Studio di ceramica-Pottery.
After a long period of experimentation and testing at DOCKS POTTERY weʼd like to show our ceramic work. The works we produce come from the use of local red and white clay as well as semigres like the earth of Castellamonte.
We make all our own glazes from formulae we found in an old ceramics manual, many of which we have modified after extensive testing and experimentation.
All our glazes are lead free and contain no toxic substances.
Docks Pottery
via Valprato n°68
10155 Torino Italia
f.digiovanni@iol.it
In my old manual "Ceramica Viva" of Nino Caruso, I'm trying to translate into English the chapter of Egyptian dough.
The Egyptian dough is a alkaline dough with vitrification to 920 - 940 ° C, is not very plastic but with the addition of Bentonite you can work at the wheel.
If any of you help me in the translation, I would be very happy
In anteprimale pictures of the chapter.
Islamic ceramics from the collection of MAO in Turin. The color turquoise is the alkaline glaze, the copper black oxide changes to turquoise-blue
During this time I'm not just working in the pottery-studio, I am a bit depressed for not being able to work with continuity in my work with ceramics. I'm waiting for a period of calm in working with my company for museums. Yesterday we finished the show "VoltaPagina 6" at the Museum of Palazzo Madama. In 2006 I worked at the opening of the Palazzo Madama Museo Civico d'Arte Antica di Torino, has been a long job, for me it was interesting, because the fourth floor of the palace have exposed part of the collection of ancient ceramics.
After the closure of the Museum in 1988, which was followed by a difficult and confused period, in 1998 the "Palazzo Madama Project" was approved. This introduced a series of operations that led to the reopening of Palazzo Madama on 15 December 2006. The restoration of the architecture and the new arrangement of the displays, which met the most modern requirements in terms of exhibitions, use and services, were carried out together with important restructuring work. A total of more than 150 restorers worked on the building and no fewer than 71 companies were involved in restoring the architecture and the museum collections.The visit to the museum now covers four floors, each of which illustrates a historic period.The collections of works from the early centuries of the Middle Ages are housed on the moat floor, in the Medieval Stonework Collection, with sculptures, mosaics and jewellery (including the precious Desana Treasure). They range from Late Antiquity to Romanesque.The fifteenth-century rooms on the ground floor, on the other hand, contain a tour that leads more or less from the Gothic period to the Renaissance, with paintings, sculptures, miniatures and precious objects (such as the thirteenth-century casket of Guala Bicchieri), most of which come from sites in Piedmont and date from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century. In the circular room in the Treasure Tower, one of the fifteenth-century towers of the old castle, there is a selection of masterpieces, including the famous Portrait of a Man by Antonello da Messina, and the Très Belles Heures de Notre Dame de Jean de Berry codex illuminated by Jan Van Eyck.
The sixth Volta Pagina opens with an outstanding donation of ancient books dating from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. These were offered to Palazzo Madama in late 2008 by a group of Piedmontese bibliophile of the Associazione Bibliofili Subalpini. Their gift reinforces the Museum’s ties with the world of collecting in Turin which, over the years, has added many treasures to the Museo Civico. The precious bindings donated by Marco Albera, Livio Ambrogio, Giovanni Chieli, Federico Lobetti Bodoni, Francesco Malaguzzi, Gustavo Mola di Nomaglio and Giuseppe Pichetto will remain on display for three months in the showcases of the Chinese Room on the piano nobile. In the closet-gallery next door, the Piccola Guardaroba, there is an educational display programme illustrating the instruments and materials used in bookbinding workshops, with tools, plates, and decorative papers kindly lent to the Museum by Francesco Malaguzzi, Luciano Fagnola, and Emilio and Vittorio Soave. The exhibition is small, but it offers the public great insight into bookbinding techniques, providing information that would be impossible to include in the historic showcases on the second floor of the Palazzo. At the same time, in the graphics showcases on the ground floor we are also showing a selection from an ample collection of Renaissance bronze plaquettes. These are part of holdings which have long been relegated to the storerooms of the Museo Civico di Numismatica (closed in 2001). These items have been meticulously catalogued and, after an absence of 70 years, this has at last enabled them to make their return to the Museum.
works in storage
Here, I enter some photos of our work so as not to bore you with the Italian museums.
This is the invitation that Keiko sent me from Sydney.
It will be difficult for me to be there for the opening of the exhibition. But as promised to keiko,I extend the invitation to all.
You are warmly invited to the opening of new porcelain installation work by
Kenji Uranishi & Keiko Matsui at Helen Stephens Gallery and All Hand Made.
July 15 - August 12. Opening July 15, 6pm
Kenji Uranishi
New works, Hand built in Southern Ice porcelain 2009
Keiko Matsui
Artist of the month at All Hand Made
Porcelain dishes with cobalt decoration d. various
Helen Stephens Gallery 254 Bronte Road,
Waverley 2024. t. +61 02 9386 4099 Helen@helenstephensgallery.com
Ciao, my name is Filippo Di Giovanni, I have a pottery studio in TurinItaly.
I thought that I had a fantastic idea, as is adopting children from a distance, sheeps and pigs or gardens, to adopt a potter in trouble with the payments of his studio of pottery, for not to quit and change jobs. But, I searched on Google "adopt a potter" and I find You, Bravi Good Idea.
