Bettina Calderazzo & Matt Weston
Shop Owner/Ceramicist & Jewelry Designer
Menorca, Spain
What is growth for you?
Bettina: Growth for me is all about self awareness. It’s only from that point that we are really able to grow. It’s about looking at yourself, and slowly working out the ways in which you can believe you can better yourself, acknowledging the things that will allow that to happen and the motivations that will help you succeed. Then engaging in those things, but with patience - knowing it’s all a practice - and knowing sometimes it’s not so much doing or striving but just being that you need in order to grow.
Matt: Growth for me, in the personal sense, is becoming comfortable with things that you previously weren’t comfortable with, therefore growing new versions of yourself, evolving, expanding your possibilites for pleasure, happiness and fulfilment. For yourself and others.
What keeps you grounded?
Bettina: Our baby, Coco, has definitely been a major source of grounding. There is someone looking to you to be their steady rock and you have to try your best to live up to that. And of course, being an Aussie, as cliche as it sounds, the truth is the basics of island living : swims in sea, watching the sun rise and set and being barefoot as much as possible. I have some pretty hardcore soles by the end of summer.
Matt: Walking with our dog Mali at our local special place. Our route takes us through the forest and opens out to a beautiful natural beach which for most of the year is totally deserted. Mali is a Podenco, a breed brought to the Balearic Islands 3000 years ago by the Phonecians. To see Mali in this environment is witnessing nature in action, I feel her history and I’m in awe of her agility. She bounds through the long grass like a coiled spring, she sprints across the sand like a rocket. She pauses now and then to absorb her environment, silently scanning the horizon, her big ears manouvering subtley like radars, she is very essence of awareness and totally absorbed in the moment.
To witness this oneness for me is humbling, joyous and cathartic. By the end of the walk the cares I had before seem trivial and I am grounded and unphased…until I get home and open my laptop!
What’s a book that’s inspired you?
Bettina: That’s tough - different ones do for different reasons…
But one of the most recents is definitely How to Change Your Mind by Michal Pollan and in the same vein I’m now reading The Master and His Emissary. Both go into the nature of mind and I guess they inspired me to go further into shedding the unnecessary stuff and have made me be more empathic and patient with others and myself. Also David Lynch’s Room to Dream was pretty inspiring. That guy is a legend.
Matt: Journey to Ixtlan by Carlos Castaneda - A Californian anthroplogy student travels to the Sonoran Desert in 1960 to learn about medicinal plant use among the indigenous Yaqui people. He meets an old shaman who, through a series of different teachings, shows him a completely new way of experiencing his reality. I read this book 28 years ago and the knowledge I gained from it still affects the way I live my life today.
How do you connect with nature?
Bettina: We are so lucky that where we live it’s a constant - you actually can’t avoid it. I often wake up and go sit on the roof and watch the sun peep out over the hills, as the birds are waking and flying overhead. Just the other day a bird flew so close I heard its wings flap. I’m also crazy about swimming and I’m in the sea as many times a day as possible - a solo early morning dip at our local spot is my fave. And I’m a mad sunset chaser. In winter, it’s coastal or country walks all rugged up, here it’s nice as there are beautiful country paths leading to the coast so you get the best of both worlds. We often go with friends and collect the seasonal treasures like blueberries, wild asparagus or the local mushrooms. Oh and of course stopping to pick up a tortoise off the road on the way to town.
Matt: We are fortunate enough to live in a relatively remote pocket of our island surrounded by pine trees and bush land. Although its dry and rocky it manages to stay green and animal and plant life are abundant. Tortoises, geckos, tree voles, rupits and Scops owls are all regular visitors to our house, hedgehogs, pine martens, bee eaters and hoopo’s are all hovering at the periphery. Our doors and windows are always wide open, everyday life here is a connection with nature.
What is your favorite plant?
Bettina: My favourite is the Foxtail Agave. It’s the perfect hue of green/blue and is the cactus worlds’ answer to a lotus flower but with a tougher edge… and I guess they are kind of symbolic of island life in the med. My idea of heaven.
Matt: Visually, right now I’d have to say the Blue Agave Americana. When they are mature they are so majestic and prehistoric looking. Agaves are considered a pest here in Menorca but I love them all the same. Its not all about looks though is it!…….We can’t forget the humble potato plant, where would we be with out fries? Mash? Roasties? The world would be a poorer place.
