Introduction

It is amazing how people have rarely reflected on the difference between a mediocre painting of a very well known artist and a beautiful carpet of an unknown artisan. The creativity of handwork has never truly been considered with the dignity it deserves.
Whilst the post-modern thoughts of the eighties were still brewing,
I decided to learn to turn wood, becoming an apprentice with one of the three or four remaining wood turners who still had their workshop in Milan. For an architect, this was a humbling experience. I used to make plates and bowls.
Then I started hand sculpting pipes creating a blend of veil wrappings of vegetal and muscle fibre texture. Only the bowls were turned. I used to work in a small room measuring three meters by one and a half. It was only when I moved to Cerro that I could have a big enough workshop. This allowed me to change from working with the mono-micro (pipes) to the multi-macro (lamps, furnitures and sculptures). In the mean time I stopped using raw materials, such as briar roots bought from Cresci sawmill in Sassetta, and shifted to using retrieved materials which I found: a way of giving symbolic dignity to devalued material.

My work entails that I search the ground to collect the insignificant, long forgotten pieces of wood brought in by the sea, rivers and lakes.
Possibly carrying signs of an unknown story, a previous process or the sheer transformation of sun, water and wind, skeletal branches become palpable souls.
Out of heaps of long forgotten metal scrap, the protruding pieces of brass, copper and iron can be appreciated. Their origins and stories are uncertain. Nevertheless one can always recognize that which comes from the affluent’s sitting room, the poor man’s lodge, or from deserted objects of design, as well as from some raped, old farmhouse which sacrificed its identity for the violent urbanization of the outskirts.
In this way simple stories are reconstructed with the art of darning and the taste of imperfection; this is not only a basic, simple technique of olden times, but also a way of interpreting life itself and the future.
One repairs the assaults of time and men by giving birth to a new creation which does not claim the perfection of the original work carved out from raw material, but possesses poetic, primordial flare.
One tries to come to terms with the passing of time, with Kronos who devours his own children, trying to stop time through the stagnation of the clock’s hands. Time machines become games, shipwrecked vessels once again leave with open sails, and totemic lamps, besides illuminating, also accompany one as people do.
Objects with a soul fascinate me, irrelevant of whether they are sculptures or common everyday life objects. However it is understood that there really is no intrinsic difference between the two.
The vulgar outburst of disillusionment, as well as the expression of subtle arrogant irony, are outdated exhibitionisms or the expression of never ending adolescences, both of which do not belong to me. Anything can be expressed in delicate lyrics.
A sweet acknowledgement to “il mestiere di vivere”.
I tried, always fascinated by the fundamental values of imperfection.
Patrizio Bedon, architect.

Note

The classification of works into groups, more or less conventional, serves a practical purpose. Naturally, surpassing the traditional division between everyday life objects and objects of art, still characterizes the foundation of all my work. For this reason it is inevitable that classification into groups may appear contradictory, but it is just not systematic.
All objects presented here have been created in the time period between 2000 and nowadays.