The Season of Creativity
Spring, summer, autumn, winter, and spring again
The road leading to Atelier Crestani is all sky and fields bordered by ditches. The gate slides open, and you find yourself in a glass box surrounded by greenery. Simone stands at the blowtorch – spring, summer, autumn, winter, and spring again, the season of creation, untouched by the ravages of time. You’ll find him at his workbench, transforming transparent glass tubes into soft, incandescent ropes that take on the ideal forms of his imagination.
«It started out as a game, filling the summer with an internship. I was immediately good at working with glass, and I decided it was worth a try. We were a group of four, plus the owner and his partner. It was a stimulating environment: there was passion and good energy; we saw new projects every day; it was the time of the first glass works for design, and soon they started sending me to exhibitions and fairs».
In the garage of his parents’ house, he began to bring his creations to life, until he met Jean Blanchaert, who organized his first solo exhibition in 2008. The chance meeting was followed by a year of lull, broken by the arrival of Alexandre Biaggi and Bernd Goeckler. «The following week, I quit my job, and from that moment on, I never stopped. I found myself catapulted into a world bigger than myself, one I wasn’t prepared for. I didn’t even speak English».
«It took me years to hone what was asked of me, but when I have an idea, I dive into it: it’s my madness. From the beginning, I’ve been pushed to do things bigger than myself by people with superior foresight and confidence». It’s spring again when Paris hosts his exhibition, but he’s already elsewhere and will always be, experimenting with new techniques to create increasingly important and detailed pieces in borosilicate.
Emilio Santini, a native of Murano who moved to Virginia, brought him to Corning for the first time in the summer of 2012. The following year, Simone taught his first course, but above all, he embraced the idea of doing the things he loves in the way and at the pace that suits him. «My passion fuels my passion. My studio is my habitat. I don’t work to work, but because I love it. The goal is to make things that are increasingly beautiful and relevant. It’s a need and an addiction».
«You have to know how to manage creativity. I discovered this on my own through trial and error. Knowing how to delegate allows you to achieve greater results, but I learned this recently. Teamwork fuels creativity, a sophisticated and shared thought process that nourishes my imagination. There was a time when I would go through weeks of depression searching for an idea. Now I live in an eternal spring».
If you ask him how success is achieved, he replies: «with a lot of work, a lot of passion, and a little luck. The key to success is to go out and look for it, try hard, and have a taste that appeals to others, not just you. Fortunately, the things I like are also liked by others». But what does success represent? «The freedom to do what I love, however I choose. Great things can’t be done alone. It takes people, ideas, and substance».
He’s just forty years old and they call him Maestro. He smiles. «I learn new things every day, even from my students. I’ll always be a student. At the same time, I recognize I have something to teach. Interacting with young people excites me. I don’t have a calling for teaching, but I’m good at transmitting passion to receptive people. For the rest of the time, I choose the woods, the cliffs, and the silence. I’ve always been shy and a man of few words».
Indeed, the atelier is a place of the soul, the bubble that holds a fragile and precious world: the dream of personal freedom of expression. Simone found it in glass. «Success brings a burden of expectations, gossip, and entrepreneurial responsibilities, which I endure to the extent that I can forget about them, because I’m doing something that fulfills me and satisfies my need for beauty».
In the atelier, like in a dream, you never want to leave. Simone guides us to the threshold of reality: “maybe we shouldn’t be blowing glass. We make things that serve no purpose. It’s not the most sustainable job in the world, but I try to do it as best I can, sharing the hardships and successes with those who contribute to achieving them, because the grace of these days is more fragile than blown glass, so I’m more grateful for every encounter that brought me this far than for my lucky stars».
Rachele Perbellini
