Edition Eight Feature
Words by: Giorgio Romani
Location: Abruzzo, Italy
Photo Credit: ©Giorgio Romani @grwoodturning

After studying sculpture, Giorgio Romani taught himself to work in wood, coaxing out forms and celebrating imperfections through a deep connection with the material. Alongside producing his own collections, Giorgio shares his skills with one-to-one tuition.

I’m a sculptor and a wood artist, known on Instagram as @grwoodturning, where I post content about my work and videos on woodturning, including demos to help novices enter this wonderful craft. Part of my activity is focused on promoting woodturning courses for beginners to experts.

But my main activity is that of maker, creating works that lie somewhere between sculpture and design object. Over the years, making has become a way of living – a way of thinking, watching, feeling. Especially feeling, a feeling of something deep within.

My training was quite weird. I studied philosophy at the University of Florence and sculpture at the Florence Academy of Fine Arts, where I was able to explore materials such as clay, stone and marble but never wood – there were no dedicated courses.

That meant my first attempts at working in wood were on my own, and I soon realised that I needed to better understand the structure of the material. I started to work in an artisan workshop that made furniture and also did general restoration work. I stayed there for about five years before entering a wood-carving studio. That concluded my professional apprenticeship in wood.

In the meantime, I had bought an old wood lathe and spent all my free time trying to learn woodturning. Having no teachers or examples to follow, it was very hard at the beginning. I didn’t even have adequate tools – it was so hard to find them. It was a long time before I started to achieve things on the lathe.