ideas about angels of death judging my beliefs, etc. seemed equally unconvincing to me. I like some of the Hindu ideas in the Upanishads about our souls being a fragment of God and that after death, that soul reunites with the whole essence of god, but have many doubts about some other beliefs such as those of individual souls that keep their individual essence and may even take rebirth. 

Seth's Views About Purpose of Life

The Jane Roberts' books, touch on a wide variety of subjects such as - ways of looking at past lives, out of body experiences, astral projections, how probable realities combine to create our waking lives, how to explore our own unknown reality, and so on.

Reading these books, provoked a lot of reflections in me about souls and afterlives. Almost thirty years later, I can still recall my fascination with some of those ideas. However, I continue to be sceptical about survival of individual souls and their afterlife. I would rather think of a Seth as an expression of the life energy as a whole.

Seth's Mantra for Me 

Yet, there is one idea from these books that had a huge impact on me and in some ways continues to influence me even today. In one of the books, Seth talked about the purpose of life as the soul taking a life-form so that it could experience certain aspects of material life. It said that before taking birth, the soul decides what kinds of challenges it would like to face in that life. Thus, people being born with challenges or facing specific challenging events in their lives, are souls that need to experience those challenges in order to learn facing and overcoming them.

For me this idea means that everything that happens to me, good or bad, happens because I chose that as a challenge for my life. So every time, I face a challenge, I ask myself: Why did I choose this? What am I going to learn from it? What can I do to overcome it?

In Conclusion 

I tried to share this idea with my friends but it did not always work. For example, when a close friend broke his leg in an accident, and I went to see him at the hospital, I suggested that it might have been a challenge he had chosen for himself. He became very upset saying that it didn't make sense to him that he had chosen all that pain and suffering. 

However, I think that it is good way to face life. Giving up on a challenge and accepting defeat means that we did not give our soul a chance to learn from that experience.

For about 3 decades, I worked in international development programmes with marginalised communities in different countries of Asia, Africa and S. America. One of the approaches which I liked using in my work was called "emancipatory research", where the focus was on helping persons to look at their challenges as barriers and to facilitate them to collectively think of ways to emancipate themselves. I feel that in a way, the "emancipatory research" approach reflected the same basic idea of Seth.

*** 

Vladimiro & Chiara: Art & Love

One the events of the on-going poetry festival (15-31 May 2026) in Schio called Semenze Matte (“Mad seedlings”) is an exhibition titled “Come Un Foglio di Carta” (Like a Sheet of Paper). The on-going exhibition at Palazzo Toaldi Capra in Schio’s city-centre has drawings and prints of the artist Maria Chiara Toni.

At this exhibition I met Vladimiro Elvieri (1950), an artist engraver and companion of Maria Chaira Toni (1950-2025). Vladimiro told me that Chiara, the love of his life for about 47 years, had passed away last year. I spoke to him about their personal and artistic journeys. As we talked, it was clear that speaking about losing Chiara still moved him and made him emotional.

While we talked about their life-stories, it seemed that they had led an active and interesting life, and talking about that would require some more time. Thus, I am planning to meet Vladimiro again, to talk about their artistic experiences about engraving. This first post presents an edited version of our talk on 17 May 2026.

The few art-works presented with this post are by Maria Chaira Toni (click on the images for a bigger view) 

A Conversation with Vladimiro Eliveri 

Sunil: Vladimiro, can we start with your name? This is not a common name in Italy, it sounds more an Eastern European or Russian name.

Vladimiro: It was the name of my uncle, my mother’s brother, he had died in the war and my mother wanted to remember him, that is how I got it. The men in my family, my grandfather and uncle, tended towards the political ideas of Russia of that period, if that had any influence, I don’t know.

Sunil: Tell me about your early life.

Vladimiro: I was born in Schio. My initial education was also in Schio and then I went to the Art Institute of Nove (Bassano). I was married and living in Schio, when in 1978 I met Chiara. It was like being struck by lightening. She was originally from Mantova but was living in Cremona, after 7 months I left Schio and went to live with her. She was working in house furniture sector, and at the same time, she was an artist, designing and painting. I shifted to her studio and that became our home.

Cremona became our base, we were together for forty six and a half year and travelled to different parts of the world as artists. As artists we worked together, discussing every day, we both grew as artists through this interaction, without overpowering the other person. We respected each other as an artist. We had very strong emotional connection with each other and that helped our relationship.

Sunil: Talk to me about your own artistic journey, how did it start?

Vladimiro: My artistic journey started in the nursery school. That was when my first art exhibition was held. I was 4 or 5, I asked myself why I had so many papers full of art, but other children didn’t have them. A nun who came to our school, she said that my designs were beautiful and full of colours. Actually, I was born with the bug of art, and it was the same for Chiara. Art helped us to express our inner liberty through the art.

After 5 years at the Art Institute in Nove, I also went to Paris for some time. Initially, I did a lot of different works to make a living, while making art was in the free time. Most of those works were related to arts and graphics, including making small sculptures, working with silver, and doing stone-cutting.

In 1975, I became an engraver and started making art-incisions when I was working at Torchio-Thiene (a printing press famous for printing of contemporary art) of Armando Martini, who was using different techniques of calcography (Copperplate printing). We became friends. He was printer and also an experimenter of different techniques with new materials. I was putting into practice his inventions as an artist-engraver. I worked with him for 4 years and that had a determining impact on me. With him, I learned how to use the torque for printing. The things I learned with Armando, were useful for me to work as engraver in making incisions in Cremona.

