Interview

• What kind of material is glass?

  It’s so stimulating, it has both huge potential and strong limits. It’s unstable: its value is in its fragility. It gives you a great creative freedom, yet it shows you the way. You have to watch it and listen to its sounds without preconceptions – in a dialogue.

• What do you like most in lampworking?

  Working with fire is primordial: it hypnotises you. This technique is somehow therapeutic and relaxing. Also, fire can be dangerous and it’s a hard job, which demands complete attention, but it is also a very sophisticated craft, technically speaking. And it’s alchemic, as well.

• What are your sources of inspiration?

  First of all, Venice and its relationship with water: the lagoon, rowing, the colours of sealife. Also, deep-sea fishing in southern Italy, where I was born. Japanese culture is endlessly fascinating. And glass itself: for example, I experiment with some old kind of glass abandoned in furnaces.

• Is this craft in danger nowadays?

  We face many problems. It is a niche that is threatened by the so-called overtourism: tourists have to be educated. And traditionally this was a men’s world, but today women have a creative revitalising influence. There’s space for different kinds of knowledge.