The Pencil is under the table

Notebooks by Francesca Biasetton

Texts by Luca Barcellona and Fabio De Luca

21 × 28 cm

Paperback with hand-illustrated cover

112 pages

Italian/English

A visual and intimate journey through the pages of Francesca Biasetton’s notebooks—calligrapher, illustrator, and performance artist. The book is organized into several thematic sections—travel, ideas, nature, letters—and gathers years of work, notes, experiments, and graphic reflections born from daily observation and the continuous practice of drawing.

The cover itself is part of the work: each copy of the book is unique, with original hand-made interventions by the author directly on the press sheets during printing. The volume thus serves as a gateway into the fascinating experimental phase that precedes the finished work, providing a valuable tool for observing the method and imagination of a professional in drawing and lettering.

For Biasetton, notebooks go beyond a simple collection of drawings; they are instruments of investigation and storytelling. Her pages transform reality into visual alphabets. Subjects range from travel impressions to decorative patterns, from natural elements to free letter compositions. Browsing these notebooks offers an experience—gathering ideas, feeding one’s creative inquiry, contemplating the beauty of a precise mark, and honoring those pencils that can chart a path forward when everything seems still.