We were headed to Montelupo on our first scouting trip for our website when we saw on the right side of the road a beautiful old stone house and a signpost – ceramica ND Dolfi.
Manuela and I exchanged glances and one minute after we entered the gate of this astounding property.

Scattered across the lawn far from the driveway some ceramic sculptures welcomed the visitor.

A nice lady met us and agreed to open the show room. The beauty of the works we saw was a perfect match with the place: an old limonaia or orangery, a stone building were citrus trees used to be wintered. She told us that her husband Silvano was a pottery artist, now retired, and her daughters, Natalia and Daria, had taken over the family business.

Continue reading ‘Goodbye, Mr Dolfi’

Iridescenze – Lusterware in the 20th century
Until December 31, 2009

The exhibition features luster pottery by Alpinolo Magnini, Ubaldo Grazia, Edgardo Abbozzo and their followers, some of them still active in Deruta.

Together with Angelo Micheletti and Francesco Briganti, Alpinolo Magnini was the artist who made the revival of ceramic art in Deruta possible and encouraged its first steps into modern age.
A skilled painter and an excellent ceramicist himself, he actively supported the work of his fellow artists and contributed to the education of a new generation of pottery makers as the first Director of the newly founded Museum of Ceramics and also as Director of the School of Ceramics.

Ubaldo Grazia adopted a different approach to the relaunch of Deruta pottery. He looked for inspiration at the Renaissance pottery that had made Deruta so famous in the 15th and 16th century and started from there. In 1921 he founded his own pottery factory, still one of the most important in town.

Continue reading ‘Your Christmas Travel Guide to Italian Pottery Events: Deruta’

Portrait and Figures - Victor Ferraj
Until December 13, 2009

Heads – from the past, from the future, from today… Viktor Ferraj chooses to look at the universe, its chaos and its mystery through the face of people.

His portraits, often reminiscent of classis sculpture, are in a continuous struggle with the informal background. Is it the birth from the chaos, or the chaos that perpetually forges the reality? The visitors can’t help wondering … still Ferraj’s people are not too bothered. They know better, maybe.

The sculptures remind the Greek and Roman classics. However the inevitable ebb and flowing of Time has broken them in many vital spots. The look eroded, used up. Still they live, they stare the visitors, sharing with him the knowledge that if everything changes, nothing gets lost.

Ferraj was born in Albania in 1965. He has been living and working in Italy since 1991.

Il Mulino Gallery
Corso Italia 37, Savona
Opening hours: Tue. to Sun. 4 pm - 7.30 pm
Ph: 0039 019 809074 – 0039 347 1666730
Email: galleriailmulino@gmail.com

Many events will take place during the holiday season in Montelupo. We’ll stick to the ones regarding pottery, but you can still have a full picture of what is going on in the area through the contact list at the end of the post.

Continue reading ‘Your Christmas Travel Guide to Italian Pottery Events: Montelupo’

November 8 – January 10, 2010
Perugia – Italy

A very unusual art exhibition has opened in Perugia, that focuses on the birth of the movement of cultural property protection at the beginning of the 20th century against the massive acquisitions made by foreign Italian art collectors.

Art works, vintage pictures, original editions of books and documents tell the visitors the story of art collecting in the Western world and the effort of the Italian lawmakers in protecting our national heritage.

The symbol of the event is a 50 piece collection of Medieval ceramics made in Orvieto that was scattered across the world. For the first time in more than one hundred years they are under the same roof, the one of Palazzo Baldeschi in Perugia, Umbria.

Continue reading ‘Medieval pottery from Orvieto - Italy’

November 21 -29
Deruta – Italy

The Seven Deadly Sins are the subject of a very interesting – and short – pottery exhibition that is about to open in Deruta.

The theme is fascinating, indeed, and so is the idea to explore it from different points of view.

The central event will be the exhibition of ceramic works made by Attilio Quintili, Patrizio Chiucchiù and Daniele Buschi, who are the founders of the art movement “The Ceramixti”.

Around their art works, experts in theology, ethics, psychology, art history and philosophy will offer their own interpretation of the Capital Vices. The program is enhanced by the final concert held by Fakhraddin Gafarov, a famous tar player from Azerbaijan.

Sins
Chiesa di Sant’Antonio
Piazza Benincasa
Deruta
Opening Hours: 10 am  to 1 p.m. – 3 to 7 pm
Ph: 0039 075 972121

The practice of releasing the nouveau wine in November – a huge marketing event – is commonly associated with France, where the third Thursday of the month the Beaujolais Nouveau is first sold.

However, if you google “nouveau wine” you’ll find out that the development of “primeur” wines is a tradition in many other wine producing countries. 

In Italy St. Martin’s Day marks the beginning of the new wine tasting. Many festivals are held that celebrate the maturation of the year’s wine, under the spell of the old saying “A San Martino ogni mosto e’ vino”. It roughly means “At St Martin’s Day the must turns to wine”: the rhyme is lost in the translation, alas.

Continue reading ‘Artist Wine Jugs for Nouveau Wine’

We were recently challenged by a Customer who was looking for some handmade tiles for her backsplash. She wanted figurative and geometric tiles to form a panel, but they had to be tiles with a history (!).

We thought the matter over and contacted the artists of a studio in Civita Castellana that is renowned for tiles. I had actually purchased the tiles for MY backsplash from them not long ago and both Manuela and I love the quality and look of their products.
To make a long story short they sent us their catalogue and we are about to ship to this lucky lady exactly what she was looking for.

Continue reading ‘A short history of pottery from Civita Castellana’

A major redevelopment of V&A Ceramics Galleries has been under way since 2005, with the ambitious objective to “create the most important national and international centre for the enjoyment, understanding and study of ceramics and a collection that is unrivalled anywhere in the world”, as reported by V&A’s website.

The galleries are located on the top floor of the museum, where a beautiful domed ceiling hosts an astounding site-specific installation made by the London-based ceramicist Edmund de Waal. Entitled ‘Signs and Wonders’, the art work consists of some 300 porcelain vessels on a ‘floating’ red shelf encircling the dome.

Continue reading ‘Victoria & Albert Ceramics Galleries are open!’

We beg your pardon for our looooong absence from our Journal.

Working on thatsArte.com development has absorbed more time than we ever thought possible!

Now, we definitely need to find a better formula to manage our time. It’s just Manuela and I, though. And since it’s not in our plans to hire someone or to copy and paste articles from other Internet sites, I guess we’ll have to cope with writing less regularly while keeping up with the quality job we’ve tried to do so far.

We do hope in your understanding and, why not, in your help!
If you have in mind a special subject related to Italian pottery you’d like read about in our Journal or a story, an experience, an article you’d like to share with us, please, send us a message at info@thatsarte.com or a comment on the Journal.

One thing will never change, though: we’ll always be happy to share with our readers our passion!