THE PASSARO BROTHERS' CRAFT WORKSHOP, AN IDEAS LABORATORY
For three hundred years, the Passaro family from Montella has devoted its energies to working with wood, developing its skills in the sector over time, achieving results that inspire admiration in those that observe them, touch them, and can sense the long and challenging work process concealed within the products of these great and precious gifts of Nature.
Today, in the post-modern era defined by synthetic materials and evolving and ephemeral trends, the Passaro brothers continue to foster their fascination with wood through research into new types of construction methods that make the most of the still-elusive potentials of wood. Perhaps not everybody knows that behind every wooden object is a long period of study and design, undertaken by expert carvers in an analytical manner to best understand and, therefore, make the most of, the compositional dynamics of the wood. Drawings, models and prototypes are all part of the preparatory phase for working with the material, in a process that represents a challenge of perfection and creative art.
THE MATERIALS
Beautiful to behold, beautiful to touch, fragrant, vivid, light, heavy, mysterious, sturdy, flexible, pliable, etc...., etc...., etc....., but above all "LIVING". Wood is an exceptional material, it facilitates everything we do. Without wood art, architecture, and humankind would be deprived of its greatest ally. THANK YOU, dear old friend, always ready to regenerate.
THE INSPIRATION
To create means to peer into the darkness, to go off the beaten track, to abandon points of reference and tackle the unknown; with resolution, with irreverence, with determination. Without this, one is destined to remain on the peripheries. The adventure of THOUGHT ends: the academic process begins...
THE TRADITION
Artistic carvers, carpenters, coopers, for over 300 years my family has devoted its energies to working with wood and has developed its skills in the sector over time. From a young age, I was raised in the family workshop, breathing in the smells, intrigued by the multiple shapes of the tools and the abundance of pieces of wood that were sometimes turned into toys for me: in a way I was born into this line of work.
My family's trade, which at times required sacrifice and real effort, fostered in me a love and a passion for an art that is so full of charm.
THE EXPRESSION
A work of art is eternal, the artisan’s work is timeless, the act of creating the work of art is spiritual and as such not subject to destruction through use, even if the object itself becomes physically worn. Each work of art encompasses ideas, challenges, enthusiasm, energy; but all of this is nothing more than the expression of one's soul.