Are you planning to visit Tuscany? Tuscan pottery, arts and crafts are one of the reasons you go there?
Then you’ll love the project Collezioni Toscane, sponsored by the regional government.
It features a directory of 300 studios (botteghe) and artisans who make traditional hand made goods in Tuscany. Places where breathtaking objects are made out of gold, semi precious stones, silver, scagliola, clay, leather and paper.
Until August 22, 2010
Faenza – Italy
Sept. 16 – Nov. 28
Rome – Italy
The exhibition celebrates “the whites”, 
a specific style of pottery that arose in Faenza in the 1540s.
Their innovative shapes, designs and glazes determined their immediate success; within a few years from their appearance on the market, they were already so popular that many potters started to make them, both in Italy and in other European countries.
Known as the “pottery from Faenza” or faentini, the whites became so famous that French people shortened their name to “faience”, that is now the French name for Majolica or Pottery.
On 31 August 1880 Margaret Tod and Ulisse Cantagalli were married in the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Mary’s, Edinburgh, with Ulisse’s brother Romeo, and Margaret’s brother Robert, as witnesses. His Grace, John Menzies Strain, Archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, officiated, thereby establishing a permanent bond between the two fine cities of Edinburgh and Florence (SCA).
The Tods of Edinburgh
Margaret’s father was Robert Tod, Mill owner, a partner in Alexander & Robert Tod Ltd., Leith Flour Mills (NAS D76/1056), and a Leith Harbour and Dock Commissioner (NAS SC70/4/298).
Do you remember our article about Deruta municipality stepping in to fight fake handmade pottery? Well, it has taken them some time, but results are definitely coming in!
Last February, after a two year long investigation, Italian police charged the owners of three companies located in Assisi and Deruta with fraud and other administrative crimes. They manufactured fake Raffaellesco and Ricco Deruta pottery that was then partly sold to bus loads of unaware tourists visiting Assisi, partly exported to Europe, Japan and to the US at competitive prices.
The fact is, none of the pieces they sold was actually handmade. Instead, decals (transfers) were used to apply Raffaellesco or Ricco Deruta patterns on the pottery surface, in violation of the law that protects the industrial trademarks. And the process was not even carried out in Deruta…
The officials seized more than 2000 ceramic items made with decals but bearing the words “handpainted in Deruta”.
Deruta Mayor – A. Verbena – is rightly proud of this important result, that was made possible by the cooperation between the Municipality and the Police Authorities. And so are the dozens of honest artists who daily work hard to keep up the tradition of handmade pottery.
Our thanks to anyone involved in the operations. Let’s protect the quality of our “Made in Italy”. It’s our heritage and our most precious resource.
Impruneta (Florence) – Italy
An impressive number of combinations makes this work as unique as Art can be.
First, the combination of modern taste and the technique invented by Luca Della Robbia during the Renaissance. His revolutionary mixture of minerals was used to glaze large terracotta sculptures and panels and make them almost eternal. A breakthrough in the artistic production of the Renaissance pottery and a much welcomed revival today.
February 12-28, 2010- Perugia
March 20-April 6, 2010 – Torgiano
Italy
The Lungarotti Foundation is celebrating the 10th birthday of their annual exhibition developing the theme of oil lamps in the context of contemporary Ceramic Art.
Umbrian artist Bruno Ceccobelli has been selected as the featured artist for this year’s exhibition, named Lucifeste. Ceccobelli, a eclectic Italian artist, will offer his original contribution to the imagery of oil lamps, evocative objects that have been shedding light on human life for many centuries.
He worked on the concept of the event and came up with the Lucifeste idea while “molding the oil lamps and, through these old fashioned yet legendary objects, reenacting instinctive and ancient gestures – simple yet essential.” He is proud to declare that his “oil lamps are not sentimental nor simple everyday handicrafts but they are bright spirits, symbols of benign passions, poetic and divine accents. They are rational dreams for human beings with resplendent faces!”
Well, well worth a visit, isn’t it?
Lucerna Circus
Perugia, Rocca Paolina February 12-28, 2009
Torgiano, Olive Tree and Oil Museum March 20 – April 6, 2009
Phone: +39 075 9880300
e-mail: museoolio@lungarotti.it
Antonia Campi – Fantasia di serie, fantasie di eccellenza
Until January 31, 2010
It happened exactly sixty years ago. In 1949 Antonia Campi won the 8th edition of the Competition of Contemporary Ceramic Art in Faenza. Her fruit bowl was judged “interesting” by the Jury.
Today Antonia Campi is considered one of the most important Italian artists and designers. Throughout her long creative path, she found a source of inspiration in many materials and forms, creating a wide range of objects, some designed for a specific domestic function, some purely art works. Her beloved ceramics, however, have always had a key role in the development of her artistic personality.
Faenza celebrates Campi with a large variety of works, more than 150, that admirably succeed in showing the artist’s great innovative skills and kaleidoscopic interests.
Just like her “fancy items”, a limited series of one-of-a-kind works in the most amazing free forms and colors that represent a landmark in the recent history of ceramics.
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.
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.
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
