I think that my fascination with flight began from when my father put me – aged probably four or five – onto our upright piano and encouraged me to jump. He caught me, of course, and put me back up onto the piano so that I could repeat the operation. Which I did, many times.

About 35 years later, I decided to start hang gliding, so I consider the “Frog reaching for the sky” painting to be a sort of self-portrait. Over the course of 20 years I discovered, to my cost, that we are not all equal, and that my reaction speed and my limited ability to make quick, sound decisions were not good enough for a sport of this nature. I had a few rough landings, but also a world of enjoyment, until a building side accident forced me to abandon my dream of flight.

So the frog is basically me, struggling to leap into the air, and succeeding for a brief time before splashing back down into the pond. Immense thanks to my amazingly patient instructors Renato Fontana, Ignazio Bernardi (Garda Flying Paradise), Flavio Tebaldi (manager of the very successful Italian hang gliding team), Christian Ciech, a superb pilot who has won many world championship titles, and the fantastic crowd of flyers at Delta Club Laveno on Lake Maggiore, Italy.