Venice is immersed in fog since a couple of days, the white sky envelops and hides the sun, humidity enters from the drafts, into houses, into socks, imbuing our moods. Paolo is not going out fishing, so no cuttlefish. The perfect climate for writing, working, cooking and reading. Living in Venice is a choice, a resistance that is easy to question, but it is a place that allows a unique everyday life, a human contact "forced" by walking, a slow rythm marked by water but at the same time frenetic in logistics of everyday things.

ONA SHORT FILM FESTIVAL

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In mid-September, the 3rd edition of ONA Short Film Festival took place on the Island of San Servolo in Venice. Since the 1st edition, I have the task of designing and creating the prizes for each of the winning categories: I create sculptures that are, as always, unique pieces that convey ONAs values. In fact, the Festival selects the best international shorts films and aims to share life-changing stories of outdoor sports, nature, and environmental awareness. This year I created a series of sculptures made of an organic metal element, my beloved denti de can, and a natural element, a stone collected by me on the Piave river bed. [Piave in the last year has seen very little water due to the severe drought that hit Veneto areal.

I'm typing wearing my silver ring with an ice-colored topaz, inside which I engraved "ME", a gift I gave myself a year ago. On the pinky of my right hand I wear a tiny chevalier, the only "non-SURI" jewel | wear: it is an ancient bronze ring, coming from Armenia made in the Middle Ages, found at Vernissage Market in Yerevan. Armenia has been a surprising experience that left my eyes brighting of culture, tradition, hospitality, nature and gratitude. Sincere smiles and big sad eyes, the beautiful women I met at TUMO are wonderful and brave. We, on this side of the world, know very little about this land but the reality is that they are a strong and resistant people - right in the strictly etymological sense of opposition, of not giving in to a force - which in these days is undergoing yet another violent attack by the army of a neighbouring country, Azerbaijan. Despite the tension we breathed every day, we lived two intense weeks, working very well following the program of the planned workshop.

Traveling to share my work with people from cultures far from my own is a great way to get out of my comfort zone, get enriched with new life, connect unexpected points and go back home to reconsider my daily life.

I have now resumed production and have been carrying out new projects that I have been working during the last few months. It is still early to tell you more, but there will be workshops - even here in Venice! - new jewels, sculptures, very beautiful collaborations and who knows what else. Among the jewels I've made in recent weeks there is a custom-made ring, commissioned by Mattia, who brought me an emerald of rare beauty he bought in Brazil a year ago. I made a white gold ring, raw surface with some small shiny element to illuminate the stone, a princess cut with some small wonderful inclusion, according to nature. Here if you want to deepen the world of gems cuts. I had never set an emerald, one of the most difficult stones to work with due to its fragility (see the Mohs scale below). The emerald is so delicate that, if traveling by plane, it is recommended to transport the stone by immersing it in an oil container, to avoid any tiny fractures caused by pressure.