Armando believed in teaching others and I learned this from him. Both, I and Chiara, we also took an active role in teaching young persons about incision-art.

I have about 830 incisions, in different sizes and shapes, some huge ones, some composed of many sheets, some using new techniques, etc. Chiara had made around 320 incisions. Along with incisions, the second artist area of our work is design. Chiara also painted.

Sunil: When you made incisions, were these accompanied by prints?

Vladimiro: Yes of course, for that you need a good printer who understands art. If artists themselves know how to print, it gives them the freedom to decide the kind of results they want from the printing. If an artist who makes incisions, also makes his own prints, it help him in becoming a better incisor. There are many techniques even in printing from incisions, for example, it can be in black and white or it can be in colours. In the recent exhibition of Chiara in Cremona, we had a few colour prints of her work.

Chiara mostly did incisions and paintings, while I also did light-painting, light-design and graphite on Cibachrome (drawing with graphite pencil on photographic-print). I did this because I wanted to interpret the writings of a Polish writer and playwright named Witold Gombrowicz (1904–1969), with whom I felt a deep connection in terms of his essence and thinking. In 1996, I decided to make a series of artworks, a few incisions, mostly light-design, and a few graphite on Cibachrome, around 28 artworks all together, to reinterpret his writings and his themes. I didn’t want to illustrate his words but rather to re-interpret them through my art.

French-American visual artist Man Ray (1890-1976), who was active in Dada and Surrealist movements, had already experimented with light-designs, using a torch-light in the dark, calling them Photograms and Rayographs. In 1949, Pablo Picasso had also collaborated with photographer Gjon Mili to make “light drawings” by making ephemeral figures in the air and fixing them on the film.

For my artworks on the writings of Witold Gombrowicz, I did another variation of this technique. I made light-designs, printed them on Cibachrome and then worked with graphite-tips, so as to bring out the white underneath the black surface. This double work was extraordinary – first there was the light-design, which had movement in the air without a specific or precise idea, it started as a sapling that grew out of me through my gestures in the air. The second part of working on the Cibachrome was more guided, trying to identify the forms hidden inside the light-design, by scratching on the dark surface and bringing out the white lines.

For example, this work called "Cosmo" was based on the title of one of his novels (shows a picture in a catalogue). Once I completed this series, I told about it Francesco Cataluccio (Italian expert of Polish literature for the publisher Feltrinelli, who had curated the publishing of works of Witold Gombrowicz in Italy) and he suggested that I write to the organisers of a festival about Gombrowicz in Poland.

Thus, an exhibition of these works was held at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Radom. It was wonderful because it allowed me and Chiara to participate in that festival, which had theatre groups from different parts of the world to stage his plays. We met many of the persons about whim he had written in his books, it was like a dream for us. For example, there was Alejandro Russovich, the Argentinian philosopher with whom Gombrowicz had lived for 4 years, along with Gombrowicz's wife Rita and many others.

Sunil: Did you travel to other countries with your art?

Vladimiro: With our incisions, we travelled to many art biennale around the world. That was an opportunity to see what others were doing in their countries. Since there were not so many persons in Italy working on incisions, we could exchange experiences at international level.

That helped us to start an Art Biennale in Cremona focusing on incision-art, which was held for 20 years, from 1999 till 2019. Each biennale had 3-4 sections such as guest country, invited international artists, young Italian incision-artists, ex-libris (bookplates) and historical section. Through these, Cremona museum received in gift about 2000 artworks, which is an extraordinary art collection of the best art-incisors from different parts of the world. Some influential persons from the art-world ignored us, others supported us and it was a successful initiative.

An important journey for us when we went to atelier of Henry Goetz (1909-1989) in Paris in 1979. He was a surrealism painter and engraver, a friend of Mirò. While I was working with Martini in Thiene, we had used an engraving technique invented by Goetz but we had modified it, by changing the materials which resulted in more interesting results. I took the prints of those experiments to Goetz in Paris. I was a little apprehensive that he may not like that we have modified his technique, instead he was happy about it. He became a friend.

Another important relationship was with the art-philosopher Dino Formaggio (1914-2008). We met in 1995 and at that time he was already old, but we became good friends and we had very interesting discussions that helped us to grow culturally.

Sunil: So for all this time you were in Cremona, when did you come back to Schio?

Vladimiro: Chiara had retired from her furniture work in 2019. In 2021, we shifted to Schio. In Cremona, her mother was no longer alive while I still had part of my family here. In Cremona we were renting our house and our studio, while I had my mother’s apartment in Schio which was free. We also thought that leaving Cremona, would mean freeing us from her furniture-business related things and to dedicate ourselves only to art. She was very keen that we shift to Schio, even if Cremona was so much closer to Milan, which is the gateway to the international art-world.

We redid my mother’s apartment and we took a studio in Schio, and restarted everything here. But then her illness came back. She had first first been diagnosed in 2000, then it came back in 2018 and was worse. Fortunately, they were able to treat it with chemio and radiotherapy and she became well. That phase lasted till 2023, when it came back again. She died in April 2025.

