NEVOA, a touch of elegance

The first products from NEVOA that caught my eye were the trays. I am a coffee drinker and a sofa addict. The trays are pretty enough to be lying around and practical enough to keep the coffee cups, cookies and crumbles in their place.

Photos: courtesy of NEVOA.

Taking advantage of our stay in Porto during summer, I asked Mariana if I could visit their atelier in Vila Nova de Gaia. Mariana met us with a smile, showed us her work and shared more about her project.

If I started admiring Nevoa’s work because it was pretty, now I appreciate it even more. I can see the cooperative effort of many pairs of hands, the skills learned over the years, the different technics and crafts.

The detailed wood work is done mostly manually by artisans in small workshops. It is important the pieces are perfect and proportions are kept stable. This can be a challenge on handcrafted materials. It is a choice to know the hand that built each piece rather than going for bigger, more impersonal, industrial alternatives.

After a detailed quality control, Mariana prints the pieces using a silkscreen printing technique. NEVOA has a video on this, in case you are, like I was, unsure what silkscreen is about.

Colours are delicious and diverse (I love the blue!) and inspiration comes from the graphic surroundings of a city full of colourful tiles. NEVOA’s pieces are elegant. The kind that, just for being there, discreetly dress up a room.

Mariana had a Middle Table Center in the studio when I was there. It took my breath away! She showed me an example made of Olive Root Veneer (similar to the one in the picture). It happens to be an extremely rich and graphic wood. The artist was the olive tree! NEVOA followed along to brighten even more what nature had already made truly special.

Even if you need to have a very big table to put a Middle Table Center on it, it is worth dreaming about it. Maybe one day…

Mariana told me she is working in a new collection. I will be keeping an eye on it!