Making progress: a transformation

Many of you have been following the progress of my transformation of a basically unused terrace of my home into a new classroom space to host jewelry workshops. I’m not quite finished, but one big step has been completed and that was to install very big sliding windows on either end of the terrace to keep out the rain or excessive wind. What a difference it has made!

Since this space is to be used as a creative classroom, I’m also taking the time to so something very special. I showed a sneak peak in my last blogpost of me hand-painting a scallop stencil design on the wall. What you didn’t see is that it also includes some mermaids and I can say that this wall is now finished.

Mermaid wall in the new classroom (please ignore the painting supplies mess, I'm still working on the other wall)

Now I’m working on the opposite wall which I will reveal later when it is also complete. It’s a bit more complicated, but I’m sticking with the sea (“mare” in Italian language) theme. I wanted to do something special that represents the name of my studio brand and that will continue to inspire me and others who come to experience it.

When I first moved to Italy I lived in Rome and I spent nearly two years there enjoying the all history and art I studied in school. I loved being there, but I also missed living by the sea. Besides that, it was a bit expensive and I couldn’t fully enjoy life as I wanted due to the amount of work I was doing just to survive. I was also doing very little of my own jewelry that I promised myself to return to creating. That’s when I decided to move to southern Italy and I deliberately chose to find a place that was full of creativity to continue to inspire me.

I settled in Vietri sul Mare on the Amalfi Coast, renown around the world
for the production of Italian ceramics. It’s a small, coastal town with hand-painted ceramics on display in every corner of their life. It’s also a typical historic Italian town with winding alleyways, artisans you can see working in their shops, and a local community lifestyle where everyone gets to know you by name.

In Vietri I started making true friends and finding my way back to my creativity. I lived there for eight years, opened (and then closed during Covid-19) a small studio space where I wanted to start offering private jewelry workshops, but couldn’t get it to fully come together at the time. I was making the connections, but it seems I needed more space and time to make it happen.

Eventually I got married and my new husband and I purchased a large home in the countryside about 20-30 minutes away from Vietri. It is here that it’s all coming together. I have the space, more resources, better connections through networking and I am continuing to create my own work. I feel like I’m also developing a personal design “style” that I have lacked all these years.

However, being on the outskirts of a little farming community, there isn’t much creativity in my neighborhood like seeing the ceramics everywhere walking around in Vietri. Instead, I have farm animals and nature scenes that entertain and give me a sense of peace. So, I’m painting the walls of the new studio classroom to reflect the sea that has always been a part of my life. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

If you or anyone you know is interested in participating in a jewelry workshop in Italy, visit our event calendar for available scheduled activities and join our newsletter mailing list to see all the latest updates as they are announced.