Tag: Gardens

Tuscan Traveler’s Tales – Folon’s Over the Rainbow to See the Stars

The imagination and whimsy of Jean-Michel Folon’s sculpture gift to the Rose Garden in Florence (February 8 post) led me to discover more about this extraordinary artist. A quirky story about an 80-year-old yacht saved by Folon at the end of his own life caught my attention..

Folon said, “I’ve spent all my life trying to fly and I assure you that I can’t, I’ve spent my life drawing blue men who flew, and during my life, I’ve also drawn many rainbows.” In 2001, he found a  tangible rainbow.

He told this story: Some years ago I was in Roma … Read More

Dove Vai? The Folon Rose Garden of Florence

I was intrigued by the sculptures of Jean-Michel Folon the first time I left Florence by car going south. There on a small traffic island stood a man with an umbrella — it was raining inside the umbrella. He was appropriately titled l’uomo della pioggia (the rain man).

Alexandra Kourey of arttrav.com fame caught a different view of the same statue, one winter day when someone forgot to turn the umbrella off — now he was the ice man.

My next sighting of Folon was in the butcher shop of Dario Cecchini. He was a friend of the artist … Read More