Secondome Edizioni – Claudia Pignatale
1. Where were you born and where are you from ?
I was born in Taranto, then I moved to Rome to study architecture.
2. What is your first memory connected to the art world ?
When I was 11 my father gave me a Castiglioni stool, it signed my life.
3. Have you always worked in the art/design field ?
Almost, I opened my first space and my company in 2006.
4. What led you to the design creation ?
Passion.
5. How would you describe your creative process and it influences ?
I produce design objects. It’s different, I like to produce design stories, so I give a theme to different designers and every year I make a different production, with different materials and artisans.
6. Could you describe a typical day of your work ?
With or without the dog?
7. Why did you choose the specific materials you work with ?
I work with the materials from Italian tradition.
8. What are the technical particularities of your creations ?
I entrust the Italian manufacturing savoir faire with a pinch of crazyness and experimentation.
9. What advices could you give to beginning artists who would like to create sculptural design works ?
To find their own way and follow their dreams.
10. If your works had to belong to a design movement, in which one would you define it ?
Maybe I would not define myself. Today they would call it « collectible », but actually the most appropriate thing is the « art and craft », not even industrial design anymore. It is a mix of various techniques which pass through Radical design and history.
11. What designers and artists have influenced you ?
From Gio Ponti to Ron Arad, all of them.
12. What contemporary designers do you appreciate ?
India Madhavi, Ron Arad, Ross Lovegrove, I appreciate many actually…all the designers that work with me.
13. If you had to summarize your creations in one word or sentence, what would it be ?
More than furniture
Proust Questionnaire with very short answers (one or a few words) :
(The Proust Questionnaire is a set of questions answered by the French writer Marcel Proust. Other historical figures who have answered confession albums are Oscar Wilde, Karl Marx, Arthur Conan Doyle, Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Cézanne…)
1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Little moments with people I love and like and a bottle of good Red wine.
2. What is your greatest fear?
I don’t know.
3. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
That I bite my nails.
4. What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Indifference
5. Which living person do you most admire?
Gandhi
6. What is your greatest extravagance?
I don’t know, but you can ask it to my friends.
7. What is your current state of mind?
Serene.
8. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Sincerity
9. What is the quality you most like in a man ?
Sense of humor
10. What is the quality you most like in a woman ?
Sense of humour
11. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
It’s an apulian phrase « se eri tu così ? »
12. Which talent would you most like to have?
Knowing how to sew
13. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
Myopia
14. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
I still didn’t reach it
15. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
Olivetti’s « Lettera 32 », otherwise I’d like to be my dog which sleeps all the time.
16. Where would you most like to live?
To the seaside
17. What is your most treasured possession?
My mother’s ring, or my grandma’s lamp
18. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
I have never thought of it
19. What is your favorite occupation?
Cooking
20. What is your most marked characteristic?
To never give up
21. What do you most value in your friends?
Loyalty
22. Who are your favorite writers?
Italo Calvino, Isabelle Allende, Gabriel Garcia Marquez…
23. Who is your hero of fiction?
Elastigirl, absolutely!
24. Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Peggy Guggenheim
25. Who are your heroes in real life?
My Mother
26. What are your favorite names?
Alice
27. What is it that you most dislike?
Carelessness
28. What is your greatest regret?
Je ne regrette rien
29. How would you like to die?
Nobody, you shall not wish for anybody’s death!
30. What is your motto?
Passion moves mountains
