The artist
Gabriella Carbini
Ceramic artist in Certaldo, in the Florentine Chianti. Every piece, from the clay to the signature, passes through my hands.
My name is Gabriella Carbini and I work in ceramics at Fiano, a hamlet of Certaldo in the Val d’Elsa, Tuscany. The workshop is at Via Firenze 83, a few minutes from the Chianti hills and a quarter of an hour from San Gimignano.
There is no decorating department here and nobody who finishes the pieces for me: I shape, glaze and paint them myself, one object at a time.
The decoration is born in a single gesture
I paint freehand onto raw glaze. The glaze takes in the brushstroke the moment I lay it down, the way blotting paper takes ink: that is why every stroke is thought out first and drawn once. It is the part of the work I love most, and the one that makes each piece recognisably mine.
A pale ground brings out the lightness of the hand, the black of the Chequers line its precision: these are the patterns where the brush can be read best.
Every piece is unique
The second firing gives the colour its final depth, and it does so differently every time: the same glaze, over the same decoration, can come out deeper or brighter depending on where the piece rested in the kiln. The fire signs every piece together with me: two bowls from the same series resemble each other like sisters, never like copies.
The patterns
Each one comes from a colour and a character. Lemons on a blue ground are the most Tuscan pattern there is: I lay the yellow on in two passes so that it stays full and bright next to the cobalt blue. Olives go on a light ground, the red-and-blue ricco is classic maiolica, flowers on pale blue are the most contemporary thing I make, chequers play everything on black and white, and cream-on-bruno sits beautifully with wood. Then there is turquoise and gold, the most decorative, and the pastel florals, the lightest: the one people give as a gift.
Commissions
I take commissioned work: a shape for a particular space, a plaque with a name, a dinner set in a chosen pattern. They are agreed in advance, with a drawing and a quotation, and then I paint them with the same care as every other piece.
VespArt
The things that do not fit the catalogue
Every so often something leaves the bench that is neither a plate nor a vase. This one is a Vespa modelled by hand, photographed in raw clay, before any firing at all.
These are the pieces that appear when the kiln is busy and my hands are not.
In the workshop
Hands, colours, pieces
From the shelves of biscuit ware to the finished pieces: the Fiano workshop up close.
