What is your chosen medium and what are your techniques?
Murano Glass is the medium I have chosen. Mostly, I use lampworking technique but I also use cold working and sandblasting to add ‘special effects’ to my blown glass beads.
How would you describe your work and where do you think it fits within the sphere of contemporary glass?
It’s an intimate and instinctive work that can be admired as a sculpture or worn as a jewel. It can fit into various areas, it all depends on the context.
Tell us a bit about your process and what environment you like to work in?
I normally work at my own studio in Livorno, but I enjoy working in the studio of other artists to work on collaborative projects or sharing my ‘vision’ to students and beginners when I teach lampworked solid and blown beads.
I’m a lampworker but I like to define my process like a ‘mini furnace’ because I learned to blowing glass as a self-taught watching the furnace working process. I use a bench torch to melt glass and blow it. I don’t use any molds to create shapes and volumes. I don’t like drawing and I translate my ideas on a bead having the project on my mind and let it make it real from my head to my hand.
Who do you look up to when it comes to aesthetics?
Not to whom, but to what. To my personal taste and minimalism, but also to architecture and modular repetitions.
What currently inspires you and which other artists do you admire and why?
I do not admire a particular artist, but many or perhaps all those who have intuitions that I wish I had had not only in the field of glass, but in the various artistic fields.
How are you experiencing the Covid-19 pandemic in your country? To what extent has your everyday life as an artist changed in lockdown?
I’m living this time using all of my Plans B.
Learning new things, experimenting and researching. This period gives me the time to resume projects left aside and carry them out. During the lockdown I couldn’t get to my studio to work, so I tried to use this time to take part in online events, designing and studying glass. Everyday I used to photograph one of my creations from different points of view in the home environment that surrounded me to bring my work closer to the social media audience and to share this difficult moment.