Featured Artist - Stil Novo Design!

WELCOME
Stil Novo Design
as this weeks Featured Artist!

     I would LOVE to welcome Camilla and Stefano of Stil Novo Design. I feel very lucky to call Camilla a friend after this, and am so happy and excited to share her and Stefano's vision and work with all of you! So please, help me in warmly welcoming them to "Till death...".

Thank you!

1. Who are you? Where are you from? Tell us about yourself.

      My name is Camilla and I’m the ‘other half’ of Stil Novo Design. We are a family business focused on the creation of eco-friendly home décor, ‘green’ gift ideas, custom made furniture and original specialty pieces. All of our products are made with reclaimed white oak that we recycle from French wine barrels. It’s a material that hasn’t stopped impressing us for its beauty, charm and distinctiveness.

     We are originally from Italy, but have lived happily in California for the past 17 years; we have 10 years old twin girls who give us infinite joy, ‘fire’, bliss, motivation, enthusiasm and…headaches!


     My beloved husband of 18 years, Stefano Capaccioli, is an accomplished woodworker/furniture maker; he possesses endless creativity, amazing abilities and meticulous skills that allow him to take on tricky challenges and to turn them into achievements.

     I take care of orders, customer service (I love that!!), packaging (WHO loves that??!!?!) and shipping. I hand paint our decorated items, which I enjoy doing a lot and, as my husband says -keeps me quite- and create all of the listings. I also do the necessary ‘foot-work’, networking and marketing, in order to get Stil Novo Design noticed and appreciated. Last, but certainly not least, I am the one who does all the ‘nagging’ about every little detail, deadline and such, a very essential role in any family business!!!!

2.  What does your Business name mean?

     In Italian ‘stil novo’ means ‘new style’ and it’s reminiscent of the ‘dolce stil novo’, which was a very important literary movement in Italy during the 13th century. Somehow it seemed to fit with our vision and stylistic choices, not to mention that we really liked how it sounds!

3. How long have you been an artist and how did you learn about art?

     I truly consider my husband a real artist. Artists seem to think, see, invent, create and communicate through their imaginative vein, no matter what the objective is. It’s the way they express themselves and it seems to be more of a natural inclination than a learnt ability; so, in a way, I believe one is born an artist and it becomes a matter of finding the specific niche and form to channel it into and to get gratification from.

4. When did you decide to make the leap from hobby to Profession? Tell us about your first sale.

     We are all going through a time of major shifting, transformation, transition and, in a way, rebirth. In these days the black and white areas are leaving more and more space to the widening ‘gray zone’. I don’t think we have made a complete leap from hobby to profession with our products yet, but we have understood better the need to develop and explore our potential in every possible area and to nourish our true passions.

     Our beginning was quite fortuitous; while visiting a local winery in the north of California, we noticed a bunch of unused barrels, piled up in a corner and ready to be discarded. We asked a few questions and learned about the chemical properties of oak itself and how it plays a significant role in winemaking, affecting the color, flavor, and texture of the wine.


      Over time many of the oak properties get "leached" out of the barrel and after 3 to 5 vintages the barrel is ready to be discarded.

     My husband is an experienced and passionate woodworker, so he could immediately recognize and appreciate the quality of the selected oak the French barrels are made of, and felt that we could turn that unfortunate waste into a ‘green’ idea.

     We wanted to craft pieces that were different from what was already available on the market, bringing more refinement and a new fashionable approach to the idea so that we could create an original fusion between rustic and contemporary.

     The first piece we have sold was a candle holder and a dear friend of ours decided to buy it from us as a symbol of good auspice for our new born business and to initiate a momentum of great fortune. So sweet…

5. Explain your process a bit.

     When we come up with a new idea my husband sketches it on paper and we discuss it further to define the details of the design; after that he makes a prototype and we decide if the design needs some adjustments and the possible alternatives; if it gets approved it’s added to our inventory. Often our customers offer suggestions or require custom pieces that give us the opportunity to explore our creativity even further.

6. What are your goals and dreams, where do you see yourself in 10 years?

      We are hoping that one of the outcomes of this challenging time will be that a more environmentally concerned society will emerge from it; we’d love to be able to focus even more on recycling, reclaiming and essentially create new, modern, elegant and stylish beauty out of ‘aged’, otherwise discarded, materials. It gives us great pleasure to offer a new life to this exceptional wood in the hands of our customers, to be loved, enjoyed all over again, and for many more years to come.

7. Anything and everything else about yourself that you would like to share. Favorite color to favorite food. Family, friends, life, anything.

      Our business has become for us another way to exchange our views, taste and choices with each other and to spend time together, sharing every moment of the creative process; We have a lot of fun doing it and we consider ourselves lucky to be able to make it into such a special family experience. Every piece we make is the direct product of a ‘family effort’, from the conceptualization of the idea to its realization and we all take pride and gratification in putting our name on it, including our twins!!! When the high season puts us under pressure we are often forced to involve some of our friends (and our girls!!) in any possible way: making labels, polishing the pieces, wrapping, boxing etc… and our home turns into a busy ‘beehive’.

8. Where can you be found?

We have most of our inventory available at our fabulous Etsy store at http://www.stilnovodesign.etsy.com/


We’d love to expand our ‘FaceBook family’; to join our fan page visit

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stil-Novo-Design/147248758419?created

      Thank you for welcoming Stil Novo Design with me!  Please, enjoy their shop and leave them a comment letting them know what you think!