Memoirs · Portraits · Sculpture

Art in the service of life

A writer gathers your mother's story. A painter makes your father's face. A sculptor models the hands that raised you. This isn't a keepsake off a shelf: it's a commissioned work about one particular person.

Let's talk How it works

Let's reclaim the power of works of art

Everyone has a father, a mother or a grandparent who always tells the same four stories. We all remember their eyes, their hands. We've heard them so often that we've stopped listening; we've seen them so often that we no longer notice. And one day we realise we don't know the details: what year it was, what that man was called, what happened next.

A memoir is exactly that: sitting down with that person, with time and with someone who knows how to ask, and writing it down while the details are still there. A painting is giving them a space of their own. A sculpture is keeping them safe from time.

The gift isn't the book. It's the hours they spend telling it.

Want to try it yourselves first?

We've published a free guide with 50 questions for interviewing your grandparents and how to do it so it doesn't feel like an interrogation.

Read the guide →

A book, a portrait, a pair of hands

You can commission a single piece or combine several. We'll help you choose what fits.

The letter

A few pages, written to say what is hard to say out loud. It can stay exactly as it comes from their hand, in the handwriting their children will recognise instantly, or be typeset and bound if the hand no longer holds steady. On archival paper, in a sealed envelope, to be read on the day it should be.

Schedule letters →

Una dona escriu a mà sobre paper cru en una taula de roure, amb el portàtil tancat al costat i una finestra amb verd al darrere

The memoir

A writer sits with her over a few afternoons and asks what nobody has ever asked her: what the village was like, what her mother said the day she left, why she chose what she chose. Out of those conversations comes a book with her name on the cover. When it's finished, almost every family tells us the same thing: the gift wasn't the book, it was the afternoons.

Una escriptora amb portàtil i llibreta riu mentre un home gran li explica la seva vida

Painting

There is a difference between an enlarged photograph and a painted portrait, and you can see it from across the room. A painter doesn't copy a face: he decides what to look at, what to leave in shadow and where the light comes from. That's why a portrait can hold a wall for forty years without tiring anyone.

Una pintora treballa el retrat a l'oli d'un home gran al seu estudi, amb la fotografia de referència al costat

Un retrat a l'oli d'una dona gran penjat en una paret clara, amb plantes i una gerra blava

Les mans d'una pintora barregen vermells, blaus i grocs a la paleta en un estudi il·luminat

Sculpture

Hands that kneaded bread, that wheeled a bicycle by the handlebars, that buttoned up your coat. The sculptor models them from photographs and the result can be touched, which is something no other keepsake allows. In bronze, marble or stone, depending on where it will stand.

Una escultora modela amb fang el bust d'un home gran al seu taller, amb la fotografia de referència al costat

Escultura de bronze de dues mans agafades sobre una lleixa de roure, amb una planta i un bol blau

Escultura de bronze d'un gos assegut damunt d'un moble d'entrada, al costat d'una fotografia de família

Each commission is quoted separately depending on format, length and number of copies. Call us and we'll give you a fixed price before anything starts.

Four steps and a few conversations

We talk with you

You tell us who it's for, what you'd like and how much time we have. We propose the format that fits and a fixed price.

We get to know the person

The writer visits them at home, sessions of an hour and a half, no rush. For many families those afternoons end up being the best part of the gift.

We write and edit it

We write the text, select the photographs and lay it out. You review everything before anything is printed.

The day they open it

We deliver it bound and with as many copies as you like, so every child and grandchild has one at home.

When people give it

A milestone birthday

Seventy, eighty, ninety. Exactly when you no longer know what to buy.
A golden wedding

Fifty years together is more than enough for one book, and usually for two.
A retirement

Very common among colleagues who club together. Forty years of a trade deserve to be written down.
The birth of a grandchild

So that the day they're old enough to ask where they come from, the answer is already written.
Christmas

It's the gift the family remembers and talks about for years. Order it in September.

Writers, painters and sculptors

We're not a printing house. Every commission is made by a person with a craft, and you'll know who they are from day one.

Un escriptor de cabells blancs prenent notes en un quadern, amb una gravadora i fotografies antigues

Who writes

The books are written by journalists and professional writers. You'll know who yours is from the first call and it will always be the same person.

Un escultor modelant en fang el rostre d'un home gran a partir d'una fotografia de referència

Who paints and sculpts

We work with painters and with a bronze and marble workshop. Before you commission anything we show you their work so you know what you'll receive.

Un home pren notes mentre parla per telèfon en una oficina clara, amb el portàtil obert

Who guides you

One single contact from start to finish: they help you choose the format, keep the deadlines on track and update you at every step.

Questions we're always asked

What if the person isn't keen?

It happens, but rarely. The reluctance usually lasts until the first session: after that it's harder to make them stop. If they still say no, we stop and charge nothing.

How long does it take?

Between three and five months depending on the format. If you need it for a specific date, give us some notice.

What if they live far away?

We're in Barcelona and we travel throughout Catalonia. Elsewhere in Spain we work in person or by video call, whichever suits: what matters is who's asking the questions, not where they're sitting.

What if they can no longer tell it themselves?

Then we build it with the people who knew them: children, siblings, friends, letters and photographs.

Before deciding anything

Three free guides answering the questions everyone asks us. You can do it yourselves with them; you only need us if you'd rather it were done by someone with the craft.

Gift

Tell us who it's for

Write to us and we'll call you. We'll tell you which format fits, how long it takes and what it costs. No obligation.

Phone600 47 96 82

Emailhola@arbora.cat

Received. We'll call you within 24 hours with a concrete proposal.