Today, I like to introduce an artisan I chose for the April Box, The Dolce far niente Box.
Sculpture is the rigid shaped
TiMarmo Gioielli by Tiziana Guerra
On a Monday morning in February, I set out to reach Massa Carrara, an Italian town in northern Tuscany between the Tyrrhenian coast and the Apuan Alps. It is a center of international significance for the mining, processing, and trade of marble. I was with my father, my first supporter in the development of this project.
You realize you have arrived in Carrara by looking around, you are surrounded by depots of large marble blocks, and the machinery to move them looks like imposing Gundams watching over these expanses of cubed mountains from above. I must admit that it makes a certain impression, one wonders if there will be anything left of these mountains.
In this area, marble is used for everything: squares are paved with marble, benches are made of marble, even the edges of sidewalks are made of white Carrara marble.
Dwellings alternate with the large fencing of marble yards. In a small town, I go in search of Tiziana's house, initially getting lost on a narrow dirt road. I walk back, then I see Tiziana the size of an ant leaning over the railing of her garden to be noticed, she is at the top of a hill. Climbing up a hillock, you reach a group of cottages, in one of them lives Tiziana.
We introduce ourselves, it's our first meeting, and I immediately feel comfortable.
She, like many of us, also suffered the great moral shock resulting from the social isolation caused by the pandemic.
It was a negative collision with reality that raised a fuss, we felt that we were experiencing an unprecedented condition, but in history, this is not so, there have been other experiences of crisis, we simply did not experience it personally. From the beginning of the pandemic, we heard the question "will we come out better?" Today, many people answer no, for many, it was already an accomplishment to come out of it. If that were the case, if there were no useful lessons to share, it would be a major defeat for those who think that life is always an opportunity to learn.
We can say that the Covid outbreak has left us with lessons about environmental sustainability, but for many, it has also taught useful lessons in daily life.
Tiziana came out with the right impetus for her restart, because life is now, and if we do not try now to do what we would like to do, then when?
In 2021, she opened TiMarmo Jewelry, an original entrepreneurial project, thanks to her courage to put herself out there to give space to her passion. Tiziana told me that she has always liked small things, so perhaps that is why it was natural for her to identify a new dimension for a material mostly used for big works. Tiziana is a craftswoman with a passion for handwork, perhaps the first to use this material even for small miniature reproductions, 1/12 scale.
Can you picture a designer table made of real Carrara marble in your dollhouse? If you can't, well, you can have it anyway by asking her to make it for you.
So, coming out of the pandemic, Tiziana began to shape marble into small sculptures to wear. A new idea that brings such an ancient art form, the art of carving images from stone, to continue today.
The earliest evidence of sculpture dates back to the Paleolithic period - graffiti on rock, engraved or hammered, and figures in the round of bone and horn in the round worked with sharp stone tools.
An artistic technique that dates back to prehistoric times, a time when humans began carving stones. Did you know it?
Thus, the history of sculpture begins in very ancient times. From the very origin of civilization, man began to mold the raw materials he was gradually discovering (stone, iron, and bronze) to create objects first for everyday use and then furnishings, all three-dimensional products.
Tiziana sculpting the Capitonné style decoration of a white Carrara marble pendant.
Today, in her workshop Tiziana makes, entirely by hand, real marble jewelry, small sculptures that change with a movement of light, sometimes revealing a different beauty than she had thought of because sculpture is like that, it changes with the light and with the point from which it is observed. Most of her creations are unique pieces, made from the scraps of artistic Carrara marble processing. Showing them to me, she also listed the names of the marbles she used - marble Bardiglio, Statuario, Calacatta, Nero Colonnata... a bit like the Eskimos who know the name of the different shades of white, she can explain to you the difference in texture and veining of the different marbles extracted from her land.
Tiziana's soul and personality can be found in the care she puts into every step of the creation cycle of her products, all of which are designed to make her design eco-friendly. The raw material comes from the scraps from the art workshops in the Carrara area, and the water she uses for polishing is stored in a small bowl, where Tiziana leaves it to decant so that the powder goes down to the bottom and she can use the same water again and again. Even the white dust produced for its processing is given a second life. Marble dust is collected in a glass bubble to create a special pendant. Tiziana gives a second life to everything, a second chance.
I have selected for you some of her unique pieces, soon you’ll find them in the Emporium, stay tuned!