Yours is a very interesting initiative for young potters, but the need in this time of economic crisis in Italy and other Countries,is also for first to adopt an old potter for not to close , so he can help the young potters.
Happy to have known You. I am ready to help You and
It takes many years to train a studio potter
It always has done! Unfortunately many of our art colleges are finding it difficult to offer throwing in any meaningful way, so it's more important than ever for any student who wishes to make functional and studio pots to have the opportunity of an apprenticeship .
ADOPT A POTTER, I believe is a simple idea, a way of helping to secure the future of studio potters.
I have personally funded and trained some 10 apprentices to date, the sale of mugs, and small standard ware goes some way currently to paying the stipend wage.
ADOPT A POTTER takes it a stage further. I would not only like to offer more training places myself to students but would also like to extend the scheme to other potters by offering them a student with funding in return for training.
You can help and get involved by: •Donating by direct monthly payment
•Making a one off payment
•Help us fund raise
Registered Charity No. 1130164
Lisa Hammond
Mazehill Pottery
The Old Ticket Office
Woodlands Park Rd
Greenwich, SE10 9XE
In Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, with my company Attitudine Forma, we are preparing a permanent installation of the artist Reinhard Mucha, we are covering the wood panels with quartz colored with epoxide resin, 4 mm thick (see photo), the panels will part of the installation. This type of coating is used for paving. The professional in resin floors told me about these granules of quartz, colored at high temperature with different iron oxides. So I thought to take some of the different colors of quartz (the grains have a diameter of 0.30 mm.) And test what happens if mixed with the white clay in various percentages. I made three bowls, one for each different color of quartz for those percentages 3-5 -6%, and my intention is to cover later with the transparent glaze in second fire. I will tell you what happens in a few days ( I hope).
P.S. However this experiment goes this Sunday we have a Super Crop, and new guests, two canaries to the delight of Nilo and Lia our cats.
Are hard days, so much work around museums to plan new exhibitions. But today some respite. I went with Raffaella to the quarries clay of Castellamonte (70 km near Turin) and we bought 150 Kg of earth. The " Terra di Castellamonte" is a stonware with the mica in it, is used for pots-pentole, fire resitse , with it made the classic "tofeja"round pot for cooking the beans. And finally I have dirtied my hands, using a curved glass of an old chandelier, found in the trash, I realized four large plates-bowls, 35 - 40 cm in diameter. Method: I make a sheet of clay with rolling pin, 12-14 mm thick, cut a disc with a compass, using the talc I put the sheet on the glass (see photo) and fixed glass with the clay to the wheel where I made the foot and cut the board, after I drying (I have a powerful jet of hot air 600-1000 ° C) while running on the wheel. I turn all, and delete the glass. Finally I do the shape, enlarging the board and thin thickness to 7-8 mm on the wheel. Simple!Simple!Simple!
I was born in the small town of Termini Imerese,
40 km near Palermo Sicily.
When I was a child my father brought me to fish octopus in a clear sea with dream beach. After arrived the Fiat industry with the central electrothermic, my town, where lived farmers and fishermens, is transformed into an industrial center of southern Italy. The city grew as a tumor, with money came the mafia, the sea was polluted by oil discharged from tanker ships, all thought of becoming rich. After all this Fiat decides to lay off 18,000 workers and close and go away. We have become rich? No, we are poor as before but with a natural and social ecosystem in destruction. Fiat NO thanks, we do not give up.
"Workers at Fiat’s Sicilian plant in Termini Imerese on Thursday continued their temporary work stoppages to protest uncertainty over the factory’s future.
Meanwhile, unions at other Fiat factories met to consider other labor actions, including a refusal to work overtime, to draw attention to the fact that they feel left in the dark about Fiat’s global expansion plans and the effect these will have on jobs in Italy.
Fiat has already negotiated a partnership deal to become a controlling partner in the American automaker Chrysler, but it is its proposed merger with Opel, the main marque in General Motors’ European arm, which has unions in Italy and Germany worried.
Plans allegedly drawn up by Fiat, but which CEO Sergio Marchionne has not confirmed, indicated the shutting down or ‘reorientation’ of Termini Imerese and another plant in Italy, which many believe will be Pomigliano d’Arco near Naples, while an Opel engine and parts plant in Germany also risks being shut down or seeing its work force drastically reduced.
According to union sources at Opel, some 18,000 workers risk losing their jobs in Germany and Italy if the merger goes through.
GM must at least find a partner for its European arm, which includes Saab of Sweden, before the end of the month in order to receive federal bail-out funds. Workers at Termini Imerese staged two 90-minute work stoppages on Thursday morning and blocked a local highway to draw attention to their protest."
Is atypical that an Italian he does not talk about pasta or pizza (I do not love soccer). Then pasta.
In late April along with the seeds that my father sent me from Sicily were the seeds of Cucuzza (lagenaria longissima) and now in my pots on the terrace The Cocuzza grew. So I cooked the pasta with tinnirumi of Cucuzza is a pasta of Sicilian cuisine, I was born in Termini Imerese - Palermo. Young leaves and apexes of Cucuzza I also dice the Cucuzza and cut into small pieces by hand spaghetti, tomato, garlic, basil, olive oil and parmigiano. Recipe
"Cucuzza Squash Drill Team" Associated Italian Farmers in California
In my old manual "Ceramica Viva" of Nino Caruso, I'm trying to translate into English the chapter of Egyptian dough. 
