Inside Guado Urbino's workshop
Alessandra lost in the fascination of a forgotten story
My mother passed on to me her curiosity and love of nature, and her passion for textiles was also contagious to me. To this day she still invites me to gaze in wonder at the perfection of the plant world, and for this constant prompting of hers I am grateful.
I trained at the Urbino Book School and there I trained and nurtured my aesthetic sense.In the 1990s I graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts. In those years, I first heard about millstones, color and woad cultivation. I found it extraordinary that an agricultural production was not for 'food but for the production of a rare color.
For years I kept a newspaper article about this important local rediscovery: the plant, the millstones, the extent of cultivation, and the ancient documents describing its control. Literally fascinated by the history of the ancient Duchy of Urbino as an important cultivation district in Italy, I decided in 2016 to turn this topic into my work.
The story of the woad reconnects topics and themes dear to me: territory, color, history of custom and agriculture, which is what I like to talk and tell about.
The accessories I make are the result of a deep passion, charged with unique color, dense with lost symbolism and nature.
