I use borosilicate glass working with the lampworking technique. I have developed a personal style that allows me to create large pieces while at the same time concentrating on the smallest details. However, the creation of the work and the technique used are only the final part of the process.
It all starts from a sensation, a contrast, a suggestion that almost always comes from nature. As if the idea had always been there, hidden, and the experience allows me to see it for the first time and to become acquainted with it.
A great deal of time passes before the inspiration is put into material form. Sometimes I feel the need to define it with a few sketches on paper. However, more and more often I follow the urge to start work directly and to give an initial form to the idea in my head.
The prototype is rarely the same as the finished work. I leave it to one side, in a corner of my workshop, ignoring it for days, or even weeks, until it calls out to me for an adjustment, a suggestion, something I missed.
When I am certain, the time comes to get serious. I prepare my tools, place the glass tubes and rods I will need close to hand and light the blow torch. The material starts to soften and time expands. When I start working on a complex piece I am sometimes unable to stop for hours.
The flame is my friend and my foe. I must regulate it wisely. If on the one hand it allows me to shape the glass and confine the space, giving it the form I prefer, on the other hand it can create irrecoverable weak points and shatter the piece in an instant. At times I fall out with it, then we make up and I start over.
Heat and time: it is all down to the perfect combination of temperature and cooling. If I dose these ingredients with good judgment, glass can do amazing things, achieve unexpected dimensions and forms.
When the project includes other materials besides glass, I involve other artisans who, like me, love to experiment, in the challenge. Structure and the technique are fundamental and everything is studied in detail in order for it to function perfectly.
The packaging is a delicate step, but I have faith in my glass. It appears fragile and insubstantial, but I know that I have made it solid, that all the trials that preceded it have made it expert and that it can withstand long journeys.
Each piece is made by hand, unique and unrepeatable. I like to think that parts of me live around the globe, that my thoughts have a form and reach places I would never have imaged before.
