” Glasses and other ornaments that hinge on Venetian flair “
by Kate Singleton
Tuesday, July 29, 2003 – Page 7
Glasses and other ornaments that hinge on Venetian flair
By Kate Singleton, International Herald Tribune
July 29, 2003
Excerpt from the article :
Gualti, a designer specializing in jewelry and body ornaments, describe what they produce as extensions of the body, offshoots of the wearer’s personality. Gualti’s work embodies all the lightness and delicacy of Venetian glass, yet is soft and pliable to the touch.
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“I’ve found that I can get a variety of different synthetic resins to capture and reflect light, and to move gently like tendrils in the breeze,” Gaulti said. “I also use glass beads in my compositions, and tiny fragments of flexible laminates that accentuate the impression of movement.”
Self-taught, Gualti has been experimenting with the expressive potential of all sorts of materials since he was a child. This aptitude placed him at odds with his farming family in the hinterland of Padua. Rather than have him go to art school, they had him apprenticed at the age of 14 to a ceramicist.
“In my free time, when I wasn’t drawing I was setting off on expeditions to find beautiful things,” Gualti said. “Roots were a particular passion. I think that’s where the undulating filigree of my designs comes from. A small band of much younger children used to trot along with me and we would display our discoveries on a white sheet. My father and grandfather thought there was something wrong with me. They wanted a son with manly pursuits.”
By the time he was out of his teens, Gualti knew he had to move away. He applied for a job doing fresco work in Mestre, on the mainland. During a trial period using what was for him a new medium, his inventiveness and eye for detail so impressed the owner that she persuaded him to show her the sculptures he had been making at home.
Gualti’s workshop and store (Dorsoduro 3111, Rio Terà Canal; tel 041 5201731; www.gualti.it) are in an area that has maintained some of the color and bustle of the artisan district it once was. The gleaming white walls of the showroom shimmer quietly with the almost liquid light reflected from the gently oscillating resin filaments that are a feature of his work.
Each piece is meticulously crafted by hand, with the hot point of a needle used to bore and solder. Headpiece, armband, earrings, ring, soon ties as well: These are small sculptures that embrace motion and eschew symmetry. Color and form are reminiscent of the glorious blown-glass chandeliers traditionally made on the Venetian island of Murano. Yet the hand that reaches out to touch pale petals and leaves of such apparent fragility is shocked and then enchanted to discover a light, submissive medium that will not shatter or deform.
Though Gualti created some astounding headpieces for clients confident of making an impact at the recently inaugurated Venice Biennale, he will have nothing to do with the fashion houses keen to co-opt him into producing accessories for their designer collections. “No way! I would feel oppressed, just as I did in my teens.”
What does interest him is extending his experience to video and perhaps thereafter to the theater: the most natural development in a city that saw the birth of opera and whose every corner is a stage set.
Kate Singleton is a writer based in Italy.