The night in the Channel

 The world has only one sky lit by the stars; for the Mediterranean seagull, the light is endless, because the sea reflects the starry sky all around his own sailboat. The mainsail lights up white, and the crosswind, swelling it, turns it into the shape of the moon. The moon is often disappointing, because it shows itself full only for a few days. In the Channel the night lasts little, and it always marvels at how fast time passes; the night, with relief, is short, and the seagull touches the sky with a finger. The North Star, at high latitudes, is so close to the horizon that if I rested my chin on that fair‑weather window, it would fall into my hair. And here is Piero the surly one, gripping the helm in his sea and thanking the moon, which red announces the arrival of the Sun. He warms everything, the tiredness of sleep disappears, and tomorrow returns.

I like sports

  These days Italy is hosting the Olympic Games. After crossing the finish line and claiming victory, the Italian skier is embraced by the two other contenders for the podium, who congratulate her for securing her place with an exceptional time. It’s an embrace that brings peoples together — a gesture that some have compared to the way the cells in our body unite when they are somehow injured.

A Sparrow on Board

  This morning it was raining, and after an unremarkable breakfast I went back on board my boat. On the dock that connects the mainland to the moored boats, in a small service dinghy, I found a tiny featherless chick. I picked it up gently and welcomed it aboard my boat.

And that’s how the adventure began: me, suddenly elected as a mother, and this little bird as my son.

Welcome, little creature — he immediately started eating everything imaginable. When I go to the supermarket, I find myself thinking of him too. I buy some beef, eggs, a melon, and other fruit…

He grows, and little by little he starts flapping his wings, first fluttering around inside the cabin and then, finally, sticking his beak out into his true kingdom: the sky.

I flew away from the harbors

  It was the year 2001, and I was living in Ancona, in the Marche region of Italy. I worked as a house painter, and one day my colleague and I were painting an apartment completely empty of furniture, so our voices echoed through all the rooms and I was telling him about my doubts about life; we were both in the same room when he said:

“Piero, why don’t you get your boating license and travel around the world?”  

In silence, I kept thinking…

I found a naval architect in Florence named Rodolfo Foschi. He told me that in Livorno, also in Tuscany, a friend of his was building a steel sailing boat based on one of his designs, in a shipyard along the Arno River floodway. The model was called Tamatino.

I went to Livorno and, some time after our conversation, I decided to begin building what would eventually become Flesh, my steel boat with a spruce mast. Building a boat takes a huge amount of work, but it comes with a few small advantages—one of them is that you end up knowing your boat inside out. And when it came time to rig the main mast, an interesting story emerged…

Where was I supposed to find a 12‑meter mast? I remember walking down the road toward the lumber depot, full of curiosity, when I passed through a forest. Smiling to myself, I thought that if things got desperate, I could always cut down one of those trees. At the depot I found a wooden beam that could be shaped to fit my boat, so I bought it.

After the launch, when I began sailing among the islands of the Tyrrhenian Sea, something almost mystical started happening in the ports where I stopped. A bond formed between Flesh and her mast—something similar to the affection one might feel for a horse, even if the comparison isn’t perfect.

I got my boating license and learned the basics of chartwork, but I was still just a beginner…

During my early sailing days, I gave my body to the boat, and I studied the Glenans Sailing Manual to fill in the gaps in my knowledge—sometimes I kept it on my bedside table at night.

Then one day, sailing toward the island of Elba with all sails full of wind, Flesh began giving back to me what I had given her. What I had invested in her returned as pure joy and ease.

Since I was a child, I had rowed up and down the coastline near the campground where my family spent summers. And now, suddenly, I found myself a sailor of the open sea.

Like in Venice

An entire summer spent in the archipelago turns into a way of life.  

You leave behind the pressures of life on land, and time itself becomes rarefied — for every task, you feel as though you have an eternity. Slowness and awareness seep into you, and reading a book becomes deep and effortless.

I look at the galley and realize I need to reach a supermarket because I’m missing some basic supplies. I heave the anchor aboard and raise the sails toward that particular island. How lucky I feel now that I have everything on board.

The pier inside the bay feels like the pier of the entire world.

A Lesson I Carried With Me

 I was a teenager living in a small hilltop village near Ancona, in the Marche region. Every morning, on my way to school, the bus would wind its way down through the hills until it reached the Adriatic coast and the city of Senigallia, where my hospitality school was.

From the bus stop we walked to class, and along the way my friends and I talked about whatever surrounded us. Sometimes, though, my thoughts drifted elsewhere. I imagined what it would be like to live in Senigallia—on flat land, close to the sea. I dreamed of a place where you could get around by bicycle, without burning fossil fuels, moving quietly through the world.

Pedalling in silence, reaching your destination with nothing but your own strength, felt to me a bit like sailing. Life seemed lighter that way, as if you could carry it in your pockets and in your heart. On a bicycle you can think, observe, and let the world pass gently around you, because your slowness disturbs no one.

Today I live in Ravenna—a city as flat as I once imagined, filled with bicycles, frames, and wheels that anyone can dream of riding toward their own horizons.

Paper rolls

 Then I fell in love with the computer and its colors. It all seemed so ridiculous, drawing with Windows Paintbrush, yet that’s where my passion—and distraction—for drawing began.

I tried everything, from crudely editing photos to sketching random doodles, and then, while wandering around the city, I started photographing the graffiti people had painted on the walls.

At the time I was traveling often, so by the end of it all I had quite a bit of material to work with. With more effective software, I began composing illustrations and posters, and it gradually turned into a coherent artistic path.

But the whole thing made me think…

Who will ever see my work if it remains just a set of files? In Ravenna there’s a neighborhood next to the docks called Hub—former storage warehouses now abandoned—yet right beside them there’s a charming seaside walkway, wide and beautifully lit at night.

I picked myself a little corner of wall and started posting my printed posters there.