Archive
The work made before today's catalogue: from 2017 to 2021, between the workshop in Monte San Pietrangeli and the houses she painted.
Table services, small bells, urns thrown by hand, walls and ceilings painted in oil with gold leaf, and two years of classes for the children of Monte San Pietrangeli. Many of these pieces are now in someone's home.
2018
Grandmother Peppina's dress
At the 48th Abruzzo Artistic Craft Exhibition, in August 2018, Paola brought a dress. Not of cloth: of maiolica. A thousand shards stitched to one another over a mannequin, painted in cobalt blue on white.
She did not paint the shards. The primary school children of Monte San Pietrangeli did, and every piece carries a name. The theme of the exhibition was the earthquake, and the dress says it without needing a caption: what breaks can be sewn back together, if it is sewn together by everyone.
Beside the dress hung a sheet of paper, with lines she had written herself.
C'è una veste in una stanzaterremoto in lontananzamille cocci fan vestitoe da genti ricucitocon fil di fratellanzaed un occhio alla speranza.E quei fregi della chiesa (Collegiata)terremoto, ce l'hai chiusa!Dipinti da piccoli scolariquelli delle elementari (Monte San Pietrangeli).Ogni pezzo porta un nomecome esempio dell'unionee le scarpe lì buttateper scappare son cadute.
2017—2018
Teaching in the schools
For two years Paola taught ceramics to the children of Monte San Pietrangeli, from primary school upwards, in a workshop supported by the council. At the wheel it takes two: one hand guides, the other learns the weight of the clay.
These are photographs from the courses. The bowls lined up along the brick wall are a whole class's work, set out to dry.
2019
The little bells
At the Abruzzo fairs, the feast of San Rocco in Vasto and Sant'Egidio in Lanciano, Paola brought the bells: small ceramic bells shaped like flowers, modelled one at a time.
It is a craft that has all but disappeared. They are modelled by the dozen on trays while still raw, left to dry, glazed in soft colours and fired. On the fair stall there were hundreds of them.
2021
The urns
In 2021 Paola began throwing cinerary urns. They are large pieces, pulled on the wheel and then worked by hand: bands of scrollwork incised into the body, leaves and fruit applied in relief on the lid.
On some she models a portrait. The photograph shows the urn still in raw clay, the face barely finished: the moment when the piece is at its most fragile and most alive.
2021
The table services
Three collections, all in maiolica and all made by hand from throwing to decoration: Black, with black scrollwork on white; Scottish, with a checked weave; Leaf, with leaves. The colours are lead-free, so the pieces are genuinely made to be eaten from.
The photographs are real table settings, laid at home by candlelight. Even the napkin is ceramic.
2021
Paintings on walls and ceilings
Not only ceramics. For years Paola painted straight onto walls, in oil, with the raised parts modelled in stucco and finished in gold leaf.
The peacock takes a whole wall, its tail running into the relief and catching the light. In another house she carried the Creation of Adam along a band that runs above the doors. In the bedrooms, roundels on the ceiling.
2021
Pieces for the house
Maiolica tiles mounted in dark wooden frames and painted like old apothecary tiles: a sun, a griffin, a page boy, a castle. They are small pieces, meant for a wall at home.
The same series includes the masks fixed to the wall and the family coats of arms, painted across several tiles and set into a frame.