Mariya Alipieva is a multidisciplinary artist born in Bulgaria, living and working in Spain since 2003.  Her projects explore the intimate relationship between individuals and their environment. Alipieva’s artistic production delves into the elements surrounding us and how we shape ourselves to conform to the standards imposed by society. Part of her work emerges from everyday objects, reflecting the ordinary and commonplace. She focuses on creating replicas of these objects, offering a new perspective on familiar items and our capacity to understand our surroundings. Through her work, Mariya invites the public to reflect on the acts and rituals ingrained in our lifestyle, which are often closely related to constant concern for physical appearance and social status.

In her recent work, she has researched common concerns, such as how we conform to beauty cannons using cosmetics and medications that affect our physical appearance. Regularly, she uses reproductions of existing objects, such as cosmetic containers or medicines, to examine the influence that the design of the objects has on consumer behaviour. Products with similar characteristics and utility are differentiated primarily by the packaging aesthetics. That is one of the reasons that seduces her to work with existing objects.

Frequently, she employs porcelain as the primary material because, metaphorically, it symbolises the human ability to adapt to external conditions. Through this choice of material, Alipieva establishes a poetic relationship between porcelain’s characteristics and the human body and mind. Building on this poetic link, she is eager to push the limits of porcelain and explore its potential further.

A significant part of her research involves the relationship and interaction of the work with the public. She attempts to share her personal experience and incorporate the backgrounds of all those who feel a close connection and agree to share their knowledge and experiences.

La Asociación Nacional de Profesionales de Cerámica tiene su sede en Manises, Valencia, España. Defendemos la cerámica y los intereses de los ceramistas, realizamos cursos, exposiciones, encuentros, demostraciones cerámicas y participamos en ferias. Organizamos el Encuentro Internacional “El Turno del Torno”,donde el Turno es el protagonista durante tres días, con ponencias de ceramistas reconocidos en el mundo de la cerámica, cocciones experimentales, conciertos. ANPEC queremos dar visibilidad a la cerámica en todos los aspectos posibles. Contamos con 230 socios ceramistas del ámbito nacional español relacionados con la cerámica: profesoresores, diseñadores, empresarios, con taller propio, con coworking. La cerámica es nuestro leitmotiv con el que disfrutamos cada día.

Isabel Fernández del Moral Delgado (Barcelona, Spain, 1970), is the Chief Curator of the Ceramics Collection in the Barcelona Design Museum. She holds a degree in Geography and History, specializing in Prehistory, Ancient History and Archaeology (1988-1993), and a Master’s degree in Medieval and postmediaeval ceramics from the University of Barcelona (1995-1996).
She has developed her career as a Heritage Technician, first in the Barcelona City History Museum and later in the Barcelona Ceramics Museum, currently, the Barcelona Design Museum.
She has curated ceramics exhibitions in both, the historical and modern spheres, in the artistic and design fields. She has been a member of the scientific committee in several congresses related to archaeology and modern ceramics and participate as a jury member in some international contemporary ceramic’s contests.
She is involved in various research groups which study the cultural and historical heritage relative to ceramics and she has lectured and written several works on issues related to historical ceramics, up to date pottery, crafts and design. She participates also as a guest teaching in some Masters in management of Cultural Heritage and gives lesson in the Barcelona Design Museum stable program of courses.
She is an active member of several associations connected with ceramics, archaeology and museology that investigate, document and promote the ceramic heritage.

The Manises Municipal Museum of Ceramics was founded by the Manises Town Hall in 1967 and installed in an 18th-century house bequeathed to the city by Pilar Sanchis Causa and José Casanova Dalfó. The museum’s collection was started with the pieces included in the donation of the aforementioned house and they marked the initial stage of the museum.
Over the years, the MCM has evolved in many ways. Its holdings have increased considerably following criteria of specialization and representativeness, which made it possible to form a collection that covers each of the periods which ceramic production in Manises has gone through during its more than 700 years of continuous activity.
Currently, the MCM has a ceramic heritage of more than 5,500 pieces mainly produced in Manises, with a chronology that ranges from the 14th to the 20th century, plus a set of almost 1,400 tools and utensils used in the manufacturing processes and ceramic decoration typical of the town.
Since 1972, creative contemporary ceramics from the celebration of the Manises National Ceramics Contest, in the first place, and the International Ceramics Biennial, subsequently, have been regularly added to the collections, as all the award-winning works in the different editions become property of the Town Hall of Manises and have their place in the Museum, which provides the ideal location for their conservation, exhibition and dissemination.
Since 2013, a turning point has been marked by focusing the objective of the MCM on adapting to the new demands museums have to deal with as to the recent needs of their visitors. Consequently, it seeks to offer a greater contextualization and a more didactic interpretation of the collection in order to transmit the essence of its message in an effective and attractive way. Likewise, it organizes activities that aim to involve the community and is at present working long term on new facilities, thanks to the acquisition, by the Town Hall, of a building attached to the Museum. This initiative will make it possible to review both the function of the museum and the revision and adaptation of its exhibition discourse to new social needs.