Chiara was already an artist when we had met. She wanted to do some sculpture also, and was planning to go to a sculpture course in Venice by Francesco Messina (1900-95), but that course was cancelled because there were not enough students for it. She also wanted to learn engraving with Sergio Tarquinio (1925-2026), a famous illustrator and incision-artist in Cremona, but then I arrived in her life and she did incisions with me. However, we also became close friends with Tarquinio.

Her life was busy, she was working, looking after her mother who was ill and yet she participated in my work as well. For example, when I was teaching engraving and had 20-25 students, she used to come to our class after finishing her work and then help me with teaching, and we would continue till mid-night. She was a very special woman.

During the one and a half months of the Biennale, I was conducting workshops in collaboration with the Civic Museum of Cremona, for persons who wanted to learn the art of engraving. Some of the international artists also took part in those courses. We had students from different age groups, from school children to students of art-academies.

Sunil: Thanks Vladimiro for this wonderful talk. This exhibition has only Chiara’s artworks. We need to fix another appointment to talk more about your artwork, as well as about the interesting international connections you had with artists from other countries.

*** 

Riikka Lenkkeri: Depicting Lived Life & Experiences

In May 2026, the well-known artist from Finland Riikka Lenkkeri was in Schio for an art-residency. Thanks to Valeria Bertesina I had an opportunity to spend an evening with her. Here is an edited version of my talk with her - we spoke in Italian and I have translated it into English.

You can check Riikka's artworks at her webpage and Instagram page. (Image left: Riikka working on her painting in Schio - click on the pics for a bigger view)

Introducing Riikka Lenkkeri

During 1990s, Riikka had studied art at the Academia di Belle Arti in Genova, Italy and thus speaks Italian. She now lives and works in Mänttä, about 220 km north of the national capital Helsinki, Finland. Over the last 30 years, she has participated in numerous exhibitions, won many awards and is counted among the prominent artists of Finland.

In the 19th century important paper-mills were setup in Mänttä - The Serlachius paper mill. Those paper mills are still active. Today, Mänttä is called the art city of Finland, it hosts an annual art festival, and has 2 museums – art Museum Serlachius Manor & Museum Serlachius Headquarters (museum in the G.A. Serlachius paper company building), where regular art events are organised.

Since Riikka was worried about completing her painting, we talked while she was painting and I was sitting nearby watching her and listening to her.

Her painting was huge, going from the bottom to the top of the whole wall, probably more than 3 metres tall. It had 3 figures, a central figure of a woman with her head on the cushion at the top, covered by a blanket, a male figure on her left and a third male figure, near their feet, lying accross. All the three were sleeping and the top figure was only drawn in lines.

Talking With Riikka Lenkkeri

Riikka: If you don’t mind, I will continue working while we talk. Yesterday, I spent the whole day going to and coming back from Genova, where I wanted to meet some friends. I came back late at night. Today is Saturday and on Tuesday morning I will go back to Finland, so I have little time and a lot of work to do to finish this painting.

Sunil: Sure. Let us start with the place where you live in Finland. What kind of place is it?

Riikka: Mänttä is a very small place. It has artists, museums, art festivals and art related events. It is not along the way to somewhere famous, you come to Mänttä because you want to visit it. In some ways it is like Schio, it is an industrial town, important for its paper mills. Slowly people, especially young people were leaving and going to bigger towns, but the presence of art museums and the organisation of art festivals and art related events has helped to make it known and bring some people back to live there, it has helped in bringing life to the town.

Sunil: Tell me about this painting (left). I can see that it is about sleeping persons and I know that you have already done many paintings about sleeping people. Is that because in sleep we drop our masks, we are no longer posing, we are more exposed and vulnerable?

Riikka: This painting has a mother with her two sons, all three sleeping in one bed. I am interested in exploring the corporeality of the human body in my art and especially exploring it through sleep. I like real people in my art, people who can be fat or curvy, or old and tired, people who are being themselves and not putting on a show.

I prefer using oil colours but I can also experiment. In this painting, I am using acrylic colours as well as colours that are used in buildings, I bought these here from a local shop that sells paints for buildings.

Sunil: As a child did you also go to sleep with your parents?

Riikka: Yes, I did. There were four of us. I have an elder brother, I am the second and I have two younger brothers. When we were young, all four of us wanted to be in the bed with our parents but there was place only for one of us. So the first one who managed to get in the bed, stayed there, the other three had to sleep near the bed. There were thick carpets and sleeping on them was comfortable.

I did the same with my twins. They are grown up now but when they were young, both of them used to come to sleep in our bed. As they moved so much during the night, disturbing our sleep, sometimes my husband used to get up and shift to another bed.

Sunil: Is Mänttä also the place where you grew up?

Riikka: No, my father was a doctor and he was changing towns. I was born in Lapland. Then, when I was four years old, we moved to Mänttä, my youngest brother was born there.

Sunil: You did your art studies in Academia Legustica di Belle Arti in Genova, in north-wast Italy. How did that happen?

Riikka: From my childhood, I had decided that I am going to be an artist. I completed the high school diploma in an art school. After that I absolutely wanted to study in an art school outside Finland. It was in 1990s (1990-95) and I was fortunate that during that period they were promoting students to go to other countries in Europe. I got a loan for studying in Italy and I also received other support, so I decided to study at the Academia in Genova.

The main problem was that when I arrived in Genova, I did not know Italian. I was given a room and a few months to study the language. When they examined me, I think that my Italian was still not very good but they accepted me.

