PROLOGUE
CERAMICS
COLLECTION
Photography: Ivana Franka
As a child I did not live inside a house,
but inside a forest that swallowed me whole
each morning, and gave me back
when the light changed color.
I knew the names of stones
before I knew the names of streets.
I knew which side of the trunk grew moss,
why the creek bed changed after rain
my first knowledge, quiet and wordless.
And I knew one more thing, with that certainty
only children carry:
that one day I would shape things with my hands.
Not draw them. Shape them
matter I could hold, press, tear,
until it became something else.
I wanted to make vessels,
bodies that hold space
the way a palm holds water without closing.
I do not know where this wish came from.
It was simply there,
the way the forest was there,
long before I knew I would leave it.
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Last summer I went to island Sardinia to swim, eat and rest with no creative agenda.
I was not yet making ceramics,
but the childhood wish had been stirring. Twenty years of digital work, and I kept circling the idea of working with clay without committing.
The landscape of Sardinia is a silent archive of time, written not in ink, but in stone. To stand before the Pan di Zucchero or the red porphyry of Arbatax is to witness a history that spans hundreds of millions of years.
These are not mere destinations; they are the ancient, fractured foundations of our world. Here,
time is measured in layers, strata formed by fire, pressure, and the relentless patience of the sea.
I knew with a physical certainty that this was what I wanted to make.
Not rocks, not even copies of nature, but objects carrying that same rawness, That same evidence of force acting on material over time.
Something dormant for twenty years woke up on that beach. The child who knew the names of stones had been waiting. Sardinia told him it was time.
In every piece of the AD-HOC collection, I invite you to trace these lines. Rilke’s wisdom serves as the heartbeat of this project:
"Go into the depths of things, and know yourself".
These vessels are not just objects for the home; they are fragments of a dialogue between the human spirit and the ancient earth, raw, quiet, and enduring.
