I’m not sure I can pinpoint exactly the beginning of this story, of my approach to clay working. 

Perhaps because it is not towards the medium that an unequivocal passion has developed, but rather towards a gesture, an atmosphere. And even if I think about the gesture, it’s not an external gesture that comes to my mind, but rather an internal gesture, one of the soul. 

Here, even before meeting the clay, I encountered an industrious environment, made of smells and tools, and a feeling of being at peace, as in the most sacred place. 

The idea of ​​creating a sacred place where one can be and express oneself in the most authentic way, where one can let what one’s expert and wise hands do, speak and where one can calm the waves of thought, is the more or less conscious idea that has always inspired and driven me. 

Then life took care of the rest. Life did not let me undertake studies to become a mosaic artist, restorer or architect. Or again, made me grow up with a mother who painted. 

Life saw me for several years in Holland, in Delft, where I encountered the potter’s wheel and, through this, a friend with whom to exchange ideas, projects, a workshop space, my first one.

Life brought me back to Italy where I kept moving my equipment from place to place, in search of a cheap place where I could continue creating, until I met the people who literally donated the four walls, which then became the final workshop space. Last but not least, life made me intercept a European tender which allowed those walls to be renovated and the workshop to be set up. 

There was a moment, in 2014, when Mamèmi appeared on the world, and then stepped aside and left room for something else and re-emerged, slowly, as slowly as a complicated and unique building restoration can proceed. But Mamèmi came back more mature, strengthened. It’s back to stay for as long as I’m given and then, who knows? Mamèmi will no longer be there, but its sacred space, the space it occupied, will be there, welcoming, to host someone else who feels the need to be there with the same internal gestures.

And I’m sure there will be someone, because those gestures, those atmospheres will be increasingly felt as urgent ones.