The newspaper “La Provincia di Lecco” tells our story
In September 2022, we had the pleasure to be interviewed by Christian Dozio, from the local newspaper “La Provincia di Lecco”. Here’s what he wrote about us:
Not only do they work for artists, especially sculptors and luthiers, but they are also artists themselves. The siblings Alessia and Mauro Bassoli and Marco Ripamonti, Alessia’s husband, produce handmade rasps, riffler rasps, gouges and chisels. B&B Artigiana was born in 2011, with roots in a history of Lombard craftsmanship originating in the 50s, when Sergio, Alessia and Mauro’s father, started his business in the carving tool field.
“Our story is passion and pride for what we do. Our carving tools are made by hand in all the production phases. We have more than 200 curving types for our gouges, while all the teeth of our rasps are handmade using burin and hammer, so that they cover the whole carving surface and arrive until the very end of the tool.”, says Alessia.
Her brother Mauro carries on the craftsman tradition and methods started by his father. That’s why in 2012 B&B Artigiana has acquired the company Società Cooperativa Artigiana di Villamagina di Sellano, founded in Perugia in the 17th century, which father Sergio had worked in close contact with and where Mauro stayed several months to learn all the secrets of the perugian artisans.
B&B Artigiana is widely renowned in Italy but also internationally, as their high-quality product can be purchased from their E-Commerce and delivered all over the world. Orders come daily from different countries, like France, Argentina, Perù, The Netherlands and Spain.
“When we opened our company, we started a partnership with an important US firm in the sculpting field, which helped us, as well as all the artists we have worked with, to improve our production techniques and reach the quality we are nowadays recognised all over the world for.
As it is only the three of us who cover all production, sales and shipping processes, we have always been very careful not to bite off more than we could chew and we were a bit sceptical at the beginning when Confartigianato, the association we are member of, suggested that we opened our E-Commerce. We made up our mind when the opportunity of a call for bids came and we obtained a government contribution to help us build it.
After this positive experience, we decided to participate in another tender for the renovation of our production site in terms of energy efficiency. We’ve had the chance to buy an induction oven and to install solar panels onto our warehouse.”