There in the Academy I studied a lot of different things, including the painting techniques from  the 15th to 17th centuries.

Sunil: After completing the Academy, did you start working as an artist or you did other work? Do you remember your first artwork that you sold?

Riikka: Yes, I started to work as an artist. When I was in school, there used to be events and exhibitions where the students could showcase their artworks and I had already done plenty of it. During those exhibitions, I think that I had already sold some of my artworks, and now I don’t remember which was my first artwork that was sold.

Sunil: Tell me about your husband. I have read that he was  modelling for you, is that true?

Riikka: Actually Sampsa is a photographer and film-maker. He has modelled for me many times. Often, male artists have used female models, painting them and sometimes having relationships with them, thinking of them as their muses.

I like the idea of reversing the gaze and look at a man as my muse and to look at him as a model.

When I was studying in Genova, I used to think that I will live in Italy, I will not go back to Finland. Instead, I was in Finland and I met Sampsa and so all my plans changed. He is from Mänttä, his family was closely linked to the  Serlachius paper mill, his uncle was an engineer there, while his father was a dentist. They had this big house in  Mänttä, it was for 2 families, now we have renovated it and modified it.

(Note: On Riikka’s website, there is an interesting piece of writing by Sampsa Virkajärvi about how he feels about being seen as model and how he can observe Riikka during that process)

Sunil: How is it being married to another artist? And your children, are they also artists?

Riikka: Actually Sampsa is very good, he shares all the work at home, otherwise with two children, it would have been difficult for me to be an artist.

My twins, when they were young, they tried making all the different kinds of art, but they were not interested in being an artist. One of them is working in a factory and the other one is at university, studying mathematics.

Sunil: Tell me about your influences?

Riikka: The artist who has been the biggest influence on me is the 15th century Italian artist Piero della Francesca (1412-92). I saw two of his paintings at the national gallery in London and they had a tremendous impact on me – the Nativity and the Baptism of Christ.

In the Nativity painting, it is the figure of Joseph that interested me (below). He is an old man, sitting and looking away from the viewers, his right leg is bent at the knee and placed over his left leg and we can see the sole of his foot. When I saw it, I understood how the physicality and the position of the figure is shown, in a way that showcases deeper aspects of the figure's lived life and experiences, not in an idealised way but as an ordinary human with his body.

In the Baptism painting (below), it is the figure of the man behind who is removing his shirt. Once again, its physicality struck me.

Those two paintings had very strong influence on me. That is what I want in my work, the physicality of our human bodies and body language that gestures to more complex interpretations about the subject. 

Sunil: This explanation gives us a key to look at your work and see what you want to transmit in your art. Thanks for sharing all this information and all the time you have given me. 

*** 

Comic Art of Marco Rosestolato

In the recent Cosplay day held in Schio, I had talked to two writer-artists engaged in graphic books and comics. I have already written about my talk with Enrico ET Trentin.

Today, I want to write about the second writer-artist - Marco Rosestolato. The below image shows some examples of Marco's art-works (click on images for a bigger view).

Marco is a young artist and his artistic journey in the world of graphic and comic art started five years ago in 2021.  

Writer-Artist: Marco Rosestolato

About Marco: He is from Schio. Ever since he can remember, he was always passionate about comics and illustrated books. He started making artworks, when he was still young, as a self-taught artist.

Art Studies: When he was 23 years old, he joined a three-years long art course at the Comic-Art school in Padova.

After completing the course, he started making comics more seriously. He has participated in different comic-art competitions.

Important Works: Recently, he has worked hard to complete a graphic novel series called "Aiutaci Maestro" (Help Me Master), which he has published online. It is targeted at 16+ Young Adults.

"Help me Master" is about the monks of Gyaan Monastery, whose goal is gaining knowledge and reaching towards human perfection. The series is about their adventures in the  different dimensions of space-time continuum. (The image below has some examples of his work from this series).

He is very happy with the way the "Help me Master" has turned out. He looks at it as a first step of his carrier in the comic-art world. You can check this graphic novel series on Webtoons and Tapas.

Approach to Working: Marco uses a graphic tablet for designing, like a lot of modern graphic-artists. He finds it very practical and quicker for designing. At the same time, he also likes traditional drawing and art on paper and other materials.

Influences: As a reader, he defines himself as an omnivore in terms of the comics he reads and likes. He especially likes to look at the works of other young and emerging artists.

He thinks that it is great to have events like Cosplay in Schio, which allow him to interact with other kinds of artists, which can inspire him to trying new ideas and approaches in his art work.

Making a Living Out of Comic Art: Marco feels that having an economic success from making comic art is very difficult.  According to him, having success or not does not depend on having talent as an artist since he knows persons who are very talented but have not achieved a level of success.

His advise is to look at comic art as a creative way for young artists to explore self-expression, but not to think of it as a carrier. It helps in growing creatively, learning to express your ideas, and at the same time, to see what and how others are expressing themselves, to inspire others and to be inspired. His criteria for success is to see if you have something to say which is specific and honest, then you are a successful comic artist.

Marco's Art: You can see the examples of his artworks, how he designs his pages and how he develops his characters on his website as well as on his Instagram page.

In The End

It was wonderful to see how Marco has been able to follow his passion and develop as an artist. 

