Grandfather’s Rose Trellis, 1999, red cedar, 12′ x 11′ x 5′
I re-created my grandfather’s rose trellis as an art project and an investigation into my aesthetic heritage.
The trellis was first created Michael Campopiano in 1929. All I had to work with was a black a white snapshot when modeling the new structure in a CAD program.
Before I started the build, I visited a few relatives that knew my grandfather, Michael Campopiano, who died when my father was around 16.
I learned that he was a very short man and a building contractor. His father Nicondro Campopiano was a “copper” in Italy, where barrel making was the family trade. In America, these family skills morphed into house building.
Michael built a house at 140 Admiral Street, Providence, RI, for his wife Maria Lobello, who I knew as Nana. When finished, he built the trellis next to the house. You drove under it to get to the garage in the back.
The house still stands but the trellis does not. My father hated the thing because he had to maintain it for many years. When I was a teen, he made me and my brother Mike, cut it down, against my pleas to save it. This is one of the reasons I wanted to recreate it.
In conversations with my family, I learned that Michael love Italian Opera and his home-made brandy. So in the summer of 1999 I set myself the task of recreating my grandfather’s trellis, while listening to Italian Opera and sipping brandy.
I only got about a third finished when I ran out of money and time, but I did get one large sunburst made. I have been moving the trellis around from home to home on my life travels.
