Fulvia Notari lives in Dolo, near Venice, just down the road from the atelier where she makes her Murano glass jewellery. She graduated in Design in Milan in 1989. “I discovered my passion for designing when I was studying at Milan’s faculty of architecture. I was fortunate enought to study with the masters of international designing, such as Achille Castiglioni, Tomàs Maldonado and Arturo Dell’Acqua Bellavitis, the vice president of the Triennale, who supervised my graduation thesis.
The symbolic meaning of ornaments has always fascinated me. It’s a passion I’ve had since I was a child – just like my love for jewellery. Even today, it’s a game I find irresistible. By working with Alessandro Lenarda, an architect who designs decorative glass objects, I was able to access Murano’s furnaces.
The second I saw all the glass it was love at first sight. I immediately set to work to master glassworking; I went to see collections and museums and all the exhibitions on the art of glassworking.
The most exciting experience was when I met Bruno Munari, an eclectic artist and world-famous designer with a passion for creation and children’s workshop. I’ll never forget fis home, with all those weird and wonderful objects he’d collected – works not of man but of nature. Still today, Munari remains my touchstone – not only thanks to his amazing skill at teaching to design and capture art and creativity with a focus, but also to his attention to playful sensory sensitivity and to the imagination. It’s a game-oriented approach I have striven to turn into my own.
In the meantime, in Padua, I fed off the massive inspiration I could draw from the old goldsmithing school – a school so rich of cosmopolitan influences and a touchstone for artists skilled at working with all kinds of materials. Then, in 1995, I founded Antares Venezia. I was attracted by the thought of creating Murano glass ornaments – it’s such an extraordinary material, so full of personality and colour. I also liked the idea of helping to keep alive the ancient art of the island’s glassblowers – it’s an art on the verge of extinction.
There a couple of things I feel deep inside when I’m working that I’d like to share with you. I’ve always found the ancient Etruscan jewels – the first glass pearls – so enchanting. Today my imagination feeds off the magic symbolism and significance of far-off lands and ancient times, and off my travels and new civilisations: the culture of glass and of designing in the northern lands, the sheer explosion of colour and energy in Marocco, the tightness of minimal designing, the statuesque elegance of the ikebana and the wonder of Japanese gardens”