Archive for category: Venice Artisans

Real Artisans in Venice

Fabricharte: The Art of Bookbinding in Venice

When people come to Venice, most often than not they are overwhelmed by the huge amount of fake Chinese souvenir shops, which the city is filled by.

Fake cheap Carnival masks, horrendous plastic little gondolas, cheap and ugly FAKE Murano glass: a sea of rubbish, a mass of junk which people only buy because they are cheap.

Tourists have totally lost the idea of what bringing a souvenir home from visiting a beautiful spot on earth really means!

I am pretty sure, you all remember the days when visiting a new location meant purchasing local hand crafted items, which would then be given as gifts or would proudly sit on display in the various parts of our home.

Surprisingly in Venice you can still do that, if you take the time and the care to look for them. We tried to show this side of Venice with A Taste of Venice.

One of these local artisans is Andrea Andreatta of Fabricharte, a bookbinder located in one of the most residential parts of Venice.

Andrea is a craftsman bookbinder, the founder of this tiny but cute binding shop, located in Castello, where he carries on the tradition of Venetian bookbinding.

As you walk into his “bottega”, as small artisan shops like this are called in Venice, you are greeted by a huge display of exercise books, albums, diaries, address books, frames and other custom accessories, all strictly made by hand.

Andrea has learnt from the best Venetian master bookbinders, since bookbinding was one of the major arts of the Republic of Venice.

What is bookbinding

Bookbinding was born from the need to preserve old books in the best conditions without causing them damage.

The binding of old books and rare books over time has turned into a real art, giving the book a more elegant and sometimes even more valuable garment.

The first form of binding is considered the cord that kept united the primitive wooden or ivory tablets.

But to speak of real art of bookbinding and of bookbinders in general, we have to wait until the book took the form of a code, with a set of stitched sheets, all covered with an outer cover.

The binders gave rise to increasingly real works of art, where they even put their own signature, thus developing the bookbinding art, which later reached significant peaks in terms of value and elegance.

Towards the end of the XV century, in Florence, the first golden applications  (doratura) were used, which developed mainly in the following century, especially in Venice. Here the local binders were inspired by the Persian bindings, imported by the Venetian merchants in their travels, introducing the use of “Moroccan”, i.e. goatskin subjected to special treatment.

The Venetian bookbinders, began to use, instead of wooden boards, some paper plates, obtained by pressing several sheets of paper, to reduce the volume weight.

In many cases they used scraps of previous ancient books to make new ties.

In Italy the best works came from the workshop of Aldo Manuzio (Aldus Manutius) in Venice, whose influence soon spread all over the north, especially on ancient books of small size, today called pocket sized.

But let’s Andrea explain how he came to love this art.

 

• Introduce yourself to our readers: who is your company and what does it do?

 

Fabricharte was born in 2013, for the love of Venice and media print. Venice, from Aldo Manuzio onwards, has represented an important point of reference in global bookselling production.

The history of Bookbinders evolves hand in hand with the history of books and in Venice we can see the highest of its technical and art expressions.

Today the tradition of Bookbinding in Venice is getting lost: a bit due to the fierce competition of technology against the printed paper, a bit due to mass tourism that “prefers” to purchase other types of items.

This is why I chose this job: to preserve from oblivion the techniques and the art of Venetian Bookbinding, learning all the secrets from the elderly Masters (very few) that still operate in Venice; to return a service to the city, that of binding and repairing books; to get people to discover this semi-disowned art in which Venice excelled in the world, becoming an icon like the famous art of glass and the production of fabrics.

Fabricharte’s characteristic imprint is the great care and attention to detail. The whole production is completely manual, and the entire process is performed in the workshop.

The products are made only by natural and first quality materials. The design is tailor-made to customer requirements, each item is totally customizable in shapes, colors, decorations and accessories. We also accept orders through Internet and deliver all over the world.

 

• How long have you been operating in Venice?

I have been in Venice since 2013. Before in San Maurizio area (San Marco), then Castello. I love the quiet areas, where you can work in peace without the frenzy of hit and run tourism.

 

• What do you love the most about Venice?

Tranquillity. Except for the usual famous places (Rialto, San Marco, Strada Nova ….), Being able to walk in peace, with no  cars or frenzy.

Venice is a city suspended in time and space. Here everything flows with a different time, on different distances. And I realize that every time (and only) when I go away from Venice.

I come from a small valley in Trentino, I could not bear to live in the city. Venice is the only exception, because it is unique.

 

• What would you change in Venice?

As often happens, what you would like to change in a place is the people.

Venice needs to be loved, unfortunately it is only exploited and mistreated on a daily basis.

I do not think that the problem is the tourists, not even mass tourism (it is yet another escape goat), but those who live there and who run the city.

A city lives if it is inhabited, however it annually loses more and more inhabitants. The houses die, the city dies. At this rate, and without any intervention at the administrative level, in a few years it will be a Disneyland, which opens in the morning and closes at night, dead and soulless.

The Venice I do not like is the district of San Marco, dead and soulless if not the touristy one.

