Here, we ask designers to take a selfie and give us an inside look at their life.
Age: 59
Occupation: Designer, creative, artisan. I span across art and technique, beauty, and function. I am not a sculptor nor an industrial designer, even though I share my approach and quest for meaning with design. As a matter of fact, I create useful pieces that span beyond time and space. Pieces I would love to find and use each day.
Instagram: @osannavisconti
Hometown: Milan/Rome.
Studio location: Milan.
Describe what you make: I would define myself as an artisan because I love crafting things, but I also consider myself a designer. I love being in the art foundry, spending my days modeling with my hands.
The most important thing you’ve designed to date: The counter for Petersham Nurseries in London.
Describe the problem your work solves: My unextinguished primary source of inspiration is nature. “In the silence of a walk in the woods, my attention is captured by a leaf, a fallen branch. One out of hundreds. I choose it and pick it up. It is a gift of nature that I celebrate through my creativity and then freeze in time, transforming it into a piece of bronze. Yes, what I love most about my work is the sense of eternity, immortality.”
Describe the project you are working on now: Presenting my new atelier.
A new or forthcoming project we should know about: A new tableware collection for Christmas.
What you absolutely must have in your studio: Every day, I sit at my workbench, surrounded by wax sheets and endless tools. Classical music in the background. I light the fire, rip pieces of wax, and start warming them and delicately shaping them. From its jagged edges and its changing surfaces—now wavy, now subtly striped—the object I have in mind slowly takes life. And then, a plaster mold and melted bronze casting.
What you do when you’re not working: I travel, sightsee, and visit gardens.
Sources of creative envy: Brancusi for the sinuous and organic lines, which epitomize harmony and perfection.
The distraction you want to eliminate: Playing Solitaire.
Concrete or marble? Marble.
High-rise or townhouse? Townhouse.
Remember or forget? Remember.
Aliens or ghosts? Ghosts.
Dark or light? Light.
