The Technique
I decided to specialise in the weaving of metals almost by chance… Or perhaps not, since my coming across this technique was only apparently a coincidence.
In 2008, i moved to spain, Barcelona to be precise – its beauty, its light and its harmonious simplicity gave me new creative impetus and i rediscovered my taste for study and experimentation.
I attended the technical jewellery course at the el taller school-cum-workshop, before cutting my teeth at the alchimia contemporary jewellery school in florence and at the giovanni corvaja studio, and to this day i still conduct frequent experiments with a view to finding new ways of playing with the material. My encounter with textile jewellery put me back in touch with a technique of weaving i had first learned as a child, from my grandmother… And it was like reconnecting with one of the threads running throughout my life.
Using various tools that i have borrowed from seamstresses, weavers and artisans who work with straw, i adapt and combine goldworking techniques both ancient and modern to give rise to highly personal designs.
The Materials
My preferred material is copper, which is perhaps the metal that mankind has been working with longer than any other. Once widely used in mirrors thanks to its reflectiveness, copper was often associated with the mythological goddess venus, its main source being the island of cyprus, which in ancient times was held to have been the birthplace of aphrodite (the greek equivalent of the roman venus). It is interesting to note that the symbol used by alchemists to represent copper was the same one used by astrologers to denote the planet venus.
Copper is an excellent conductor and this enhances its ductility yet further. Through galvanisation, i manage to imbue this metal with stunning aesthetic characteristics, as well as properties of hardness and resistance to oxidation and corrosion, achieving diverse colour nuances and unusual tones (the process of the “gilding” of metals is a typical example of galvanisation).
After being woven, the copper is first cleaned, degreased and treated with acid, before being dipped in an aqueous solution and subjected to a flow of direct current, which causes the metal ions to be deposited and to “grab on” to the treated surface. It is then indispensable, given the delicacy of my products, to implement a process of mattocking and manual drying.
In this way, i can achieve both warm colours and cold colours, as well as an array of undertones and surface oxidation effects, all without changing the base material: copper.
Shapes, too, are very important in my work.
Circles, spirals, split ovals that recall symbols, female images… But that’s another story.