Find yourself in cadenced mountain rhythms

If multitasking life is increasingly digital and hectic, even communication professionals ‘get their hands on it’ and shape the material. We tell you the story of Lucia and her dishes dedicated to the Dolomite peaks, decorated by hand, one at a time

“The mountains are a way of living life. One step ahead of the other, silence, time and measure” writes Paolo Cognetti in Le otto montagne published by Einaudi . And it is the same slow and rhythmic doing of modeling, decorating and baking the material; the same don't do: that waiting patient and wise to which we are no longer accustomed, essential for the success of craftsmanship. Thoughtful gestures and dilated moments in which to recalibrate a rhythm - of pace, breath, life - analog.

If in the last two years contemporary life has become more and more digital and multitasking, more permanent but even faster and more frenetic, even communication professionals are once again using (and getting dirty) their hands, to shape raw materials but above all to find a way to do old style (if not of ancient memory): slowed down, quiet and focused. To (re) find time to listen to yourself.

Like Lucia Portesi who for over ten years has been working in a communication agency, a sector that with the pandemic has accelerated its already very fast pace, and now proposes her own personal project (imbued with passion): Gli Appuntiti, a series of hand-decorated plates that reproduce the essential profile of three peaks of the Ampezzo Dolomites.

Why work with ceramics?

“The ceramic - shape it and cook it, decorate it and re-cook it and, if you work gold, cook it once more - teaches that much more often than you think the precious time is the extended one” explains Lucia Portesi. “Knowing the materials and colors, learning the techniques, listening to advice... are all elements that require time, care and dedication to merge into < strong> objects that then tell themselves : the best are always those made calmly”.

The concreteness of the mountains, the conviviality of the table

“I am a forest, as they say in Cortina Ampezzo, a passionate not native to that land and its peaks” continues Lucia. “I love the table, a stage for conviviality, confessions, surprises, agreements and quarrels, on serious and less serious issues: all - always - seasoned with taste. I work with ceramics because it offers a concrete landing to my imagination, to my head which is otherwise too often suspended in the clouds. Like the mountains ”.

Plates decorated with Dolomite peaks carved into the sky

Strengthened by the passion for the Ampezzo mountains and forged by the slow discipline imparted by the processing of ceramics, Lucia Portesi has conceived the Gli Appuntiti concept, a collection consisting of dinner plates serving, table and dessert whose decorations reproduce the essence of the profile of the most expressive peaks that surround Cortina d'Ampezzo: as if carved in the sky reliefs stand out ethereal.

The Tofana di Rozes , the Cinque Torri and the Becco di Mezzodì are summarized in the expressive line that best describes them: what emerges is the trace that traces its shape, in the panorama and in the memory.

Why mountain dishes?

“The mountain interiors - and even more the tables on which everyday life is laid - they preserve that confidential warmth which is so much needed today, or at least which I feel the need today” continues Lucia. “They are kennels, comfort zones, shelters that smell of fir and pine, where the glow of the fire tinges the environment with orange and gold, counterpointing the purity of winter white”.

Bring the feeling of refuge to city tables

“The mountain is angular, hard - is pointed - but 'inside' is fragrant, teases the nose and envelops with dense smells, heady scents, good aromas. The mountain is like this in reality, sometimes in the standardized image that is given of it, but it is so above all in the inner world if not of all, of many. Not everyone wants or can live in the mountains, me first, but they can bring home, on the table, this feeling of welcome, warmth and shelter which I translate into its essential form, which, if you look closely, is also romantic” concludes Lucia Portesi.