“Authentic heritage is something you can see, feel and sense in every product- built upon real traditions and values, upon experience, passion and know-how handed down over generations.” Patrizio di Marco, President & CEO, Gucci.

My Dad was a southern Italian, and although cut from different cloth than the Gucci brand of Florence, Italy, his passion for life and beauty was no less intense. Each year, leading up to the holidays, we were beneficiaries of it, through the many traditional projects we did to beautify and prepare home and family.

Our annual crèche project was a full- blown, hand made nativity scene that began weeks ahead of December 25th. Although the pieces were always saved, we were encouraged to make new figures each year from clay my father would fire in his kilns. We’d then tackle the site building project – making miniature trees with clay bases and evergreen tops-against a huge, mountainous paper bag landscape and wooden manger littered with cotton snow. The entire scene was installed across the table the tree sat on.

For a few years now, I’ve been working through the creation of numerous floral prints for Paola Pillows. No different from any other work of art, each design has a role it plays distinct from any other. The challenge always is to create pillows that look beautiful together. My green hostas take on many different forms, but in the end, look their best when placed next to each other as in a garden. I especially enjoy designing them to look three dimensional, when in reality the shiny cotton sateen they’re printed on is smooth and wonderfully cozy…as in listening to Sam Cooke’s “Good News”: http://youtu.be/mDmasOKAneI

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