It all started for my need or whim, I don't know how to call it !!!

I was a truck driver and I wanted to stop smoking cigarettes and started smoking tobacco. I realized that shortly after I opened the envelope the tobacco dried and crumbled, making it difficult to smoke. One day I entered a tobacco shop and in a shop window I saw a leather tobacco rack. I immediately had a light bulb on my head: I immediately went to see a leather handmade maker friend and buy the necessary leather. While I was buying leather, my thoughts were already on how I could make my tobacco rack. Immediately afterwards I bought some thread and needles and when I returned at night to work I would start sewing my tobacco rack. I managed to get my leather bag and one morning, when I had to pick up some bales of used clothes with my truck, the customer saw the leather tobacco bag and immediately ordered one for me. Very happy, I immediately started to make it and when I handed it to him he invited me to participate in the craft markets that were organized every second Sunday of the month in Piazza delle Bigonge in Prato. It was June 2009 and I worked the leather in my spare time when I finished my job as a truck driver. On Christmas of that year I attended my first market. I had succeeded in making belts, small change bags, cigarette cases and of course tobacco racks. I remember doing some sales, but the thing I remember with more pleasure are the compliments I received from both the other artisans of the market, and from the people passing by.

The more time went on, the more this passion grew inside me. Going around with the truck I had I found myself looking closely at the most varied craft and industrial activities in all areas of Prato and the surrounding area. Some of my production methods and related tools are the result of the versatility of materials and instruments designed and used on materials that are very different from the production of bags, wallets and belts. The continuous relationship between theory and practice was always in my mind, I thought and reflected after the difficulties and errors, and I was always thinking and imagining before starting to make my objects. From 2009 to 2013 I did two jobs: in the morning and in the afternoon traveling by truck and in the evening and sometimes even after dinner cutting and sewing my products by hand to sell in the markets. The first market, the one in Piazza delle Bigonge I did with a beach umbrella and a 60 x 100 cm plywood table and the last one in Piazza Strozzi in Florence with a gazebo of 2mt x 4m. In these four years I have sold my creations throughout Tuscany: Prato, Florence, Lucca, Pistoia, Siena, San Gimignano and Fiesole. I also did Artour and Rural Expo with ArteSiena with Claridea, which for me were some of the most important events I attended from 2009 to 2013.