Letizia.

I learned to paint before I learned to write. I grew up among books of early art and illuminated manuscripts, and spent years studying illumination and painting on parchment.

I discovered seventeenth-century Italian ketubot in a library in Venice. Botanical borders, architectural arches, gold leaf: they were contracts, but they were also works of art. I never stopped from that day on.

Today I paint ketubot on commission, for couples who want an object that speaks of them. I do not work from models. I prefer few works a year, each one given full attention.

My relationship with tradition is affectionate, not museum-like. I want a ketubah painted today to be able to converse with those of the seventeenth century without copying them: the same care, the same slow time, a new sensibility.

With the couples who write to me, I look for a true encounter. First we talk, then I tell you about myself and listen to you. Only afterwards do I think about the design.