A week in the Florence atelier

Piero greets us at six in the morning because the sand is easier to pack when the workshop is still cool. He has been casting brass for thirty-one years; his father taught him, his grandfather taught his father. The mould patterns hanging from the ceiling look like typography from an encyclopaedia nobody writes anymore.

Why sand-cast, still

A machined brass object is usually perfect in a way that reads, paradoxically, as cheap. Sand-casting leaves traces — a faint grain, a seam line, an occasional air bubble near the base. Those traces are what let an object age into warmth rather than into regret.

It is also slower. A single incense burner takes two full days: pattern, mould, pour, cool, break the sand, file, patina, wax. If we pushed the workshop to make more, the pieces would be worse, and Piero would be grumpier.