I feel that earlier it was more difficult to become a comic-writer-artist, because publishing comics is costly and finding a publisher and distributor is not easy. Today portals like Webtoon and Tapas, allow you to hone your skills, and if you are persistent, hard-working and talented, you can find your readers and followers. If you can persist, hopefully, one day a contract with an important publishing house may also come, but you can't plan that in today's world because technologies are changing so quickly and the impact of AI is difficult to foresee.

If you dream of writing and illustrating your own graphic books and comics, I hope that reading this post about Marco will inspire you to follow those dreams. As he says, it is difficult, if not impossible, to make a carrier out of this passion, but it is a great way to express your creativity.

*** 

Comic Art of Enrico ET Trentin

At the recently concluded Schio Cosplay festival, Breganze Comics had organised some tables for artists involved in making comic-art, to showcase their art and some of their published books. During the festival, I was able to speak to two of those writer-artists: Enrico Trentin and Marco Rosestolato.

This blogpost is about Enrico ET Trentin and our discussions. I will write another post about Marco Rosestolato. The image below presents some examples of Enrico ET Trentin's art (click on the pics for a bigger view).

Let me start with an introduction to Breganze Comics, the local group in Alto Vicentino area, which brings together the different artists involved in making illustrated books.

Breganze Comics

This is the 50th anniversary year of the Breganze Comics, which brings together and promotes the so called, "ninth art", the art of creating comics. They organise exhibitions, meetings with the authors, comic-art courses in the schools, etc. and support the growth of new artists-authors.

Comic Art or Graphic Art

I feel that there is no right word which defines the work of the persons making comic-art - their work is not limited to making "comics" targeted at teenagers, some of the books are adult fiction. Perhaps that's why some of them prefer calling themselves Graphic artists.

However, many of them are not only artists, they are also the writers of their stories and some of them also publish their books. So a better description for them can be writer-artist-publisher.

Writer-Artist Enrico ET Trentin 

Enrico has an art diploma from the Art Institute of Nove (VI) and has been engaged in making comics since 2001. He prefers making comics on humorous themes.

Important works: He started as an author for a magazine called "Prezzemolo" distributed by the well-known Italian theme-park called Gardaland.

Usually, author-artists of comics remain hidden and people only see their work. However, in May 2004, Enrico started an experimental blog-strip called NestoRe, in which he became visible, as he interacted with the character of his strip, making comments and having a dialogue. This experiment became a big success as the NestoRe comic-strip was reproduced in a large number of magazines, books and anthologies, and his name became familiar. NestoRe has a Facebook page, where you can take a look at some of its illustrations. (image below, the cover of a NestoRe book)

The fame achieved through NestoRe, brought Enrico in contact with a well-known Italian rock-band music group called Elio e Le Storie Tese. He asked the members of the rock-group to design the NestoRe comic strip number one thousand. Later, he also wrote and illustrated a series of books titled, "Storie Tese Illustrate", an authorised biography of the rock-band in 4 volumes between 2013 to 2016. This major creative work of Enrico is spread over 1400 pages and took almost 10 years to do research, write and illustrate. These volumes were sold at the concerts of the rock-band. (Below: the covers of the 4 volumes of Storie Tese Illustrate)

Since, 2021, he is engaged in another series of comics called "Gli Erquloidi" (the title can be loosely translated as the The Herculoids) about a group of tired heroes. He had first started making this comic while he was studying at the art institute in Nove 38 years ago. For this work, he does everything, from writing and designing to page-layouts and publication design. So far 17 comics of this series have been published, with about 650 illustration-panels. He says that he still feels the same enthusiasm for these comics that he used to feel as a sixteen years old in the school. (Left - Enrico with some volumes of Erquloidi)

Becoming a Comic Writer-Artist:  Enrico says that before becoming a writer and artist, he was and continues to be an avid reader, reading different genres of books. From his childhood, he had a special passion for illustrated story books, which stimulated his fantasies and allowed him to explore the imaginary universes. From a passionate reader, it was a natural evolution, in trying to understand how such stories were constructed, designing them and slowly improving his skills.

He Reads:  Enrico started with humorous comics because he loves most reading them, though he reads all the different genres. Among the other comics he likes to read are the super-heroes of Marvel universe, the Japanese Manga comics, the heroes of Bonelli and different French-Belgian authors.

His Evolution As a Comic Writer-Artist: In all these years, he has continued to work with the humorous comics but instead of working on characters created by others (for example, Prezzemolo for Gardaland) to his own comic-strip (NestoRe), to illustration (Storie Tese Illustrate) and now the comic books (Gli Erqucloidi), bringing together the experience from the last 25 years.

Use of Technology in the Comic Art: Enrico says that computers, graphic tablets and programmes can be useful if one does not wish to design and colour on paper. He feels that those who are used to designing on paper with pencils and colours, can easily use the technology, but it does not work the other way round.

He is not hostile to use of technology, after years of designing on paper with the China ink, he started designing NestoRe strips almost entirely in digital format. He mixes his use of traditional artwork with technology, using sometimes paper and pen and sometimes computers. For example, he designs on paper, then scans and uses a graphic programme for page layout and inserting the text.

The Future with AI: Enrico feels that AI and comics are not a good combination. Comics, both for stories and illustrations, should remain with "natural intelligence". The text of the comics should reflect the ideas and personality of the author and not the ideas copied from others. He feels afraid that someone who has been trained on models of work of others, can copy and come out with something similar instead of expressing original ideas.

