martedì 20 maggio 2014

BLOGS AND CRAFTS: The young Artisans and The Web


Author: Gayane Simonyan

The annual festival of Artisans and their works is held in a different format this year. From 15 to 18 May the exhibition ARTIGIANATO E PALAZZO brought together 10 bloggers and 10 artisans under 35 to compete. Held in the historic Corsini Gardens, this year’s edition includes “Blogs & Crafts” competition.

4-days-exhibition dedicated to 37 new exhibitors, 46 different craftsmanship and 91 artisans, protagonists of handicraft skills, as well as this year’s winners of the contest “Blogs&Crafts”, is produced in collaboration with QN/LA NAZIONE.
 
Special for this occasion Corsini Gardens allows its visitors to admire and purchase crafts handmade by the capable craftsmen who represent 46 different professions: from glassblowing to woodcutting, from fabric-printing to the creation of exclusive custom-made shoes and clothes, pens made from fragrant exotic wood, from hay-weaving to iron-molding, old-fashioned and modern jewelry, as well as personalized perfumes.

“This exhibition is taking place every year. It started 20 years ago in 1994. This assumes to support younger generations and to celebrate the 20th anniversary with a view to the future,” said Ludovica Piras, the organizer.



The new features of this year include table dishware, lamps and abat-jours; hand-sewn shoes, of the kind used by world-wide cinema costumers; custom haute couture neckties; clothes and accessories in wool and silk produced with a felting technique by Atelier della Lana; cut-paper decorations; fountain pens in natural horn and many other things.


The 10 artisans selected for the contests are mosaicists, goldsmiths, tailors, luthiers, weavers, bookbinders, intarsio- makers, sculptors and papier-maché artists.
 

“We have 10 different bloggers in general - all around doing live blogging- coming from different parts of Italy and only one of them from England. They are experts on artisanry, tourism and fashion, lifestyle, events, culture, etc. At the end of the exhibition of Artigianato e Palazzo they are going to write articles with photos, videos and interviews about the exhibition, and the best piece will be a awarded by a plaque (targa) from QN LA NAZIONE,” said Ludovica Piras.


To give the participants and the guests more comfort, every evening had its musical part: jazz melodies, swing, classical, Balkan and Latino-American, all performed live, to accompany aperitivos at Ristorante Sotto i Tigli.

The voting for artisans was done with the coupons/tickets people take in the entrance by writing down the name of the artisans they like the most. The winner of the artisans who got the greatest number of votes among the 10 is Paolo Benvenuti.
 


“I’m very happy to be here and to show my sculpture to public, to meet a lot of people who like and esteem my work. Although I didn’t sell any of my carvings, I got a lot of comments, compliments and this was a new encouragement to continue my work and maybe take part in other competitions,” said Paolo Benvenuti.

The winner pointed that he is doing this work for many years already and he puts so much effort, energy and time in his work, “I put a lot of myself, I’m investing my soul and this prize was the recognition of my efforts, the proof that all was not done in vain, it was not wasted after all”.


As for the bloggers, the winner will be announced next week.

"I'm already writing and constructing my article in my mind. It's going to be a text with photos. Thought I might put a video as well. I hope I didn't miss anything and the final piece will be published on StudentsVille Florence blog next week," said Amir Muzzi Aldean, the blogger from UK.

Bloggers

“The readers of LA Nazione will to vote for the best story. The voting will start next Saturday to Sunday as bloggers need some time to have their stuff done. Anyone can vote for his/her favorite blogger online- simply by going to Lanazione.it,” the organizer summed up.