Pilgrimage to Deruta

Seeking the Source

During my time in Umbria, I lived primarily in Perugia, the regional capital, in a learning community with students from Mars Hill College and the University of North Carolina at Asheville. As part of my study abroad, I took a Digital Imaging course that allowed our group to travel to Assisi, Florence, Rome, Siena, Spello, Spoleto, Gubbio, Deruta, and other locations. I also had the opportunity to travel to Elba, Pisa, and Piombino.
In addition, I journeyed independently to Deruta a few times a week. I visited some of the more than two hundred majolica workshops that make up the town and spoke with the ceramicists. I extensively explored the Grazia workshop, which has been owned by Ubaldo Grazia’s family for twenty-five generations. Senor Grazia graciously allowed me to interview him, as well as potters, molders, painters, and other ceramic artists working in his factory. They kindly demonstrated each stage of majolica production, giving me time to document through digital photographs and repeating steps if I needed to shoot again. Mirko, an expert molder, gave me an extensive tour of each room in the workshop, while courteously answering all of my questions in spite of our cultural and language barrier. He, in turn, asked me to explain my project and said he was excited to help me accomplish it.
Senor Grazia also allowed me to photograph inside the Grazia Museum, which holds antique majolica fragments from the twelfth century and onward, exquisite Renaissance pieces, contemporary pieces, and collections from the Grazia family. He recommended that I visit the Romano Ranieri School of Ceramic Art just two miles up Via Tiberina where all of his majolica artists receive training. He gave me contact information for his friend, Nicola Boccini, one of the school’s instructors and founders. Nicola, a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Perugia and world-renowned potter, sculptor and painter, generously took great care in giving me explicit instruction in the technology of ceramic production. He described the relationship between clay bodies, glazes, and lustre metals, and why certain varieties had to be used in combination at specific temperatures to achieve the desired effect. He guided me through classrooms, explaining the purposes of the equipment and how students were trained on them. Nicola assured me that all students, regardless of ability level or experience, could become “masters of the art of ceramics” through intense study at the School of Ceramics. I was also given the immense honor of watching master painter Romano Ranieri while he worked.
Having a background in traditional majolica from his father, Master Luigi Boccini, Nicola was able to provide me with knowledge of the history of Deruta ceramics. He offered me advice as an instructor on modifications I could make so that the majolica process would be more accessible to my students at Open Hearts. Boccini also kindly shared insights from his vast experience in experimental and modern ceramics—which includes teaching ceramics in various programs and organizing events for Ceramics in Italy and Europe, studying ceramic techniques throughout the world, founding Ceramica Libera Sperimentale (Free Experimental Ceramics) with a group of Italian artists in 1997, and opening the Romano Ranieri school in 2000 along with other artists. Nicola frequently participates in festivals and exhibitions throughout Europe, showing pieces that combine natural colors and enamels, mixtures of metals and soil, and experimental production techniques. He strives to invent new methods and incorporate new materials to keep the majolica tradition constantly evolving. This made him an ideal advisor for me in preparation for a ceramics endeavor that was significantly experimental.
In Perugia, I received guidance from another graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts, Panayiota Pantazi. She advised me on surface design methods for my class. Panayiota, or “Tota” as she asked me to call her because “Panayiota is too long to remember”, demonstrated the “pounce” technique—a cotton ball filled with carbon particles used to transfer designs from transparent paper onto the ceramics. She suggested that it would be better for my students to draw designs onto the glaze by dividing the surface into three out sections, then in eighths. The students would recognize it as a “pizza” design, making it familiar and comprehensible. They would be able to construct their patterns section-by-section, radiating or contracting from the center, and wouldn’t be overwhelmed by the idea of filling an empty space without parameters. Tota had previously given private lessons to a ceramic student from Texas who wanted to learn the art of traditional majolica; so she empathized with the obstacles I would face in instructing at Open Hearts and gave counsel. She also generously gave me several sheets of transparent tracing paper from her personal supply for my students to use; promising, “it will make your lives so much easier.” Tota spoke fluent English, as a result of the mostly English-speaking tourist market for ceramics. This removed the language barrier that made some of my encounters with Italian ceramicists extremely frustrating for both of us, because of our limited knowledge of each other’s languages.
The artists and other gracious people I met in Italy all took the time to assist me in the specific ways that I needed. Whether I was asking about a glaze, looking for a bus stop, asking if the bus had already left, or needing a ride because the bus hadn’t come at all—there was always someone willing to extend a hand (or a directional finger). I think that Italians by nature live their lives with attentiveness—whether it is their food, wine, or relationships. There is an emphasis on attending to details and allowing time to do things to perfection. They live as if life were an art form, and not a commercial-driven routine. It can be summed up in a word I heard on a regular basis in Italy—“grazia,” or grace.