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What drew you to the arts and humanities as your life’s work?
I grew up in Italy, and since I was a child, I have loved expressing myself through drawing, colors, and making things. I learned how to sew and care for materials from my grandmothers, and that is where my love for craft and textiles began. I always want to work in a creative job! After graduating, I entered the fashion industry as a designer and fell in love with its complexity, working with textile, colors and learning the design process of making a fashion collection. When I moved to Champaign-Urbana, I began teaching at the School of Art and Design, bringing my industry experience into the classroom, while expanding my research. Here, I continue to explore the intersection of innovation integrating new tools in the fashion curriculum and teaching crafts and traditional techniques.
How does your creative or scholarly practice connect with the world beyond the university?
My creative practice connects with the wider world through collaborations that merge digital innovation, traditional craft, and sustainable design. I continue to collaborate with Italian artisans on fashion and craft projects prioritizing sustainable approaches in the production. To stay connected with the evolving landscape of fashion, I continually explore both digital and material innovation. I experiment with emerging tools such as 3D design software, like CLO 3D and Virtual Reality platforms, investigating how these technologies can support sustainable design and enhance learning. I also regularly attend textile and material fairs in Italy, where I engage directly with new materials, techniques, and global design conversations. I bring these experiences into the classroom, sharing current industry practices and inspiring students to think critically about the intersections of technology, sustainability, and creativity in contemporary fashion.
What’s a project, performance, or piece of writing you’re especially excited about right now?
Right now, I am especially excited about a new project, Weaving Skin, a daily weaving project that explores materiality, and inner healing through the rhythm of making. The project investigates skin as both metaphor and condition, a living surface that records emotion, trauma, and resilience. Through this project I examines how the act of weaving can become a meditative language for care, vulnerability, and acceptance. For 60 days, each day, I document the process with a brief reflection and a sound recording of the textile itself, capturing the tactile and emotional resonance of making.
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Who or what has been a surprising influence or inspiration in your work?
I have been deeply influenced by my mentor, fiber artist Patrizia Polese, who taught me to approach weaving as a meditative and living process. Her guidance encouraged me to see textiles as expressive forms, where every thread carries intention, rhythm, and emotion. Her influence continues to guide my artistic and teaching practice, reminding me that art is a language of care, that connects people, helps us slow down, and can open space for empathy, reflection, and transformation.
What do you hope students (or audiences) experience or take away from your work?
Through my work I hope to inspire my students curiosity, confidence, and a sense of responsibility in how they approach design and creativity. Whether experimenting with materials through hand-weaving, or using digital tools to make fashion more sustainable, I want them to see how conscious design can shape a more ethical and imaginative world. Above all, I want to prepare them for their future roles as designers, encouraging approaches that value innovation, sustainability, and social responsibility.
Anything else you’d like to add or emphasize?
I am currently developing a new course abroad in Italy that I will offer for the first time next Spring, Arts 391 – Slow Fashion Design in Italy. The course will take students to Treviso, Venice, Prato, and Florence, where they will learn about slow fashion and sustainable design practices directly from Italian designers, artisans, and textile innovators. I am deeply excited to bring students to a place I am deeply connected with, my own background and my cultural heritage, and to share with them the values of design and tradition that continue to inspire my work.