Stone Carpets: Guest Post Jorge Soares

The sidewalks of Rio. 


We Cariocas kind of take our mosaic sidewalks for granted. We nap on it, we display items for sale on it, we walk on it without noticing. Of course, not if you are an artist like Waltercio Caldas - then you play with it and twist and turn and raise it to the sky...They need a lot of work to maintain, and that craftsmanship was getting lost. Renata Lima then created the project "Stone carpets, an urban tattoo" and convinced the mayor of Lisbon to send us four master professionals to train a group of apprentices. Portugal, of course, where some many things began for us. Renata also put together the book "Tapetes de pedra/Stone carpets", telling the story of the sidewalks since it's origins in Roman mosaics till present days. Another fabulous book is "O Rio que eu piso" (the Rio I step on), but bad news: it is out of print. The good news is that I asked the photographer for this book to show some of his work here. It is a special treat, Bruno Veiga is someone I admire very much.






All top photos and content by Jorge Soares
All bottom photos by Bruno Veiga