Also gold can be innovative.

1. What do you create and propose to your customers in your workshop?
I create and propose innovative jewellery.

2. Why are your creations unique?
My pieces are the result of a strong creative impulse, of my need to design jewellery that is not traditional and make my art interact with the other forms of contemporary visual art. My creations are not reproductions but interpretations.

3. What materials do you use and transform? Do you employ any special techniques?
I not only work with silver and gold, but also with copper and steel. I like using perishable materials like paper, making it strong and resistant. I utilize precious and semi-precious stones, sealing wax, enamels and resins. I am attracted by recycling the most different materials and I especially like giving new life to discarded ones.

4. Where did you learn how to do this work and how long have you been doing it? Will you pass your wealth of knowledge and experience on to anybody else?
I attended the Tuscan Region school for goldsmiths and silversmiths in Florence, with goldsmith masters of the historical Florentine tradition. Then, to succeed in producing high-level goldsmith objects with great craftsmanship, I spent a period in some Florentine workshops with the purpose of perfecting and applying goldsmith techniques. Moreover, to acquire more in-depth knowledge, I attended professional courses specializing in embossing, chasing and mounting, in Perugia. Now, I have been working in my profession for twenty years. I attend exhibitions and take part in competitions in Italy and abroad. I cooperate with museums and galleries in Florence, Rome and Milan displaying my works, which are reviewed in art and design journals, also in permanent exhibitions. I do not know whether anyone will follow in my footsteps, also because I do not feel I am a mere craftsman, but rather an artist who utilizes her work tools in a personal and creative way.

5. In what way does your activity belong to the history and traditions of this city?
Every day I endeavour to participate in the traditions of this city with my work. Over the years I have proposed numerous projects to encourage historical artistic craftsmanship set within a contemporary context. I only wish that the city administration had been more helpful.

6. What is your personal way of participating in the future of Perugia?
By continuing my activity as an artist goldsmith against homologation and standardization. How? By proposing projects designed to make the most of and diffuse products having a high artistic value. By working on their authenticity, their symbolic value and their cultural and historical references.

7. What arouses your enthusiasm and what makes you the proudest of what you do?
Personal and emotional involvement in my work is important. I always draw great resources from freedom of expression, manual application, experimentation and from the discipline that I must impose on myself.

8. What is the greatest emotion that you would like to convey to someone who buys one of your creations?
I would like my client to handle my piece of jewellery delicately and, at the same time, be aware that this article is beginning a new history.

9. How would you persuade, in a few words, a customer to enter your workshop?
Spontaneous access is undoubtedly what I prefer, without trying to persuade a customer to enter.

10. What are your customers’ most frequent comments about your creations?
My customers share my passion for a piece of jewellery which has a strong communicative, creative and innovative charge and that goes beyond its decorative function and its inherent value.

Laboratorio orafo di Anna Fornari, Via Deliziosa, 9 – 06123 Perugia
Tel./fax: 075 5721570
www.annafornari.com – annafornari@netemedia.net