Ceramics and pottery have been, and are still the most emblematic activities of La Bisbal d’Empordà, the city where the museum can be found. Under their influence, the main economic drivers which have granted a job (and still do) to an important part of the local population have been configured. Furthermore, these activities have their origins in the old days of the village (the oldest preserved document on the subject tells about a local potter from 1502), and as time passed they have developed a particular history and have generated both material and immaterial wealth.
Terracotta Pottery Museum has the purpose of preserving and disseminating the scientific, technical and industrial heritage of Bisbal ceramics, to exhibit the process of particular industrialization that has taken place within this specific field. Moreover, to promote the knowledge of science and current techniques and vertebrate the industriatization aspect that is explained.
The fact that the headquarters of the Museum is located in an industrial building allows for demonstration and integration of the museum’s architectual elements that are characteristic for the production: chimneys, clay and glazed primer tanks, kilns… Without a doubt, the preservation and enhancement of these elements makes Terracotta one of the most unique cultural facilities in our region.
The museum has a collection of more than ten thousand pieces between ceramic objects and tools, some of them related to its manufacture, most of which have been donated by the manufacturers from la Bisbal. Also, an important collection of ceramics provided by the Generalitat is formed by more than three thousand containers from all over the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic and Canary Islands.
The museum opened its doors by municipal initiative in 1991, when a temporary exhibition hall was opened. In 1998, once the building was partially renovated, a first permanent exhibition was held. In 2009, the Museum closed doors to start what would be the final restoration works of the building, it lasted until the end of 2015 when the Museum reopened definitively.
The works repesented the radical transformation of the institution, and undoubtedly marked their future. The reform carried out involved, on the one hand, the transformation of the building in order to increase its capacity for promotion and attraction, the adaptation and updating of the different services and, on the other hand, a new museum project which allowed to renew the permanent exhibition and program an offer of cultural and leisure activities.
The museum represents for the ceramics industry of la Bisbal d’Empordà and Girona region and important emblem that enhances its values of tradicion (many of the current companies are centenary); without a doubt the museum is, at this time, the cultural offer with more projection of La Bisbal and one of the most important ceramic museums in the country.

Terracotta Museu
C/ Indústria, 9
La Bisbal d’Empordà
+34 972 64 20 67
terracottamuseu@labisbal.cat
www.terracottamuseu.cat

Fiona Fell is a practicing artist and academic, her commitment is positioned within the industry of ceramics, sculpture, and spatial practices including performance, installation, and new media. With over 20 solo shows, Fiona has received several international grants and is part of many public and private collections both National and International. These include the National Gallery of Australia, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, FLICAM- Australasian Museum, Fuping, China, Cera-Techno, Toki City, Japan Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, and numerous regional Australian galleries and University collections.

Fiona was represented by Watters Gallery in Sydney for five years and previously Legge Gallery, Sydney, for thirteen. She lectured into Sculpture and Spatial Studies, Art and Design within the School of Arts and Social Sciences at Southern Cross University, Australia for over twenty years and holds a doctorate from Griffith University, Queensland Australia.

Her recent work and research engage collaborative practices of an inter-disciplinary nature concentrating on new materiality in dialogue with media-based art forms. From 2012 to 2019 Fiona has supervised up to ten tertiary students a year with international exchanges supporting research activities in collaboration with the University of Barcelona.
 
During 2020 Fiona has been working at her studio in Barcelona and is currently undertaking a residency at European Keramik Work Centre, (EKWC) based in the Netherlands where she is making new large-scale sculptural works and embracing different technologies that speak to her commitment to the ongoing development of innovation in her artistic practice.

Dissolving the tough skin of the three-dimensional work Fiona Fell blurs the hard-and-fast distinction between artwork and artist, interior and exterior, animate and inanimate, fact and fantasy, body and corpus in experiments where clay no longer solidifies into common, everyday reality but spins a metaphor for a vaster, more fluid fabric of experience.

Apart from the different series in which I structure my work, there are principally two big and evident divisions. On the one hand there are the pieces where I work with vegetable elements (gardens, scales …) and for other one what we might be call architectures (interior spaces, cities …)
In all of them there is a clear inclination towards the geometric forms where across mathematical and rational concepts I submit them to criteria of order, pace and sequence.
In turn the use of the white color is vital in my work as synthesis of all the colors and symbol of the absolute thing. The white bodies give us the idea of purity and modesty, believe a luminous impression of empty, positive infinite.
In the “Garden series”, I value the most imperceptible beauty of the nature, the tiny petals, the graceful leaves or the delicate trees, it needs to stoop at the level of the small thing and to continue meditating for a long time to understand all its sense. The garden is not an alone fruit of an exterior observation, but of the landscape internalize, of a contemplative digestion before any gesture. I try to colonize the wild space turning it into timeless and metaphysical gardens rationalized by my hand. The beauty is reaffirmed in the domestication.
In the “Mirages series”, I play with the juxtaposition of thin slabs of porcelain where the movement of the same ones, together with the effect that the lights and the shades produce, they are vital to create this mysterious atmosphere that precedes a mirage. I usually work with graphical designs that are interesting or attractive for their pace, symmetry, geometry … and that are in our daily landscape.
In the ” Inner Spaces series”, we meet a few labyrinths of courts where the light plays for their angles and edges, marking strongly the geometry of their contour. In these spaces it dominates the deep sensation of loneliness only it rotates for the darkness and the depth of their doors where the look is attracted as if someone was hiding in the interior. But the loneliness is absolute and the emptiness only is occupied temporarily by the look of the spectator.
” Closed spaces ” is an evolution of the ” Inner Spaces “. Here I give one more step towards the isolation of the exterior covering with thin slabs what before they were wide courts. Now the look of the spectator cannot penetrate in its interior, there is no place for the interferences. Nothing can enter and nothing can go out, which happens in its interior nobody knows.
In the ” Urban Landscapes series “, I depart from graphical designs that for their pace, symmetry and geometry seems to me to be attractive and what form a part of our urban daily sights. It is vital in this type of murals the game with the lights and the shades which contrast liberates all the depth and the sense of the work.

