Lisa Moi: The Art of Filigree between Tradition and Innovation
Lisa Moi: The Art of Filigree, Blending Tradition and Innovation
Lisa Moi, born in 1980, with roots in both Ogliastra and Veneto, is today a respected goldsmith, wife, and mother. After earning a diploma in accounting, she pursued two years of training at the renowned goldsmithing school in Vicenza, her hometown, where she also gained about a year and a half of work experience. She then returned to Sardinia, to the family workshop in Bari Sardo, founded by her parents in 1984, three years after their return to Ogliastra.
Lisa's father, Giancarlo Moi, had emigrated as a young man to Vicenza, a city with a long and prestigious goldsmithing tradition dating back to the Middle Ages, where he studied and earned the title of "master goldsmith." Lisa, therefore, grew up in an environment steeped in art and craftsmanship, inheriting the passion and skill of her parents.
For twenty years, Lisa worked side by side with her father Giancarlo and her mother Carla, a model maker, deepening her knowledge of filigree, an ancient and complex goldsmithing technique. "Initially, filigree seemed to me something relegated to the past, outdated," Lisa recounts. "But living in Sardinia, I realized that it could be reinterpreted in a modern way, through the application of technology and design."
The love for goldsmithing, however, was present in Lisa from childhood. Already at the age of five, she helped her parents assemble beads, and in her elementary and middle school years, she dedicated herself to school research on traditional Sardinian objects, as her friends still remember today.
Within the family business, Lisa actively participated in an innovative project led by Polaris of Cagliari, which selected five goldsmiths, including her father, to develop a new filigree working technique in collaboration with a Milanese architect. "Filigree is no longer soldered or encased in particular structures, but is free and supported by laser welding, which does not alter the molecular structure of the metal," Lisa explains.
This experience confirmed to Lisa that filigree could aspire to much more than being relegated to tradition. She continued to study and create Sardinian jewelry, inspired by traditional dress and tradition in general, with sacred and profane references, still used today in special moments of life, such as "su coccu" for baptism and "su spuligadentes" for marriage.
In 2020, however, the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting economic crisis severely tested many artisan and commercial activities, including Lisa's. "It was a difficult time, when our production stopped and the future was uncertain," she recalls.
But Lisa did not give up. In that period of reflection, she developed the idea of opening her own business, "Filigrana d'autore," which opened in March 2024 on Corso Vittorio Emanuele in Bari Sardo.
In the furnishing of her shop, Lisa poured all her passion and creativity, from the embroideries painted on the walls, which recall the lace of the traditional Sardinian shirt, to the hand-made copper table, inspired by Grazia Deledda's speech when she received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927.
Lisa's main goal is to create unique, handmade, marked, and hallmarked objects, true works of art. Her work also includes the restoration and transformation of old gold.
"Over the years, I have noticed that filigree has often been devalued, due to mass production," says Lisa. "My desire is to combine customer requests with the tradition of our land."
An example is the engagement ring made for a young man from Bari Sardo, who wanted a jewel that combined Sardinian and English traditions. Lisa created a ring inspired by the "Kate" model, with a sapphire surrounded by a crown of grains, a symbol of Sardinian faith.
To engage customers, Lisa has set up an open workshop, where they can watch her create her jewelry, just like in the old workshops. Her work has started successfully, and Lisa hopes to be able to tell the story of filigree to an ever-wider audience.