His ideas about the design are also similar. He would prefer an error in the anatomy or an unbalanced perspective, instead of creating by taking or copying pieces of works and styles of different artists. The comic should continue to be a personal message of its author, and not something prepared by a machine - then what would be the use of us humans and anyway, AI does not have a sense of humour.

You can check Enrico's work on his Instagram page, and Facebook page. 

In The End

I grew up reading the Phantom comics and occasionally, Archies. At that time, I was not aware of serious fiction in the form of graphic novels. While growing up, the general attitude was that comics are not "books", they are only timepass and somehow inferior.

I was introduced to the Manga comics by my son in Italy and I could understand its attraction for young readers. However, it was not until I met some writer-artists and saw the kind of creative work that goes into creating a comic and a graphic novel, that I understood its importance as an art-form.

I feel that persons engaged in writing and illustrating stories need to bring together the different sensibilities and skills of narrative writing, designing, illustrating, directing and shooting films, and to do all this requires a different kind of creativity.

It was a pleasure to meet Enrico ET Trentin and to learn about his experiences as a writer-artist. 

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St. Francis Church in Schio

St. Francis church is one of the older churches of the city. If you are visiting Schio, it is worth visiting it for its history and for the art-works. It is easy to visit, since it near the city centre. The only problem is that it is open for public only on the afternoon of the first Sunday of the month. In the image below, the bell-tower of the church can be seen on the left. (click on images for a bigger view). 

 An asymmetrical building surrounded by green hills, this church from 1424 CE is famous for a beautiful altar piece dedicated to St Catherine, painted by Francesco Verla. However, there is many other things to see in it.

This post is about the history and things to see in St Francis church. Let me start with a little bit of history. 

Historical Overview of St Francis Church 

St Francis church is located at the edge of a hilly forest area of Schio, known as Valletta. The hillocks around the church were originally known as "Monte degli Oliveti" (the Olive trees' Hill), because this area used to have many olive trees.

This area was known for its "lazzaretto", a place for housing the sick and homeless poor. The word "lazzaretto" is related to leprosy and perhaps in the past there were some leprosy affected persons there. However, over the years, such places were often used for keeping sick persons including those with plague and other illnesses such as tuberculosis and mental illness. 

Itinerant Franciscan friars arriving in Schio had built a chapel dedicated to Madonna on the Monte degli Oliveti in 1424. The sandstone statue of Madonna, installed in that first chapel can still be seen inside the church. Twenty years later, in 1446, the Bishop of Vicenza consecrated that chapel, and the event was marked by a plaque, which can still be seen on the wall near the entrance.

The church expanded quickly. By the end of 1400s, a Franciscan monastery was already active next to the church. The church-building had also been expanded and had a central and a lateral naves. Since, the other side of the central nave was already occupied by the monastery, and space on the hillock was limited, the church ended up as an asymmetrical building. A hundred years after the first chapel, by 1520 CE, the church as it looks today, was ready.

Important Artworks in St Francis

St Francis church has many things to see, among which the most important are: 

A Corberelli Altar with Inlaid Stones: The first Chapel in the lateral nave has a beautiful altar (left) made by the master stone artists of the Corberelli family from 17th century. The Corberelli (o Corbarelli) were from Tuscany and were specialised in making inlaid stone artworks.

The altar has an announcing angel on the left and a slightly ruined mosaic of Madonna on the right. The central part has 2 corberelli birds, identified by the pink spot on their breasts, as the legend says that the bird had hurt itself while trying to remove a spine from crucified Jesus' head. The inlaid stone work is very beautiful, made of stones in vivid colours, it looks like a painting.

There is another Corberelli altar in Schio in the San Giacomo church near Duomo, and another, better known one, in Santa Corona church in Vicenza.  

Altar Painting by Francesco Verla: This luminous painting about the spiritual wedding of St Catherine from 1512 CE is in chapel 3 of the lateral nave (right). It is the most famous art-work of this church.

Giorgio Vasari, the renaissance period art-historian, who wrote Le Vite in 1550 about the biographies of well-known artists of his time, called him as Francesco Veruzio, who was from nearby town of Villa Verla ("verla" literally means 'cherries'). His painting style was influenced by Pinturicchio and, especially, Perugino, with whom he had spent some time.

The Pala (artwork for the altar) is composed of a semi-circular top part, a narrow top panel and the main painting, a bottom narrow panel, and a frame. The figures, the composition, the use of light, and especially the figure of God as a man with long beard in the top part of the painting, reminds us of some of the famous works of Pietro Perugino. The "Putti", the baby angels in the top narrow panel are seen as typical figures painted by Verla - they seem like the many baby angels painted by Donatello. The bottom panel, showing the life of St Catherine, seems to show a hill with the castle of Schio, which was demolished a hundred years earlier. (The bottom panel of the altar piece, below - Schio's castle is a little to the left of the centre - click on the image for a bigger view)

The cult of St Catherine has older roots in this area, as shown by the St Catherine church and village on the Summano mountain, that looms over Schio. 

The painting was commissioned by one Mr Giovanni who was married to a woman named Lucia - both of them are represented in the painting as St Lucy on the left and St John Baptist on the right. Behind them are St. Agatha and St Joseph. There is a baby holding on to the leg of St Joseph, whose reference to this painting is not clear. The central figures are Madonna, baby Jesus and St Catherine covered with a rich golden and red brocade.