The Venice I like is the Castello area, a living area, with the children playing in the squares.

 

For information contact:

 

Fabricharte

Castello 6477/A,

Barbaria dele Tole

I – 30122 Venezia

tel: +39 041 200 6743

cell: +39 327 497 2022

Website: Fabricharte

Facebook: Fabricharte

#atasteofvenice #vivovenetia #ifabricharte #veniceartisans

Etching in Venice

Meet our partners: Plum Plum Creations

Etching in Venice: there are printing activities that are part of a craft of which Italy, and above Venice, are the unsurpassed interpreters, but which nevertheless today are in danger of disappearing.

On the one hand this is caused by a totally changed market, on the other it is also caused by the running out of vocations.

This is happening with the printing of works of art, etchings in particular, an artistic tradition that is struggling to survive.

The art of engraving is an artistic technique that was born and flourished because of the ability to multiply images, before the advent of printing with the movable type.

It was only from the Renaissance the engraving was applied to the preparation of printing plates, first for xylography, then for the various chalcographic techniques up to screen printing and lithography.

Engraving was loved since ancient times: the stone in Prehistory, on ceramics and in metal decoration in the Classical age as well as on walls (see Pompeii and Herculaneum).

It was used in the decoration of the most diverse objects, often associated with other technical materials.

Engraving on metal plates had parallel development in Italy and Germany in the sixteenth century, and was born from the effect of testing on paper in the Florentine goldsmith workshops.

During the sixteenth century in Europe we can observe the spreading of the etching technique, also known as acquaforte : it allowed the creation of a variety of effects.

It was an intaglio technique consisting in corroding a metal plate (usually, copper zinc for large runs) with an acid, to obtain images to be transposed on a support (normally paper) by means of colors.

It was first tested by people like Parmigianino and Barocci and in the seventeenth century by Guido Reni, Guercino and Della Bella, culminating in the work of Rembrandt in the Netherlands.

As for Venice, the eighteenth century is the century of the qualitative recovery of a sector that in the seventeenth century had favored the quantitative aspect as well as a scientific and topical reproduction.

In the same period when Canaletto starts to experiment with etching,  Giambattista Tiepolo begins to work with this technique, and his masterpieces Capricci and Scherzi di Fantasia consecrate him as a renown artist.

In the eighteenth century new techniques arise such as aquatint and the “manner in pencil”, claimed by various artists. Next to the great Tiepolo, the new type of engraved views spreads to Rome and Venice, with Canaletto, Bellotto and Ricci being the most significant representatives.

In the nineteenth century etching experienced a decline in favor of lithography, which allows larger print runs, but the preparation of etching matrices was always the favorite technique by artists who gave back an impulse to original incision and its collections. From here on, the commercial value is defined by the number of short runs.

Almost all modern painters will have a go at this technique: Chagall, Derain, Nolde, Kokoschka, Picasso, Miro, Carra, Morandi, Campigli, Guttuso.

In Venice the technique of etching still lives on, thanks to people like Arianna Sautariello of Plum Plum Creations, a young artist who finally, after years of struggles and persevering, has managed to accomplish her dream: owning her own Art Etching Studio!

Arianna is a gentle, sweet and very interesting person, make sure to stop by her studio and listen to her explanations of the etching technique. You can also take etching lessons with Arianna in Venice.

But let’s hear it from this young talented woman!

• Introduce yourself to our readers: who is your company and what does it do?

My name is Arianna Sautariello, I was born in Venice in 1982 and here I completed my studies at the Art School and then at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice.

I inherited from my mother the passion for Art: she had a bookbinding shop in Salizada San Canzian, and there I tried to learn the trade secrets – the love for printmaking did the rest.

In 2013 I decided to turn my passion for printmaking into a job: I created the website www.plumplumcreations.com where it’s possible to see and buy my creations (mainly art prints but also linocuts, watercolors, tempera paintings). Now, after this trial period, I finally decided to open my own Art studio/workshop in Venice, in Fondamenta dei Ormesini (in Cannaregio district), where I can show my work, making printing demonstrations and explaining how this ancient art works, organizing etching courses and also workshops for children.

• How long have you been operating in Venice?

The shop will officially open in April 2016, but I have been collaborating with “La Bottega del Tintoretto”, a historic printing house close to Madonna dell’Orto, for over an year and a half.

• What do you love the most about Venice?

Venice is the ideal city, the real city on a human scale. I love almost everything about Venice: the colors, the silence, the views, the calm, the pauses, the tranquility, the story.

Unfortunately, now the city has lost a little bit of the original poetry, but I know there are many people like me who keep on loving her deeply and who try to show the world the city as I have known when I was younger.

In a word: magical.

• What would you change in Venice?

I would change the way of understanding tourism and also the housing policy.

Unfortunately we are moving towards a not-anymore-sustainable mass tourism which is deleterious to the city: what should be the first resource threatens to turn into a dangerous boomerang.

We should give priority to QUALITY tourism rather than the quantity one. And this could help to repopulate the city that slowly but surely is emptying out. But we don’t give up- we are here to stand and fight!

