Watercolor of "oldtown" Paola ca 1974 by Angelo D'Elia

by Angelo D'Elia

If art is form and content then my dad, Battista D’Elia, may have been an artist. I’ll tell you why I think so a little bit later.

Dad never studied art or expressed a desire or need to be creative and in fact to my knowledge, never showed the slightest interest in art at all. He did not frequent museums to see works of art, and he did not sketch or doodle on paper. From his everyday behavior, including his conversation, anyone might conclude that he did not have an artistic bone in his body.

He liked music and listened to it frequently, and for a man whose education was limited to three years, he read daily from either books, newspapers or magazines. He was relatively well informed about what was going on around him and in the world, but when it came to art, he didn’t seem to care.

My older brother, Frank, when he was a teen-ager made freehand drawings complete with colored pencils, and I too did the same. In addition to drawing and sketching, I had high school classes in oil and watercolor painting. To this day, I’ll attempt to do something I think is artistic, and I do enjoy going to museums. If my brother and I have any artistic interest or skill, it didn’t come from Dad.

As it turned out, I ended up living in the house in which my parents had resided until their death. From time to time, and especially when I take on one or another renovation project, I stumble upon memories of my dad. For example, the other day I was breaking up some old concrete in the backyard. I knew that the little walkway I was destroying had been poured by my dad, and actually remember watching him do the work back in 1957. Thus, I felt a little guilty. Though the old walkway was cracked and in the way of my new project, I did not like the idea of eliminating something Dad had made.

I needed to justify what I was doing. I reminded myself that I have saved many objects associated with my father. Just recently, I made a reverse plaster mold of his hand from an impression he had made in concrete ala Grauman’s Chinese Theatre style. It was in the backyard not far from the walkway I was breaking into smitherines with a twenty pound sledge hammer. In addition, I recalled that I have a large picture of him (18 X 30) on the wall of my office, a glass door curio full of my dad things, and even a pair of his old workshoes. All of this made me feel better.

Let’s get back to why I think my dad was an artist. As I cracked the walkway into manageable slabs that I could pick up and drop into my wheel barrow, I was caught by the image of one such slab I had put in smooth side down. Facing me was the bottom of the walkway section, uneven, dirty, and attached to it were numerous broken pieces of glass.

Dad, who made his own wine, racked his product from the barrel into one gallon jugs. The jugs were made of transparent brown glass, and boasted a small ring on the neck for the index finger. Below the ring, was a small extension of glass for the middle finger to make pouring from a full bottle much easier. Dad had acquired these bottles many years ago from the trash areas of restaurants and drugstores. These were the businesses that served Coca Cola in glasses to their customers and these one gallons jugs originally contained syrup to mix with sparkling water.

Obviously Dad broke gallon jugs from time to time, and he kept a pail in the back of the garage in which he deposited broken glass. As it filled up, he threw it in the galvanized garbage can the day before pick-up as he did not want my mom or us kids to cut ourselves if for any reason we might look through the trash. On the day that he made the walkway, in early 1957, he emptied the broken glass from this pail into the formed section of the walkway. Over it, he poured the cement.

From that day until just last week, those broken pieces of glass slept peacefully under the slab of concrete over which countless feet have walked. Many of the people who walked on that garden walkway, such as my parents and aunts and uncles have already died. Any living family member or friend who reads this will know if they have done so. What no one ever thought of, including me, as they maneuvered their steps on top of that walkway was that underneath the cement itself was my father’s work of art.

If you look at the slab in question, this is what you will see. The form is earthy and rough, boasting various textures, and presents itself through various colors and shades of those colors. The bits of brown glass, though separate from each other, are quickly identified as the remains of a bottle. The content of this work of art suggests that this unknown winemaker, Battista D’Elia, may have dropped a brown glass gallon jug after he had racked his precious liquid into four quart bottles. He safeguarded the pieces of glass in a pail, and later when he was building a cement walkway decided to send me a message fifty years later.

That message as I see it goes something like this. Angelo, don’t forget me. Don’t forget that I made my own wine, broke bottles, and constructed cement walkways. Someday you will do these things, too, and someday you will see my work of art. When you do, stop and think about what you are seeing. Now I don’t feel guilty about breaking the walkway. I know that if I had not chosen to break it, I would never have seen Dad’s work of art or received his message.

My dad’s work of art

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