Word: forcola
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...buggy for every well-to-do family. Now it's primarily for tourists. The basic shell - no seats, no brass ornaments, no extras - costs about $22,000. If you load it with everything, the price can run to about $36,000. A key element in any gondola is the forcola, which serves as an oar post but in fact is often a work of art. There are only three people left who carve forcole out of large pieces of walnut...
...these craftsmen is Saverio Pastor, who makes both oars and forcole in his workshop near the old Arsenal. Pastor learned his craft from the last maestro in Venice. "What I like is grabbing those huge trunks and bringing the forcola out of them," he says...
...Pastor, 42, figures that it takes about four years to learn how to make a forcola, and about 25 to learn it well. In addition to their very practical use on boats, the elbow-shaped forcole are classy wooden sculptures and Pastor has both Mick Jagger and architect I.M. Pei among his clients. He says the crisis in gondola making is only part of a larger problem. "There are other kinds of boats that people don't even know how to make anymore," he says, referring to craft like the peata and the batea con la coda di gambero (boat...
...While making forcole was considered a humble craft as recently as 20 years ago, that's no longer the case, since so few artisans know how to do it. Fortunately for the gondoliers, the forcola carvers are relatively young. One of Pastor's colleagues, Paolo Brandolisio, is only 33. Brandolisio points out that not many people want to learn the skills that have shaped his life. That's not necessarily bad for him. It means there's plenty of business. "I could work even at night," he says, pointing to a few dozen oars leaning against the wall that have...