– Doctor of Historia del Arte from the Universidad Complutense in 2004, and Diplomado en Conservación de Bienes Culturales in 2000 by La Escuela Superior de Restauración y Conservación de Bines Culturales of Madrid.
– Académico Correspondiente of the Real Academia de la Historia and Académico Correspondiente of the Real Academia de Historia y Arte de San Quirce of Segovia.
– Secretary of the Asociación de Amigos del Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas.
– Member of the AC (Association of Ceramology).
– President of the Fundación marqués de Castrillón since 2104, dedicated to the conservation, cataloguing and restoration of its architectural heritage and artistic collections.

He is currently working on the preventive conservation of the artistic collections of the Congreso de los Diputados in Madrid.

Since 1995 he has specialized in the study of the history of historical and contemporary ceramics. His doctoral thesis is entitled De la tradición a la modernidad. Los Zuloaga ceramistas, deals with the different stages of ceramic production of the Zuloaga.

About the ceramists Zuloaga has curated an exhibition in the Torreón de Lozoya de Segovia and another at the Museo casa Lis in Salamanca.
Among his various publications on ceramics we can mention La loza esmaltada hellinera. Una desconocida de la cerámica española, Fernando Arranz López, ceramista and “Miguel Durán-Loriga Rodrigáñez, precursor del diseño industrial en cerámica” in the magazine Cerámica.

His latest publication in relation to ceramics, sponsored by the Asociación de Amigos del Museo nacional de Artes Decorativas, is Viaje a las colecciones de cerámica contemporánea española en el Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas, where he studies the various collections of Spanish ceramics preserved in the National Museum of Decorative Arts from the late nineteenth century until the sixties of the twentieth century

CERAMIC INSTRUCTOR . PORCELAIN WORK WITH CRYSTALLINE GLAZES.
ALL HAND THROWN.

Jaume Coll Conesa is director of the National Ceramics Museum in Valencia (Museo Nacional de Cerámica y de las Artes Suntuarias González Martí de Valencia) (www.mecd.gob.es/mnceramica), since 1998, and president of the Asociaciación de Ceramología (www.ceramologia.org) since its foundation in 1989. He has been also Secretary of Arts and Design of the Spanish Society of Ceramics and Glass (Sociedad Española de Cerámica y Vidrio) (www.secv.es). He holds a PhD in History.

Active in ceramics since 1983, besides being a ceramist specialized in woodfired kilns, my main activity is the edition of magazines: Revista Ceramica (printed), Infoceramica.com and woodfiring.net. I give workshops on construction and firing of woodfired kilns in my studio in Pelahustán (Toledo), where I also have an anagama kiln.

Todo el proceso de creación y elaboración de nuestra obra es fruto del trabajo de equipo de ambos.
Nuestra metodología de trabajo es: dos pensamientos + comunicación + debate = materialización a cuatro manos de cada obra.
La comunión forma-diseño i dibujo-piel es siempre un distintivo de nuestra obra, para nosotros es importante trabajar formas escultóricas sobrias, acoplando pequeñas piezas reiterativas y vistiendo la forma de una piel dibujada o con una multitud de fragmentos de colores, en nuestra realización es significativa la forma, el dibujo y el color, dejando espacio al blanco de la porcelana o del gres.

—

Tot el procés de creació i elaboració de la nostra obra és fruit del treball d’equip de tots dos.
La nostra metodologia de treball és: dos pensaments + comunicació + debat = materialització a quatre mans de cada obra.
La comunió de forma, disseny i dibuix és sempre un distintiu de la nostra obra, per a nosaltres és important treballar formes escultòriques sòbries, acoblant petites peces reiteratives i vestint la forma d’una pell dibuixada o amb una multitud de fragments, en la nostra realització és significativa la forma, el dibuix i el color, deixant espai al blanc de la porcellana o del gres.

—

The entire process of creation and elaboration of our work is the result of the teamwork of both.
Our work methodology is: two thoughts + communication + debate = four-handed materialization of each work.
The communion of form-design and drawing-skin is always a hallmark of our work, for us it is important to work sober sculptural forms, coupling small repetitive pieces and dressing the shape of a drawn skin or with a multitude of colored fragments, in our realization the shape, the drawing and the color are significant, leaving space for the white of the porcelain or stoneware.

AeCC is an entity made up primarily of local governments, to promote the value of ceramics in their municipalities, their ceramic heritage, cultural tourism and economic and social development based on an element that they have in common: ceramics.
To do so, they work in a network and coordinate their efforts, share experiences and knowledge among themselves and also cooperate with other European associations of cities of ceramics in France, Italy and Romania through the European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation Cities of Ceramics.

Objectives
– Create and promote a network of cities linked to ceramics.
– Protect and enhance the ceramic heritage.
– Contribute to the development of the artisan sector linked to ceramics.
– Promotion of quality marks or designation of origin.
– Promotion of cultural tourism based on ceramics.
– To exchange experiences and knowledge between partners and other institutions through communication campaigns and the organization of conferences and technical seminars.
– Promote training and innovation in the ceramics sector.
– Foster economic, social and cultural development that is sustainable and respectful of the environment of member cities.
– Biannual Congress of the AeCC
– Technical seminars
– National Ceramics Awards
– Communication actions: Website, electronic bulletin and others
– International actions with European partners.

A model-maker/ sculptor with industrial-technical training in the plastics and ceramics industries, and a background in arts and crafts studies, Claudi de Joséhas been self-employed since 1980, running CAMBRAS MODELS Workshop, where he has taken part in the development and manufacture of countless projects from a diverse array of ceramics fields.

He regularly gives courses and seminars on plaster and silicone rubber moulds at various centres in Catalonia and Spain.
Claudi de José is specialized in the early stage production of sanitary ware and the rehabilitation of ornamental ceramic facings on buildings.

