Taller Silvestre: pure nature in your home
Craftsmanship, nature and beauty in its purest form.
Taller Silvestre celebrates the beauty of nature and simple living. The hands behind it are gatherers of wild flora so that our home never lacks that touch of forest and nature. They offer us products created using slow and natural processes. Getting to know them is like stopping time slightly, like a stroll through the countryside at sunset to which you are invited by reading the interview we did with them from Monapart.
Tell us about yourself and your work, where did your vocation start? Any first memories?
Silvestre Workshop is a contemporary craftsmanship project. Unique handmade pieces for the home, with a timeless design. The beauty of imperfection, fragility, naivety and subtlety. Our work comes from the forest, from what we collect. Nature is present in each piece. We like to have the presence of the season inside the house, it makes us feel that we are alive, that we belong to the earth. And we try to bring that to every piece in the collection. Bringing the forest home is our work, our way of expressing.
We collect plants and flowers to work in various fields: floral composition and botanical dyes. We collect, press and classify wild plants and compose landscapes. Each piece evokes a landscape, a season, a memory. We also dye with the colours of the plants. It is a long, slow process, respectful of the piece and the environment, almost a ritual. The colours obtained are delicate, special and full of nuances, which allow us to appreciate the colour in a much deeper way, highlighting the texture of the fabrics.
Our project is enriched by collaborations with different trades (ceramics, basketry...) We want to give value to the trades, to recover traditions to ensure a sustainable future. It is an important part for us, the collaborations with other craftsmen and artists, which allow us to work with other trades, to learn, to grow... We do not consider that what we do starts from a "vocation". In fact, no more than what we have been doing since our childhood: we have always collected sticks, pine cones and stones. It's something atavistic, which I think we've all done: marvelling at a river song, the perfect architecture of a fern leaf... we've just given ourselves permission to continue doing it, trying to transmit all the beauty that we see.
What do you find most satisfying about your work, and is there anything you are particularly proud of?
During this time we have been working, we have realised that wild flora has become for us a language that allows us to meet with other people, sometimes through objects, sometimes through experiences, workshops, custom-made pieces. In the end what moves us is the encounter. Everything we do, workshops, presentations, events... have a purpose, which is the encounter between people. We are always very conscious of this. We need real encounters. Here and now. We all interact with a lot of people on a day-to-day basis, on a daily basis, in the professional sphere, and in a big way in the digital area and in social networks, but they are more empty encounters. When people meet in areas where they are excited, and there is a common interest and passion, something very powerful happens. And we always leave the workshops very, very happy, because there is a real encounter, exchange, listening and a lot of learning from everyone.
Favourite colour, book, film and record - in that order! ;D
One colour: green - like any other!
A book: The sense of wonder by Rachel Carson.
A film: Cinema Paradiso by Giuseppe Tornatore
One disc: Divenire by Ludovico Einaudi
Is your home a reflection of who you are? Tell us what it smells like, your favourite corner, your favourite decorative object or piece of furniture, if you treasure a collection... And if you have a pet, introduce it to us!
I believe that all houses (regardless of whether they are owned or rented, whether they are temporary homes or not) are in part a reflection of us. Even if we only occupy one room, that's our way of interpreting life: tidier, messier, minimalist or kitsch, colourful or monochromatic... in our case, yes, our house (although shared with children in my case and with teenagers in Alina's case) is a reflection of who we are: natural materials, flowers, plants and objects that we have collected from many places and then restored (we are collectors by nature ^_^), books...
When you walk in the door of our houses, the smells vary between freshly brewed coffee, the flowers we have picked that day or essential oils that we put in a humidifier. When we are together, our favourite corner is the kitchen ^_^. It is like our work centre when we are at home. Sitting at the table and with our cup of coffee, Alina, and tea or infusion, me. That and the living room floor. We are very earthy ^_^.
At home we don't have many decorative objects apart from a few pieces made by our children or some pieces that we have collected, but a few years ago we both fell in love at first sight and we gave each other some wonderful lamps by Siete Formas made of lime wood and alabaster that became an essential in our homes from the very first moment. It is like our "little fire". As soon as daylight begins to fall, we switch it on because its warm light is comforting. That and some bowls from the workshop, which we use for everything: to drink vegetable creams and soups in the cold seasons, salads in summer, infusions... they are super versatile and their rounded shape at the base and their touch are so pleasant... They are a basic in our house.
Oh, pets! We are not going to deny that both of us would love to have a dog. In fact, we have been on the verge of adopting several times over the years and at home my children are putting more and more pressure on us to finally get one ^_^ . I've had dogs all my life and I couldn't conceive of living without them, but with the pace of life we lead and being aware of the dedication they require to be cared for, not only physically but also mentally, we are resisting a little, although I think there is less and less ^_^.
If you could buy anything right now and take it home, what would it be? Anything!
For some time now we have both been immersed in having and needing less and less, and we have come to the conclusion that we really need very little. But I like to play this game ^_^.
I've been thinking for several days about what I've been wanting for a long time and the first thing that always comes to my mind is: photo albums with the photos of the last few years printed. It is a gift that I always ask for on my birthday, Christmas and that in the end, due to lack of time, never arrives. With the ease that electronic devices give us in terms of availability and quantity of photos, we have such a volume of images that if you stop to think about it, you rarely sit down to review them as you do when you pick up a real album and start turning pages. At home this is a magical moment in which stories always emerge, your parents or grandparents tell you something that perhaps you didn't know about your family or that they hadn't told you before... It's a shared moment that is very fulfilling. And also being an object made by someone and not bought (taking the trouble to select the photos from hundreds, sending them to print, classifying them, sticking them in the album...) for me it has an incalculable value. The best gift I could have.
A great plan at home always includes...
Friends and/or family. For whatever: dinner, lunch, a snack, a get-together... Meeting them is an injection of joy and energy.
Do you have any star dishes?
Neither of us are very good cooks, to be honest. We are lucky enough to have husbands who are a thousand times better at cooking than we are, and they enjoy it ^_^! So we let them do it.
Where is your favourite place in your city and abroad?
Without a second's hesitation, any leafy park, one of those where, despite being in the middle of the city, the trees keep out the noise of cars and for a second you think you are in a forest. Where you can feel the freshness and smell the vegetation, look up and see green and hear the birds.
It's the same with foreign countries. Over the years I have come to realise that, although the architecture of buildings and cities may fascinate me, what really fills my soul is when I discover the natural landscapes of places. They move me in a way that I can only feel and not express.
Anything you want to tell us that we haven't asked you, speak now or forever hold your peace!
Oh no ^_^. As hard as it is for me to talk about myself, this has already been a really interesting and challenging exercise for me to tell something else. Look! I've already told something else ^_^, that I'm a pretty introverted person when it comes to my personal life (not to be interesting ^_^, but because I don't really want to), and you can see that I can't write without using emoticons ^_^.