Verla had also done the frescoes decorating the top parts of the church walls, so do not forget to look up while visiting the church.  

Madonna statue: Chapel 4 in the lateral nave hosts the original Madonna statue from early 15th century - it is made with sandstone from Vicenza. The name of its sculptor has been lost. It has a renaissance like look and is beautiful. Later on it was painted in bright colours, which make it look like a wooden statue.  

Recently, a space was discovered in front of this statue, which held a curtain, which could be opened and closed with a lever. The curtain has a painting with a lever for pulling up a curtain, which was used for covering the statue during some rites and then removing it to show the Madonna. The painted curtain will be kept in the forthcoming Schio museum, which is supposed to open this year (2026).

A Francesco Maffei (1605-1660) Painting Above the Main Altar: This painting is from 1640s and has Madonna with the baby, along with St Francis, St Anthony of Padua,
Bernardino of Sienna and Ludvic of Tolosa. It is more gothic, Madonna seems as a two dimensional figure and not so expressive. 

The hidden Chapel: There is another Chapel (right) with an old San Bernanardino altar, which is now hidden after cloister 2 in a side wall. It was shifted in the past during some restructuring. On the wall near the old altar, there are a couple of coat-of-arms from notable Schio families, including that from the Toaldi family (it has a tree and a dog).

Tombs Inside St Francis 

Since early times, rich persons could ask to be buried inside the church by paying money. Having a tomb inside the church increased families' social status. During the Napoleonic period, many tombs were removed but even today, the cost-of-arms of some important local families can still be seen inside, especially in front of the altars.

For example, in front of the main altar, you can see the De Schio family-tomb with their symbol (left), a two tailed siren; the Marostica family tomb has a cherry tree on it, while Fantinelli family tomb has a baby.

There is a lot of pink sandstone used for the tombs - these rocks were at the bottom of the sea and which rose up when the African tectonic plaque hit Europe, creating Alps and pre-alps.

The Beautiful Chorus Room 

The ligneo (wooden) chorus room is behind the main altar. It is also from early 1500. It was carved wood seats on two levels for the monks. In the centre, it has a big leggio, used for keeping the hymn book.  The leggio can be rotated and has a compartment for keeping the books. A handcrafted and painted codice miniato manuscript was found here which is now kept in the civic library of Schio, not very far from the church.

There are 2 paintings in the chorus room, both are by Francesco Maffei from 17th century (the painting on the back wall has a family connection for me - it carries a plaque with a dedication to "Lino Raddino", my wife's brother-in-law). 

Fossils in the stones near the church 

The geological history of Schio's hills show that in the past, 20-40 million years ago, they were at the bottom of the sea and the movement of the tectonic plates of the earth's crust, had brought them up. The local sand-stones and rocks used in the walls outside the church has many fossils, which testify this geological history.

Guided Tours in St Francis 

You can always visit the church area from the outside, but to visit inside the church, you need to come to Schio on the afternoon of the first Sunday of the month - the church is open to public only on that day, from 3 to 6 PM. On that day, there is usually a guided tour around 4 PM. 

I have been to numerous guided tours to St Francis church and had been promising myself to write a post about it for many years. The last image below, shows the monument to St Bakhita outside St Francis church.

Every guided tour brings out some new aspect about this church. For example, during the last tour, we visited the side-room connected to the chorus room and saw some of the paintings of the Popes in this room that I had not seen before.

In the End

Most people visiting Italy can see the famous cities, such as Rome, Florence and Venice. People who have a passion for history, visit slightly less famous cities like Verona, Bologna, Naples and Padua. To be aware about the histories and treasures of small towns like Schio, is not possible for casual visitors and Italy has hundreds of such places.

So if you are visiting Schio, try to discover as much of its history as possible - visiting St Francis church and its environs can an important part of this discovery!

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History Seen Through Trees & Gardens

History is usually seen through big events like the lives of kings & queens, wars, building castles & forts. The lives of ordinary people are usually missing from the history books, though sometimes we can get glimpses of that, like the recent discovery of graffiti in some Egyptian monuments.

However, we can also look at the history through its trees and gardens. Recently I had such an experience when the Cooperativa TRAMA (Traditions, Resources, Ambience, Museums & Art) organised a special city-walk in Schio (VI) focusing on its trees, forests and gardens. 

 

Origins of Schio & an Historical Overview

Our city walk started in Piazza Rossi, in front of the Duomo church in the city-centre.

The Duomo church is located on a hillock known as "colle del Garzone". First mention of Schio in the documents is from around 990 CE, when the bishop of Vicenza allotted some land for agriculture. Around 1000, there was already a small chapel to San Petri at the top of this hill, surrounded by the oak trees. 

 

Around the first millennium, the area around Schio was subdivided between a noble family and the church, and there were rivalries between the two.

The noble family was called Malatraversi, who were faithful to the emperor, and they were prominent for about 300 years, from around 1000 CE to 1300 CE. They controlled the area on the north-east side of Leogra torrent - Schio, Piane, Sant'Orso. They had built a defensive fort (il Castello) on the Castello hill, not far from the Garzone hillock, which included two concentric walls, as shown in the famous painting by Francesco Verla in the St Francis church in Schio, a couple of centuries later.