“A job well done gives me great satisfaction. I am proud to be a craftsman who ‘creates by hand, using his head’…”

The essential character which stands out from my creative career is the evolution of my work from an isolated figure heading towards a more recent phase where the contained figure is related to an architectural space.
In the construction of my work I use the stoneware clay to combine the model The hand built and the slab built painted with engobe, fried to high temperature.
It is a harmonious combination between the geometry and the poeticism of the figures situated in the space. Through my works I look for the emotional, surrealistic and metaphysic touch which connects with the mystery, and I leave to the viewer full of questions about the space, the world and the man.

The Barcelona Design Museum is the city’s museum of object art and design. In just one place it brings together historical collections of decorative art, textile and clothing art and graphic art, the collections of product, graphic and fashion design from the 20th and 21st centuries and original contemporary art
collections.

The common denominator of these collections is the object and everything that it means, has meant and contributed: from its conception, creation and production to its use according to its time and society, in the crafts and pre- industrial era, the industrial era and the digital era.

The museum has a collection of over 70,000 objects. The decorative arts date from the 4th
century to the present day, with unique, internationally-renowned collections, such as medieval textiles, 16th century Catalan enamelled glassware and Alcora pottery, among others. All this object art is naturally linked to the 20th and 21st century design collections. Most of them are, or have been, “everyday objects”, i.e. personal or collective objects from everyday life. Now, these historical decorative-art collections are also linked, in a logical way, with those collections known as original contemporary art, artistic expressions that employ traditional techniques, such as ceramics, glass and enamel.

The Museu del Càntir in Argentona houses and exhibits an important collection of more than 4.500 recipients for water. The majority of these are ‘càntirs’, traditional water jars, made of ceramic materials. Together they illustrate almost three thousand years of man’s creativity, ranging from the bronze age askoi, made by different Mediterranean cultures in ancient times, to contemporary works of art, culminating with various examples of pieces made by Picasso.

The museum was founded in 1975 thanks to a popular local initiative led by the local historian Jaume Clavell. In the year 2000 the museum relocated to its present site where the spacious, modern installations and a firm educational vocation combine to accommodate the visiting public.

The museum’s origins lie in the traditional ‘càntir’ fair which is held every year on August 4th, the day of Saint Dominic. This has now become the date of the annual village festival which coincides with the popular ‘Festa del Càntir’ (festival of the water jar) and the International Pottery and Ceramics Fair.

THE COLLECTIONS

The permanent exhibition is structured around five thematic areas.
• Humanity and water: A cultural relationship
In all the cultures throughout all the ages a great variety of ceramic vessels for water can be found which illustrate the enormous wealth and diversity of our cultural heritage. In this section ‘càntirs’ are exhibited alongside vessels from Africa, America, Europe and Asia.

• Forms and functions of water utensils: Morphologies
There have been innumerable variations of vessels to hold water produced in our society. These variations we name morphologies. Among the most important are the traditional water jars, water jars with spouts, canteens, pitchers and ewers.

• The history of the ‘càntir’: From antiquity to the present day
The ‘càntir’ has been present throughout Mediterranean history, from its origin in prehistoric times up until the 21st century: from antiquity through the middle ages, the modern era and up to the present day where it all but disappears as a functional object.

• A vessel for every function: The typologies
The ‘càntir’ has been the recipient for water which has inspired by far the largest number of variations. These are categorised under typologies. Some 30 different typologies can be differentiated such as the common ‘càntir’ or the winter, trick, christening, cooling or artistic models.

• The making process
In this area the traditional making process is shown with the help of a number of videos. This begins with the excavation of the clay, throwing, decoration, firing and finally the transportation of the finished product to its commercial destination.

Picasso space
This area is dedicated specifically to the ceramic work of Pablo Picasso. Various examples of the artist’s pitchers are exhibited in which Picasso has incorporated the very essence of his art.

Thematic exhibitions
The first floor of the building is dedicated entirely to thematic exhibitions relating to the world of water vessels. This allows the museum to rotate work from its depository and complement the permanent exhibitions.

Temporary exhibitions
On the ground floor of the building is the temporary exhibition space where a variety of artistic and historical exhibitions are held.

Services and activities
– Shop and coffee shop
– Guided tours
– Educational activities for school groups
– Lectures, talks and other activities (consult agenda)
– Library and specialized videos
– Reserved rooms – admission open only to researchers
– Ceramic workshop – courses for children and adults throughout the year
– ‘Festa del Càntir’ ceramics festival, annually on August 4th .
– International Ceramics and Pottery fair : 4 -6th August (dates vary)
– Ceramics film and video festival (coinciding with ceramics fair)

CONTACT INFORMATION

Museu del Càntir
www.museucantir.org
Plaça de l’Església, 9 – 08310 Argentona (Barcelona) SPAIN
Tel. +34 93 797 21 52 (museum) +34 93 797 27 32 (offices). Fax. +34 93 797 08 00
E-mail: correu@museucantir.org

