circa 1970

Richard Blow with Bruno Lastrucci in the Montici workshop. Bruno is now the maestro. After 20+ years, business is slowing, Richard is tiring. The art world has shifted dramatically. Demand has dropped. Art has gone Pop with Warhol’s Campbell soup cans and Brillo boxes; Claes Oldenburg lipstick sculpture; street art, improvisation, happenings, minimalist exhibitions featuring trash in a corner. Hip is in. Richard still creates some strikingly beautiful Montici mosaics late in his career (see “Academic Biography” on the Home page to view 25 works from this late period which were donated to Oregon State University). But the generation of pietra dura maestros he started with are retiring, dying. Now 66 years old, Richard stands there in the photo, detached, hand in pocket, dealing with a 26-year old. It’s doubtful Richard attended church often, but he would have recognized Ecclesiastes 3:1 “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”

His time is passing.