Materic Poetry: When Nature Meets Recycling

By Silvia Logi, Florentine Artist | Italian Fashion & Craftsmanship Class

I am a self-taught artist from Florence. I have created my own language working with natural and recycled materials together.

The initial spark for my art was the intuition that the materials found in nature and many of those thrown away by humans, could get together very well and become the “building blocks” of my mosaics. My artistic style and technique come from the observation of perfection that already resides within a natural element and the will to make it coexist somehow with manmade objects that are old, worn out and about to be thrown, increasing our already dramatic environmental problems. It can be a tricky balance to reach because normally there is nothing so far from nature, then a manmade object. So its most fulfilling and enjoyable when I find harmony and balance between these apparently opposite elements. All materials are left recognizable in my work, but at the same they are all entwined to depict every time different subjects: an acorn can become the eye of an owl, a pinecone becomes the fin of a fish. Old nails can become rays of a shiny sun, a tuna fish can become a little frame encasing a subject.

The challenge also lies in using a large number of materials with a great sense of game but at the same time research of harmony. Thanks to the endless possibilities of wood combined to the unusual contamination with other materials, I invented my very personal language of “materic fusion”, a unique art form encompassing both art and craft, natural and manmade elements, overcoming and erasing their boundaries.

Living now in a world where we cannot look away from environmental crisis anymore, climate change, all sorts of catastrophes we are encountering in the recent years, we are on the verge of a new world where everyone must (no more should) become responsible of our impact on Earth.

Single individuals should start to feel like part of a mosaic. Yes, no coincidence I said “mosaic”: I love mosaic cause it’s the closest example in art of how humanity works, no matter how individualistic, irresponsible, short sighted we have become , sooner or later nature and life itself brings us back to this simple and irrefutable truth. Like this Coronavirus Pandemic, it has so much to do with our irresponsible behaviors so far, and has definitely forced a sharp stop to all humans activities that may have indirectly caused this virus to start.

Earth is breathing again, and this is a fact, it is recovering very fast from all injuries we had been causing to her, having put on break all our activities and habits on a huge scale. So, when we will go back to normality, this tough lesson must be deeply metabolized. We will have to slide into a new normality that we don’t know yet, where we must be respectful of our planet first of all and supportive with all our sibling human beings on Earth. Priorities should be definitely rescheduled, and economy should become very secondary and supportive to the above two priorities. And after this excursiveness into the actual situation, here I come back to my work that I really consider like my little mission.

Through my art I feel I express much better my ideals on nature and humanity, turning them in a piece, rendering ideas and theories into something that you can see, touch and receive a very direct visual message from.

I love to work on my own, in silence and just follow my inspiration and be driven by materials and mood of the moment. This is how I have been working in the initial years. Nonetheless over time I started to feel the need to make workshops so that I could share this beautiful new language with more people. I realized during my workshops that this kind of mosaic really helps people feeling better. A great sense of lightness and even peace comes from standing in front of all sorts of materials and being able to play in freedom and to look at those objects for the first time in another way, like precious resources and not things to dispose. Gratefulness of my students, either kids or old retired ladies or tourists on a short workshop, is such an important reward for me and it gives me great motivation to go ahead. Pure energy for future projects and achievements. Last but not least, being able to recycle worn out objects into art, it is somehow deeply nourishing for our soul and gives to our artistic language a deeper value connected to a superior aim.

I am confident in the future we will have new opportunities of sharing more hands-on experiences, and laboratories as we have done so far with the Florida State University students, coming together with joy, passion, and positivity, learning by doing to appreciate the values of staying together, sustainability, respect for nature, and quality behind the unique hand-made goods.