For information contact:

Plum Plum Creations

Website: www.plumplumcreations.com

Facebook: Plum Plum Creations

Twitter: Plum2creations

Instagram: Plum Plum Creations

 

Thank you so much Arianna for taking the time to join A Taste of Venice Blog tour and Blog Magazine and to talk to us about the Etching Technique in Venice!

The Queen of Venice Beads: Venetian Dreams

The main objective of A Taste of Venice Blog tour and blog magazine is to bring to the attention of the general public the real Venice, made up of its people, its arts and its food and wine.

The person who, in my humble opinion, represents the most authentic Venice, the best side of Venice, the Venice which I sincerely wish for everyone to discover, is Marisa Convento of Venetian Dreams. Marisa is a jeweler maker, specialized in using original Venetian Murano beads, both modern and antique ones. She is the Queen of Beads of Venice.

She is one of the most energetic, passionate and interesting people you will ever meet in your life. Her love for the city transpires from every word she speak, from every piece of jewelry she produces, from every gestures she makes.

If I have to picture Venice as a person, it will be Marisa: full of life, colorful, elegant without being snobbish, classy but at the same time down to earth. Yes, Venice at its best!

And on top of that, she is an endless source of information concerning Venice, artisans, food, art, politics and much more: she is a living Wikipedia of Venice!

As you can gather from my words above, I am in love with this woman who I can proudly call a dear Friend (yes, one of those with a capital letter!). I love the way she gives and gives to this city, not expecting anything in return, just because….she loves Venice!

But enough compliments, let’s allow Marisa to do the talking!

• Introduce yourself to our readers: who is your company and what does it do?

My name is Marisa Convento, Art Glass Jewellery maker and owner of “Venetian Dreams”, in Venice.

My personal passion is the Venetian glass bead in all its forms, periods, styles and sizes: from the biggest and oldest collectible ones to the tiniest and colorful seed-beads: the “conterie”.

I felt in love with the variety and the beauty of the Venetian glass beads from a very young age. I started being curious of the many different ways of using them as self adorments and fashion or home accessories. I was fascinated by the diffusion of the glass beads made in Venice all over the world, in the far continents where they were used by merchants, missionaries and explorers to establish friendly approaches with native tribes or using them like money for precious goods, such as gold, silver, precious stones, ivory, spices, silks, rare woods, furs and unfortunately even slaves.

I have been studying really a lot of the history, the culture and the tecniques of work related to the Venetian glass beads. When I felt ready, I started my own collection of unique pieces, artistic and collectable creations that are strictly and only hand made, using the best contemporary beads and original vintage Murano Glass seed-beads.

With these very rare, ancient, extremely small beads, I recreate intricate traditional or modern beadworks, stringing the beads on thread or on metal wire, using the old forgotten tecniques of the Venetian beadstringers: the “Impiraressa” ( in Venetian dialect the lady who strings the beads).

My production varies, going from the beaded flowers or beaded “coral branches” that I also create for high fashion shoes and bags collections, to a one of a kind glass bead necklaces and other glass jewellery pieces, to home accessories that sometimes combine the fine Venetian fabrics and the colourful beads.

 

• How long have you been operating in Venice?Marisa at work

I opened my atelier “Venetian Dreams”, at the beginning of 2007, when I was 46 years old, after an experience of already 25 years working in the field of Venetian artistic workmanship and applied arts, including gold jewellery, Murano Glass and the world’s best hand woven silk Venetian fabrics.

The name of my boutique is significant of the dream of life that I wanted to become reality: create beautiful adorments with Venetian beads in order to preserve and promote the Art and the Culture of the Venetian Glass Beads.

 

• What do you love the most about Venice?

I love everything about Venice!

From the differents lights and shadows depending on the season, the weather, the moment of the day or the night, to the tiny details like an ancient stone, or a white rose or a pomegranate branching out of a secret garden wall, to the sound of the bells in the still of the night.

There is a Venice for everyone, one can choose what to fall in love with : be it the food, or the Art, or just strolling around letting the city on water caress you! It’s impossible not to love Venice, and I hope to be loved in return…by Venice.

My mission is to deserve the honour of being a Venetian, I believe that each one of us Venetians, no matter what we do, in the way we do it, we can become good or bad ambassadors of our city.

 

• What would you change in Venice?

Venice is “The Perfect City”, there is nothing to be changed, and hopefully nothing will be changed in favor of some fool projects of forced modernization or economical exploitation.

What is really needed is an improvement in the understanding of her history, beauty, fragility and best aspects, the only way of obtaining the due respect that will preserve her body and soul intact for the future generations, because Venice belongs to mankind.

For information contact:

Venetian Dreams of Marisa Convento

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Website: www.marisaconvento.it

Facebook: Venetian Dreams

Twitter: Venetian Dreams

Instagram: Marisa Convento

Thank you again Marisa for helping A Taste of Venice become a reality!

 

#atasteofvenice #venetiandreams #marisaconvento #impiraressa #venetianbeads #muranoglassbeads #muranoglassjewelry #muranoglasscrafts