L’Associació Ceramistes de Catalunya a été crée le 1986. Il s’agit d’une association de 350 associés, membre de l’AIC (Académie International de Céramique, Genève). D’après l’an 2001 elle a son siège à a la rue Doctor Dou, 7, en plein centre de la ville de Barcelone, où on peut trouver le bureau permanente avec une salle d’expositions, librairie et bibliothèque.
Elle édite la revue semestrielle Terrart, un des deux magazines de l’Espagne sur céramique contemporaine.
L’ACC a été l’organisatrice du Congrés et Assemblée Générale de l’Académie 2016, à Barcelone.
Actuellement est la plus grande association de la Catalogne et de l’Espagne, qui organise des foires et marchés de céramique, comme celle de Barcelone pendant le mois de juin avec 20 ateliers exposants.
La Salle d’expositions est destinée à exposer temporellement des travaux de céramique artistique. Ils peuvent exposer les associés qui le sollicitent parmi une sélection, et aussi des céramistes espagnols et étrangers. On célèbre, à peu près, huit expositions annuelles et la galerie est ouverte aux céramistes professionnels les plus reconnus et offre aussi la possibilité de montrer l’œuvre aux jeunes céramistes émergents
La Bibliothèque : Elle accueille un fond de documents: des livres, magazines, catalogues et DVD’s a la disposition des associés, des étudiants et du publique en général intéressé à la recherche o pour consulter.
Le magazine Terrart: bisannuel, s’adresse aux professionnels et au grand public. Bien qu’il soit essentiellement distribué aux pays de langue catalane, il compte également des abonnés dans toute l’Espagne et à l’étranger. C’est le seul magazine en céramique contemporain à service complet en catalan qui informe des nouvelles du champ de la céramique. Il convient de mentionner les rapports intéressants sur des sujets monographiques et une section sur des sujets d’histoire.

Carles Vives Mateu initially chose painting, following in the footsteps of his parents, especially his mother. But he soon realised he was more attracted to volume, and on discovering pottery, he did not hesitate to dedicate himself to it.

When he started, he was lucky enough to meet some potters who helped him with his first pieces and taught him how to use a wood-fired kiln. This influence was decisive in reaffirming his professional development as a ceramist and determined a style of working characteristic of a potter, producing objects fluently, intuitively and unpretentiously.

Academically, he studied ceramics in the Escola Massana in Barcelona and, while learning, he put everything he learned into practice in his first workshop. The Autonomous Government of Catalonia has currently awarded him the title of Mestre Artesà (Master Artisan).

During his long career, he has always combined the production of functional and decorative utilitarian pottery with artistic research in contemporary artistic ceramics and describes his most personal work as follows: “I am faithful to the response of the materials. I always prepare the raw material I use, thus establishing a dialogue with the materials from the very beginning. I let myself get carried away by the inertia and flow with the elements, interfering with them as little as possible, taking advantage of the possibilities that arise during the creative process. I make the pieces following my intuition, without trying to control or guide my hands, but moving with force and conviction”.

From the 1990s to the present, he has participated in different national and international collective and individual exhibitions. His work has been acknowledged and awarded in various national and international contests. The latest prize he won was in 2017 in the “Concorso Internazionale di Gualdo Tadino” in Italy. He has also participated in different schools, teaching students of ceramics about how he understands the technique. More specifically, two events have been significant for him: One in the Ann Felton multicultural centre in the Onondaga Community College, Syracuse, New York, invited by the ceramist Andy Schuster and where he also had an exhibition, from which Everson Museum acquired one of the pieces for their collection. The other was in the Fule Internacional Ceramic Art Museum (FLICAM), in China.

The work of Carles Vives can be seen in different museums in the world, in public spaces as well as in private collections. The Càntir d’Argentona Museum has one of his works, more specifically, one of the “Quarts” series.

When we find something that motivates us passionately, we throw ourselves wholeheartedly into this unknown universe. Miguel Vazquez has found in the vast world of ceramics his own channel of expression and since the beginning has not given up on his quest to shape his own narrative language while staying honest with his inner world in order to find out what his heart is dictating to him. It is no easy task to maintain these coordinates with so many obstacles to overcome so as not to be diverted in the pursuit of success, so common in the attempt to receive fleeting recognition. This is why at certain times, when situations overcome him, he growls and descends into the depths fighting hellish battles only to finally rise up triumphantly from the ashes. His works leave traces, trails of restlessness,
sensitivity, and devoting to each one with care and affection the time needed to renew his own formal language unhurriedly, step by step, through the materialization of his emotions.

Through my work I try to connect with the viewer, seeking direct communication between artist and spectator. I want the viewer to share my feelings, doubts, emotions about life, the unknown and to connect with the spiritual universe that resides in the collective unconcious of humanity. My recent work is a response to a society in crisis and facing an uncertain future.

Nature is for me a limitless source of inspiration. But it is not my intention imitate it. Instead I wish to express all its strength and beauty.

In order to express that force, I perform controlled cracks and breakings in the surface of the works, and to emphasize in a clearer way these tensions, I use different colours of stoneware, slips and glazes.

THE MAKING PROCESS.

I do not shape the pieces; my work consists in creating the conditions necessary for the forms to appear.

The initial structures are regular polyhedrons, either alone or in groups. Flat surfaces with straight, sharp angles which will reflect the changes in shape brought about by the chaos of the process to come.

My method of working is based on the behaviour of the material, experimenting with differing thicknesses of a clay body for a chosen volume. The thickness is modified by the addition of combustible materials which disappear during the firing. The various densities, dependant on the type and quantity of material added, will react differently during the drying and firing process.

From the lowest point of vitrification, where the clay will no longer decompose on contact with water, to a state of semi-melting or melting, it is the process itself that determines the wide range of possible evolutions of the base shape, arriving at new and intimate expressions of the play between fire and material. Dilations and contractions, reduction of volume through vitrification, changes in the shape caused by melting, the movement of a solid material against an unstable base…these are conditions which bring to mind the evolution and origin of the earth, recreations of the power of nature on a human scale.

I am sure that behind all this the laws of physics and chemistry are in action as always, in control of the process. But scientific explanations are not the concern of someone in search of shapes. When there is no explanation the magic appears.

The kiln and the firing, the determining factors of the final result, comprise the least visible stage. A sealed box with few possibilities of sensory penetration and offering few clues as guidelines, added to ones uncertain experience can only prepare us to be surprised. There is a before and an after, with no return; this is the challenge of the ceramic process.