The church responded to the Pope and controlled the area on the south-west of the Leogra torrent - Pieve, Magre, Malo. The first mother church, where the bishop stayed, was built in Pieve. However the floods of the Leogra torrent created problems and the Bishop had to take refuge on the Garzone hillock. To control the floods, the Roggia Maestra water-canal was built, which took and diverted the excess water to the farm-houses around the area. This canal passes next to the old mother church in Pieve. The building of this canal also stimulated the development of different economic activities, such as carpenters, saw-mills, flour-mills, etc. 

In 1300s, as the Malatraversi family declined, first the Nogarola family from Verona, and then the Visconti of Milano became more influential in Schio. Around the end of 1300s, Schio became a part of the Republic of Venice, also known as La Serenissima. Venice placed Schio under the jurisdiction of Vicenza.

Schio was unhappy to be under Vicenza, because the two had competing interests.  In 1412, Vicenza dismantled the castello-fort of Schio and its stones were used for other houses and buildings. A competing interest between the was the weaving of refined clothe (panni alti), as both cities wanted to produce it and Vicenza did not give permission to Schio for it (only in 1701, Schio was allowed to make "panni alti" clothes).

In 1797, the republic of Venice was defeated by Napoleon Bonaparte. Under Napoleon, the monasteries and churches were closed, some of their artworks and valuables were hidden, the others were taken away his troops. In 1814, the area of Schio became a part of Austro-Hungarian empire. In 1866, a treaty between Veneto and Austria, finally brought the whole region under the Italian kingdom.

Schio Seen Through the Histories of its Trees and Gardens  

The Oak Forest: Before the city of Schio became an urban centre, there was an oak forest in the Duomo area, which gave the city its name, as such forests were called "schleda" in the local language. That led to its Latin name "Scledum" in the Roman period. Archaeological remains of a Roman garrison have been found near the area which now hosts the Campo Romano mall.

No traces remain today of that oak forest and the constructions of Duomo church completely cover the Garzone hill. However, from the Garzone road, which passes along Duomo, little bits of the grassy hill are still visible.

The Lime Trees of Castello: The hill which hosted the castello-fort of Schio is much bigger, extending back to the Capuchin monastery. The part of the hill where the remains of the old fort are still visible, was known as "Tajara" in the local dialect because it hosted two huge and old Tiglio trees (Lime or Linden tree). These were removed in early 1900s because they were in danger of falling down. The area also included a hundred years old Platano (Plane tree), which was planted in 1912.

To remember them, rows of Lime trees were planted in that area. 

 

Horse-Chestnut trees on the Castello Hill: A row of Ippocastano (Horse-Chestnut trees) was planted along the side of the Castello Hill in 1850. These trees were brought to Italy from Turkey in the 1500s. Their chestnuts are used for making a medicine used in the horses, which gave these trees their name. The popular belief says that keeping a couple of these chestnuts in your pocket will prevent catching common cold.

Exotic Trees of Jaquard gardens: These gardens were built in 1859 opposite the Rossi Wool mills near Schio's centre, by the industrialist Alessandro Rossi. At a time when mill-workers were mostly illiterate, included many children and international travel was restricted to a few persons, these gardens brought the world to Schio. They include a theatre with busts of famous persons of Schio, caves, sculptures of wild animals like crocodilian and panther, and a hanging garden.

The garden was designed by Antonio Caregaro Negrin and included a sun-room for orchids and different tropical trees such as palm and banana trees. Among the trees of this garden, there are - a Mexican Cypress (also called Portuguese Cypress), 3 giant sequioia and a Yew tree to celebrate Italy's flag (it has green leaves, white flowers and red berries - the colours of the Italian flag). It also has many Japanese plants.

 

Personal & Family Memories of Trees

So many of our memories and personal histories are linked with plants and trees. For example, in our old style double-storey house in New Rajendra Nagar in Delhi, we had an oleander tree which used to be full of pink flowers. Two years ago, when I went to visit that house with my sister, and found that a new and bigger house had been built there. I felt sad because I could not see the old oleander tree. 

In our home in Schio, we have a couple of Laurel trees. I can see that same tree in some of the old family pictures, as my wife's family has been living in this house for more than 125 years. About 15 years ago, we had tried cutting them down but were unable to remove the vast network of their roots, and from those roots, two new plants came out (in the image below).

At the corner of the street, where we live, there was a huge old tree. I remember my mother-in-law telling me about it more than forty years ago - she had said that her husband was a child when that tree had been planted. Last year, when that tree was cut down because it was in danger of falling, I felt that a part of our family history had gone with it.

My wife often talks of the Ficus tree in our backyard, where she used to climb as a child. At that time, there were no walls between the backyards of the houses and families could see and talk with neighbours, while sitting in their backyard gardens. Today most of these backyards have concrete floors and high walls.

An old picture from 1950s, of a friend's house in our street, shows a tree, an old washing place and a car. When I shared this picture on Instagram, a man wrote to say that it was his father's car.

Conclusions

Once I started thinking about my memories related to plants and trees, there were so many of them that I was surprised. For example, I have many memories about my grandfather's farmhouse, parts of which lies underneath the "Dwarka Mod" metro station in Delhi. Another memory was of the different Tulsi plants that we had in different homes where we lived. For every city where I have lived, I can remember those days through some trees and plants.

To my readers, trying remembering your own memories about plants and trees - I think that you will find it a rewarding exercise.

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