At seventeen I started 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 Monte Verità.

The pottery produced reinterpreted traditional wares. 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, at risk of its cultural identity. The Ceramica San Rocco was Efrem and Caterina's contribution to preserve it. They engaged in the promotion of all crafts and were passionate collectors of ancient local furniture and religious 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.