In the limit is where things that interest me happen.

All shapes are already in existence. The work consists in discovering them, making them appear…

“The statement contains two thoughts: on the one side, it indicates that the essence of man has been neither seen nor explored yet; on the other, that the existence of man is neither fixed nor secured yet. However, an American reseacher has recently explained that” man will be the only animal capable of managing their own evolution”. But, nevertheless, the cibernetycs is forced to confess that so far it is not possible yet to have a total control of he human being. For that reason, in the universal field of cybernetic science, man is still “a factor of disturbance”. the apparently free to make plans and the human performance have a disturbing effect.”
M. Heidegger
The origins of art and the determination of thought

My work is based on the study of the industrialization process, especially in the architecture that has been generated during this time period.
Architecture that has influenced urban planning, landscape and social lifestyle, and that has generated constructions that evoke cathedrals of a new belief based on the development, growth and endless enrichment.
I have been searching for the aesthetic element of the manifestations of the industrial advance that gave way to the era of technology in which it forms a new face of power and a technocratic society, where citizens survive in this dehumanized post-industrial landscape.
During this period of industrialization, there have been major social changes. Some of these transformations, which are being experienced at the moment, have been coming from developed models for over a century.
Although the most radical changes have occurred in our envirorment, which is becoming more and more hostile for humans; hardly habitable for the common consumer society, but a stark space for the societiy that has been exploited and turned into a first-class dumping ground.

My work is inspired by an analysis of the everyday experience and the observation of nature.
An “accident” with matter may be a starting point, the origin of personal expression that attempts to bring art closer to life.
The object, in this case separated from its function and significance, can take on new meaning.
Whilst working with shapes, enclosing space and playing with its cavities, ideas appear out of some deep recesses and the desire to become reality.
There is the search for new ways, mixing earth time and time again with….? and waiting to see what happens. It´s a process of transformation in which water, earth and fire are totally indispensable.

My project consists of various series:

Anatomies: pieces with porcelain inlays that produce light and shadows to create a white on white landscape that allows the world of dreams to be explored.

Pets: born out of the human need to share life, these pieces twist along and have various legs.

Cove 2: these pieces are born out of the fascination and contemplation of treasures to be found on the sea bed; corals, radiolarios (fossilized skeletons). Unglazed surfaces, no slips, no oxides, the loop-shaped pieces curl and swell, like pillows, natural light creating shadows around them

Sponges: made of different materials mixed with porcelain, these pieces are born out of investigations into pressure, fragility, hardness and the elasticity of the material.

Juan Ortí is an artist based in Valencia, Spain. He sculpts interpretations of geometric architectural forms seen frequently in everyday life. The photographs of his art are deceptive, with close making them look like massive buildings. The visual information in his work is beautifully reduced, bringing an elegance to the typically soulless, stark industrial forms.
He uses the wheel as a machining tool to produce parts to be assembled. This process creates a cold feeling to the objects but by reducing the amount of visual information he focuses the viewer on just a few small but profound details. The texture of the objects is dry and soft, catching dramatic lighting perfectly and giving the table-size sculptures the illusion of building-size scale. Ortí does not completely eliminate the process marks, but leaves the subtle tooling from the rotating process, details that remind the viewer of the origins and actual scale of their experience – a reality check.
The raw fired clay is typically greyscale, referencing metallic industrial architecture like silos, tanks, and factories. Because of the theme, his work immediately conjures melancholy feelings of overbearing urban life and industrialization. However, their simple forms and relative scale make the work also related to children’s building blocks. Ortí plays with basic composition, experimenting with fun scenarios, even supporting the heavy cylinders on humorously small blocks in his piece Hover. The overall mood of Ortí’s sculptures does not project a specific attitude towards industry, positive or negative, but rather they are experimental interpretations, meditations on modern everyday life.

Justin Crowe is Writer-at-Large for CFile.

Mestre’s work is redolent of the deserted squares and alleys of early twentieth-century Italian Metaphysical painting. He possesses a similar geometric (and occasionally curvilinear) definition of contour; there is that same interplay of light and dark and long cast shadows, underlining an enigmatic other-worldly quality. He too creates architectural scenarios in which no action takes place, but where much is suggested, and where a sense of melancholy hangs in the stilled air. This crisp use of analysing light and shade is also a characteristic of the acutely observed still-life paintings of the Spanish Baroque period. Mestre’s variously conceived blocks, sometimes relatively simple, sometimes more complex, are not inert. They are charged with their own atmosphere, a sculpture of the hidden, the concealed and enclosed, as well as more open spaces. They are conundrum objects to puzzle over. There are often steps, openings and corridor-like intervals, but to where do they lead? What is encased? The finished pieces often look like models for bigger projects, blueprints for larger constructions. Some forms have a defensive appearance, with slits, channels and apertures as one might find in some kind of fortification or citadel. We may think of concrete guard posts from World War Two, of silos and bunkers and other rationalist and utilitarian structures. Some of these sculptures could be the building blocks or fragments of larger edifices perhaps, ideas in progress or remnants of something unfinished. Mestre’s work echoes the sculptural beauty of expressive functionalist building. It has the same spare starkness, the same asceticism.

David Whiting (is an art critic and curator. He is a member of the Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art).

Vacuum is in the genesis of my work as inmaterial container.
This is a direct consequence of my understanding by building up the volume focused on manipulating of the plane: cutting, joining, bending, folding…
All these physical actions directly affect the material defining the flow of shape and setting the language that describes part of the content. From this analysis, multiple symbolic and metaphorical connotations arise.

