Sicilian sculptor and ceramic tile artist Sergio Furnari has brought his art to Brownsville — on the back of a truck.
Furnari was born in Caltagirone, Sicily, which has a 2,500-year tradition of ceramics art, but has called Manhattan home since 1991. It was there that he first saw the iconic1932 photo of 11 ironworkers sitting in a row on a steel beam having lunch atop the 70-story RCA building under construction in Rockefeller Center.
At first Furnari made miniature sculptures based on the image, then in 1999 he decided “Lunch Atop a Skyscraper,” as the photo is titled, deserved a life-sized version, which he built from steel, epoxy and other materials.
He parked the first one at Ground Zero in Manhattan after 9/11 in honor of the veteran ironworkers called in to remove the twisted mountains of steel left after the collapse of the Twin Towers.
“It took them a couple of weeks to realize I didn’t really have permits,” Furnari said. “But then they loved it so much they kept over there for two months, because in a way it was like comfort for them.”
A duplicate of that sculpture, which he said is a tribute to all American workers, is mounted in the bed of the Ram pickup Furnari drove recently to the Rio Grande Valley from Las Vegas, Nev. Furnari said he plans to park the sculpture for a couple of months at least on a small parcel of privately owned land surrounded on three sides by SpaceX property at the company’s Starbase production/launch complex at Boca Chica.
He said he came to South Texas in part to show support for SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk and what he’s accomplished in the fields of space technology, renewable energy and electric cars.
“I’m a fan of his technology,” Furnari said, comparing Musk to Leonardo da Vinci.
Musk has to be doing something right if he’s gotten this far, Furnari said, adding that he considers SpaceX’s chief a mentor even if Musk is younger than him.
“As Elon Musk says, sometimes you’ve got to wake up happy, and you’ve got to be like thrilled and excited about what you’re doing in life,” Furnari said. “And I think he’s got a great sense of humor too, if you click into his sense of humor. We’re both living the American dream, which still exists.”
Furnari, who described the United States the “greatest country on Earth,” said he’d like for the sculpture to become a permanent exhibit at Starbase and is open to a deal with SpaceX. Furnari still has the original sculpture in New York, also mounted on a pickup and serving as a familiar “mobile landmark” on the streets of Manhattan, he said.
Furnari said he’d also like to meet with whomever is in charge of Starship’s thermal tiles, since he’s been working with the technology since childhood, and thinks he might be able to help. Furnari also creates elaborately painted ceramic-tile swimming pools, and has done at least 100 of them for clients in places like California, Florida, the Bahamas, Central America and Dubai, he said.
In fact, Furnari likewise brought with him a proposal for the “Pool of Dreams,” perhaps his most ambitious pool design yet, the tiles for which are stored at factory in Central America waiting for installation somewhere, he said. Furnari said he thinks the massive pool would make a perfect central feature for a futuristic city somewhere in the vicinity of Starbase.
He also offers children’s ceramic-tile-painting classes, and would like to set something up with local schools, Furnari said.
“I let little children paint a flower on the ceramic, and once you assemble all those ceramic tiles together it becomes like a field that is blooming with flowers,” he said. “You can put that type of artwork … in airports and fountains and you can walk on it. It’s beautiful and made by children.”
Teaching children such techniques “opens up the brain to another level,” Furnari said.
He also expressed an interest in meeting local leaders, including Brownsville Mayor Trey Mendez, and said he hopes people will check out his artwork at SpaceX, where it attracted plenty of attention from the moment he parked his pickup near the “Starbase” wall on a recent Friday afternoon.
“It’s not really about the money, but sometimes it’s about the money,” he said. “I would say we’re not here for romance, we’re here for finance. I mean me and the 11 guys. … I’ve been trying to make some friends, that’s all. I’ve been trying to make some connections so this thing can become like part of SpaceX. … In America they say, ‘Build it and they will come.’ He built it and I came.”
As an itinerant artist, Furnari hopes to generate some income while showcasing his art for the public, getting to know the area and generally supporting the community however he can.
“It’s beautiful over here,” he said. “I like it. You guys are pretty laid back.”
