During this tour of Adele Stefanelli's atelier, the process of transforming simple earth to lasting beauty will be demonstrated. After a short introduction to ceramics and the different types of clay, participants will be shown some of the beautiful stoneware and porcelain objects in her collection. A detailed look at all of the different tools and how they are used will be given, before a step-by-step description of the whole process, from raw material to final firing. On request, it might be possible to have a demonstration of the wheel in action..
The globe-trotter of ceramicsThe ceramicist Adele Stefanelli has been strongly influenced by the Chinese and Korean artifacts she first saw visiting the Baur collection in Geneva when she was a student. Also, she was hit by the simple beauty of the Sudanese pottery she discovered while teaching English there. The objects in the Victoria & Albert and in the Shanghai Museum, the dozens of books she has collected from all over the world have strongly influenced her research. The perfection of the Song ceramics fascinated her and became her guiding light. She has spent time in South Korea, China, Japan (where she studied Kintsugi, the ancient Japanese technique of repairing broken ceramics with pure gold), learning from the finest masters. Adele personally works all her objects on the potter’s wheel and makes her own glazes. She mostly creates stoneware pieces (but sometimes also porcelains). In 2019 she opened her workshop in Venice: it’s in a fairy place, off the beaten track, where there is absolute quiet.