This method of achieving volume from a flat surface, offers the possibility to fill the vacuum created with meaning and clearly perceive the energy that flows between interior and exterior along with the various surfaces of the walls.
Intervention through drawing lines, nets, or patterns are repetitive elements in the surface that serves to demonstrate the formal structure of the volume, giving it unity and coherence.

When approaching installations, I explore space occupation through repeating elements, the resulting work is similar to the growth of abstract nature. The drawing surface changes through the viewers movement and changing perspective, brings with it many connotations extending the shape´s limitation.

As an artist, Professor and writer, I try to express in my work – in different media- my feelings about our surrounding world, and to communicae love, peace and tenderness in a world that seems to need them a lot, instead of hate war and violence.

Joan Panisello’s Brief Curriculum Vitae

Ceramist born in Jesús-Tortosa (Tarragona) in 1944 and studied at the Schools of Arts and Crafts in Tortosa and in Tarragona. He has followed several courses in La Bisbal de l’Empordà (Girona – Spain), in Barcelona, and at Enfanga’t (Girona). In 1975 he obtains the Graduation title of Aplicated Arts in Barcelona, speciality: Pottery.

Joan Panisello is internationally considered as one of the most outstanding ceramists of our times, for the originality of his shapes as well as for the varied colouring in his works. In the last fourty eight years he has produced more than 10.000 different samples of colours.

His work of art is known in the five continents through more than 1000 national and overseas publications that deal with his work. He is also known having held more than 290 exhibitions in several countries and by his 40 work in Museums, Foundations, private and public Collections…

In 2008 Spain’s Ministry of Culture set up a retrospective itinerant exhibition, on which occasion an extraordinary book summarizing the artist’s career was published.

A total of 28 awards-national and international-(Spain, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Japan,) guarantee his personal prestige and his professional savoir faire. In 1992 he received the award “Tortosí de l’any 1991”. (Tortosa’s citizen of the year 1991). In 2013 he was elected to the International Academy of Ceramics.

In his house he has got a workshop, four pottery kilns, half of which built by the artist himself, and two permanent exhibition areas, open all year round.

Jesús Ávila Granados
Journalist, and art critic.

I have drawn my inspiration from living life intensely in Catalonia, in Barcelona, in the Maresme, from the blue of the sea, from the brown of the carob pod, from the ochre colour of the earth. I have also drawn it from my neighbourhood, Sarria, from its silent streets, where you might meet a priest reading from his prayer book while he walks along the pavement, from the old city of Barcelona, with its black and grey stones, covered with engravings, from the workshops I remember as a child, from the Romanesque museum and from Gaudí, Mirò and Tapies. I draw it from our culture, open to the Mediterranean, from the trips I have made to the Far East to experience contrast, to Arab countries and Africa to find mystery, to the ancient continent of Europe to find geographical exuberance and to America to discover architectural exuberance.

Everything that I have ever felt deeply has become for me a symbol, a root, a state of mind which is ideal for the work that I do.

Sometimes I work like a musician, in the form of variations. I produce a sequence of works which are different from each other only as a single form that has been displaced, piled up or crushed back on top of itself.

Everything that is human interests me, everything that is full of passion, of love and of hate. Working as a ceramicist is a way of reflecting on life, and it is as I work that my thoughts about life take shape.

It is in this struggle between what I desire and the reality of the material that there arises an equilibrium of tensions, and these tensions result in a task in which my role is to carve (the material) to smooth it out, to forge connections, to pile it up, to transform it. It is a process in which I take an interest in the passing of time, in which a change of colour here or there, or an almost imperceptible movement awakens feelings and emotions in me, anarchic feelings, that sheer vital but visceral impulse that is born of blind faith in instinct.

Dancing shadows of weaved porcelain structures, ethereal and untouchable. A rare specimen of ceramic sculpture.
Mia Llauder is a potter of a bright imagination. Her work is primarily focused on creating a wide range of unique small pieces of porcelain: an alphabet of her own. Like a bead meditation, she works meticulously with these small abstract shapes, one after the other as if there would be nothing else: the tiny coil, the spiral, the round oval, a stick, a circle…. As if in her mind there would only be that particular bit of porcelain, white or sometimes black, with a touch of black stoneware, red or gold luster on the tips. Single-fired. And repeating that over and over, with the same care.
But that small piece is just a seed, which will become part of a large structure, a true ceramic sculpture. An alphabet that creates a powerful language to express the most subtle concepts, just by sewing, joining, attaching with string, clothing, plastic and fibers with a logic but playful look.
Her family had a household linen company, so she grew up among colorful thread and ribbons reels, buttons of hundreds of shapes, crochet work… toys she grew to transform in a unique cosmology, and translated it in an artistic approach.
Llaudé’s ceramic work is light and flexible, rare characteristics in the ceramic field. She works against the rigidity of the material, and searches its movement instead. The artist changes the cold, hard, inert, dens nature of porcelain and transforms it in its opposite. Thus, each of these seeds can be part of the most diverse structures, creations and meanings. She is after the maximum expression using the most basic forms, and the minimum elaboration, creating the magic with the simple and banal. A minimalist essence for a maximum expression.
In her studio reigns cleanliness, tidiness, with lots of little drawers, like jewellery boxes, that contain her small pieces in order, so she can construct a new tale anytime. Ephemeral art that depends on the space around. A pristine mind, gridded artistic approach, which works together with intuition to build spiderweb-like ceramic pieces.
Her new creations are more and more subtle and sophisticated. A world of logic, of rational, modular structures, as a neural nets, like small societies that works in perfect balance. The strongest message these pieces suggest is that life is not about things, but about the link between things, about the space around and between the modules, whether people, objects, places…
Mia Llauder takes in account not only the pieces, but the void they create, the shadow, the negative, the reflection in the space and spirit. It’s not so much about the material aspect, but about suggestion. Each piece is created conceiving the space, the volume the piece will take up. And building on that void, the structure emerges, just like a spider works.
Is as if Llauder would have created a structuralism artistic branch, which didn’t really take place at its time, but a discipline Levy-Strauss would for sure have approved: the abstract structures are deeply telling of what’s behind human relations, cultural structures, languages, societies, musical structures. The element loses its importance: the structure, the relations is what matters. It awakes a spirit of an essence, the skeleton of things.

