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My career began at seventeen, with an apprenticeship
in my grandparents' pottery.
Efrem Beretta and his American wife Caterina opened
the Ceramica San Rocco on the Monte Verità above Ascona in 1937.
Caterina lived there since 1916, when her family moved from
Madison-Wisconsin to benefit from the healing properties of the area.
At the beginning of the 2oth century, Monte Verità
was internationally renowned: it attracted artists, anarchists
and intellectuals seeking alternative ways of life.
The pottery produced reinterpreted traditional wares.
Popular were the hand thrown 'boccalini', a traditional Swiss-Italian
drinking vessel, decorated with the classic cobalt blue fern design.
Other favourites were their range of polychrome sgraffito ware
and Caterina's Majolica figurines.
Efrem Beretta had studied architecture in Milan
and was influenced by the new designs of his time,
but also concerned about the position of crafts in post-industrial society.
Ticino was a rural region discovering the economic potential
of tourism, and risking its cultural identity.
The Ceramica San Rocco was Efrem and Caterina's
contribution to preserve this identity.
They engaged in the promotion of all crafts and were
passionate collectors of ancient local furniture and artefacts.
In 1988, I took over the premises, and started my own line of pottery.
Sadly, after I moved to Zurich in 1994, the workshop was closed down.

I thank my family for being such a source of inspiration!

Pics circa 1940.
Ceramica San Rocco, Efrem and Caterina Beretta, one of the kilns