Artelaio company was born in Creazzo from an idea of Giovanni Ariot, graduated in mechanical engineering in Padova.
He began to work as university assistant in the Machines Institute, then worked for a factory of pumps and as a designer engineer with a company that produced crane for trucks.
In 1975 his sister wanted a loom to weave, but it was difficult to find it in Italy such a particular device and the importation from other countries was too expensive.
So she asked him to build his first loom for her.
At the beginning the engineer refused this proposal because he believed that it was only a momentary passion. Later, in the autumn of the next year, after an accident, he couldn’t work for two months, so he spent this time for building up the loom the sister wanted, without any precise idea of the specifical structure.
On the engineering Perucca’s dictionary (UTET) under the entry “loom” he luckily found a scheme that showed how a yarn become a fabric with the insertion of a weft.
So he designed a structure that affords the different steps described in the dictionary.
He always love the hand made so he had the machines and the materials to realize a fully functional handloom.
Some friends of his sister asked him the same loom and, thanks to advertisements published on woman magazines, he had other requests.
So in 1978 he retired from the company in which he worked and established the firm “Artelaio” with the production of the four healds 85 cm. loom only.
A lot of looms and models have been designed by Giovanni Ariot since this moment, year after year. Artelaio stated as a reference for wooden handlooms in Italy.
In 2010 the engineer reluctantly decided to divest and retire and succeeded Tessilmarket in Biella, that used to provide some accessories to Artelaio. Tessilmarket moved all the activity in its head office in Biella, building a division and a laboratory suitable for Artelaio to continue the history of these handlooms, known and appreciated by the Italian weavers.
In collaboration with the engineer Ariot the second childhood of ARTELAIO is now began.