A clear example of this, a bit more explicit from her side, is the collection of “Portraits”, recently exhibited, where she represents her own personal look about relationships with people around her: friends, family, colleagues… they are there, but each one of them is also the archetype, the representation of roles and relationships. Each sculpture has a name, it refers to somebody, but also the peculiar role it has created with the artist.
Nevertheless, as she herself explains, Mia Llauder works guided by intuition, and any explanation of meaning it appears only later, when the work is already there, when creation has already taken place. Her goal is mostly aesthetical, contemplative, not narrative or vindictive. What she means to say is just there, in front of your very eyes. Is the language she has chosen to touch you, to tell you, to move you. And it’s the viewer task to take conclusions.
Caterina Roma.

An old Japanese ceramicist left written before dying: “Water is triangle, square and circle”. The most basic geometry as the essence of life.

At the beginning of my career in the world of art, the need for filling myself with knowledge, experiences, the handling of techniques and overcoming challenges was what made up all my professional inquisitiveness.

At this point of my life, emptying to get to the essence, takes me to search for the forms, the colours and the most primitive concepts on the margins of the virtuous techniques.

The combination between quotidian and creation has constantly been present, establishing a balance in my own vital circle. And it is on this persistence where I have been able to develop all I am.

Hisae Yanase

I approach and feel ceramics as a will of form, a sense of construction. Building ceramics from slabs enables me to understand the pieces as three-dimensional places whose enveloping walls become painterly surfaces as if they were the walls of a fresco. Painting over the dried clay surface with watery engobes enables it to act like a canvas and the burnishing technique provides a warm finishing that enhances the color palette.

I want to shape color and to capture in their interplay the light and colour of the Mediterranean landscape to which I feel so much attached.

It is my desire to build suggestive objects that could be present in our environment through a scale that appeals to our sense of touch, to their capacity to hold, caress and measure.

JESUS CASTAÑON,ceramist and sculptor, was born on 3rd April 1956 in Gijón (Asturias), a region in Northern Spain.

At the age of 10 he began his artistic path taking drawing and sculpture lessons at the “AGRUPACION ARTISTICA GIJONESA”. Later on and led by his father, the writer and art critic LUCIANO CASTAÑON, he had the chance to meet important regional artists and frequently visit their studios, which served as part as his training.

At the age of 20 he decided to dedicate himself exclusively to the world of ceramics, combining his handicrafts with more artistic works.

In 1985 he set up “TEXTURA”, a school-workshop of ceramics, which attained great national and international prestige for 15 years. At this workshop an important group of international and well-known ceramists imparted their teachings during the summers. This extraordinary experience ended in November 1999.

Since 2000 he has entirely dedicated himself to developing his personal artistic work and to teaching worldwide and in different national schools, giving training courses in Italy, Portugal, Scotland, Algeria, Argentina, Uruguay, etc.

Numerous are his individual as well as collective exhibitions. His work can be found in important private collections and museums.

Currently Jesus is working as a teacher in the Municipal School of Ceramics in Aviles, Spain.

My pieces are a reflection on the urban landscape and the imaginary landscape, and increasingly so with the passing of the years. The architecture, the fish, the mountains: I have always had them present in my imagination.

They are thoughts that accompany me in my ceramic work.

Constructed manually using porcelain or clay, leaving my fingerprints on the wet paste; firing at temperature (1280 °C) and covering them with a delicate layer of enamel, oxides or colorants to give them the required quality, with harmony in shape and with an interrelation of my inner world and the outer world, tension that I take advantage of to give a particular vision of the concept of space and nature.

Oriol Calvo is the Director of the Ceramics Museum of Argentona (Barcelona, Spain) since 1986, a position he held at the same time of manager director of the Spanish Association of Cities of Ceramics. Since 2014 is the General Coordinator of the 47th Congress and General Assembly of the International Academy of Ceramics, which will be held in Barcelona in September 2016.
From 1991 until 2001 he served as a technician of Culture of City council of Argentona.
In 1987 he created the Ceramics School in Argentona, and is the director of the International Pottery Fair of Argentona, which have 95 participants from all over the world and more than 50.000 visitors every year. Since 2005 he created the Ceramic Film Festival of Argentona. He has been a founding member of the Association of Ceramology of Spain and Portugal (1989) and the AeCC (2007), currently formed of 32 cities in Spain. He is currently working in the process of creating the European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC) Cities of ceramics, with partners from France, Italy, Romania and other countries. He is also leader manager at mediTERRA, the Mediterran network cities ceramic Pyrenees-Mediterranean Euroregion, since 2008.
He has lectured extensively and written articles on issues related to ceramics and crafts. He is the author of the publications “Imatges of Càntirs” (the presence of pottery in art) and the Guide of Pottery Museum of Argentona, “Càntirs Valencians de Fantasia” (Ceramic vessels from Valence) and “Càntirs d’Arreu del Món” (Water vessels from all around the world). As director of the museum boasts its credit the expansion of the collections to 4,000 current issues (highlighting various examples of classical antiquity and four made by Pablo Picasso), architectural and museum renovation done in 2000, the International Ceramics Fair of Argentona.