Nerio and Heidi Festa

Formed in 1994 by husband and wife design team Nerio and Heidi Festa, festa & co. produces hand-made lighting and accessories that can be seen in top stores and galleries throughout the country. Their distinctive designs incorporate steel and river rocks, giving each piece a rich signature look.

The Festas are transplants to Sonoma in Northern California, she from New York and he from Italy. Before launching festa &co. Heidi designed costume jewelry for her own company while Nerio designed and built furniture and custom interiors for home offices and sailing yachts. An engineer by training he is a self confessed "tinkerer" who invents machinery for the company and for various other purposes.

In what he describes as "a very practical joke", one of Nerio's first designs upon moving west was an earthquake resistant candle holder. It was the forerunner of the balancing candleholders which appear in the company's current line in several versions.

Naturally occurring stones, polished smooth by centuries of ocean tides and rivers, are a central element in the couple's designs. The idea of using these varied stones in their work grew out of a trip to Encinitas, a storybook beach in Southern California. They took some stones home, placed them around in their living room and began experimenting with "wrapping" them within rusted steel rods from their workshop and transforming them into functional art. Since then festa &co. has grown to a dozen people who still make one piece at a time with hand-picked stones.

The company's philosophy closely follow its esthetic, emphasizing minimal environmental impact in the fabrication process. Most operations are done by hand thus using little energy. Candle holder cups are a byproduct of car muffler manufacture. No varnishes or toxic chemicals are employed and most of the packing materials are collected from local businesses. Stones are hand picked and carefully selected for each piece. Materials are recycled and natural. If exposed to moisture the steel will rust naturally. If you wish to maintain the “natural steel” appearance, apply pure Vaseline or WD40 with fine sandpaper (180, 220). 

for Heidi & Nerio Festa

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