Chuck Song Pa Papapapapa Paaaa Episode

Majolica Ceart: the uniqueness of imperfection

Salvatore Messina a few years ago he decided to open her own pottery workshop (Ceart) on a side street a bit 'secluded medieval village of Erice. First there is the love for the subject, for the land worked by hand, for color pigments that open pathways to unexpected chromatic after cooking. Often the clay is used in the first impure prehistoric pottery that Salvatore has found through his studies of marine archeology. The observation of the oldest pottery has confirmed his love for the imperfect. Has taken the ancient technique of working the clay without the potter's wheel, resulting in less precise form, but most popular for their restless curves. This has been arrived passing through the study of design. The contact with the object in perfect form and its potential serial, led him to contrast, to highlight the uniqueness of its pottery that is illegal, inaccurate and unrepeatable. In his work always leaves a wide margin of experiments in which, despite the knowledge technology, there is the chance of valuable space, the random, unexpected. The unpredictable effect can shine glazes nuances of luminescence and the more valuable because unexpected, while the small failures consolidate the experience in dealing with the matter. In the blue, green, white, yellow in the suggestions of his passes and Erice Sicily in particular. Large domes, fish-bellied water bowls, candlesticks ... forms are exaggerated, overflowing with commas clay, overflowing with decorations and glaze. E 'immediate recall to the Baroque, but the intention was rather to recover the deformation of the Romanesque fantastic and monstrous figures guarding the cathedral. And so the fish with green enamel, swollen and large, they become fearful medieval dragons ... Small fonts evoke the intimate atmosphere of the churches of Erice, the baptismal fonts of marble, but to the Savior, as well as ancient forms of tradition, are references to his faith and have a high symbolic value for him. So even the icons painted in his studio, which include the greek-orthodox tradition of his mother's family, of Croatian origin. And then the large tiled domes and bell towers spied on every day against the blue of the sky or among the mists of Erice fast and beautiful necklaces Ceramic recalling the millennial era Phoenician jewelry found in the nearby island of Mozia ... Each of these works of art lives of many scales, spirals, twists, scales, including chromatic and strong at the same time slide left undefined at times reveal the nakedness of hard clay, the primal matter, pigments and the land that are processed otherwise by the wisdom of the hands, the love for experimentation and dall'irripetibilità appropriate.
Erice, Sicily, Sicily, travel, art ceramics, earthenware, Mozia, Trapani, handmade, design, Mediterranean, savoir-faire, crafts, shopping, crafts, tipical pottery, raku, holy water, Baroque, apartment Jasmine

Hydraulic Storage Bed

The green heart of Aleppo (the soap of Aleppo)

Once in Aleppo, one of the pleasures of the rest in this ancient city is to go looking in his legendary souks of the famous soap laurel. The origin of the production of soap of Aleppo is lost in the mists of time really, but it is around the ninth century. that he knows, by the momentum of Arab trade, a first major deployment in the Mediterranean. She landed in southern France and in Marseille if they make a version that does, however, to use only olive oil.
The ritual of the working of Aleppo soap is perpetuated to this day unchanged for centuries. It
obtained from only four natural ingredients: the oil coming from the extensive and lush olive groves Syrians, water, soda and oil laurel berries harvested in the region around Aleppo. No additives, no artificial fragrance or color. Aleppo Soap is a product 100% biodegradable, completely natural. The process begins in November after the olive harvest and continues until February. During the same period also collect the berries of bay which gives a precious and fragrant oil. In large cauldrons olive oil is subjected to a slow cooking for days, stirred with water and soda. Obtained the green paste of soap is added then the laurel oil in quantities ranging from 5% to 50% is the scent that determines the quality . The soap is poured and leveled at this point in large areas on the ground, where they are cut by hand into small loaves shaped like a cube. (Delicious small decorative soaps shaped like a drop or star are effectively used as a moth). The workers sit on the soap at this point to the same stamp, one by one, by hand, with the mark of the factory to indicate the quality and provenance, then, taking them from land they overlap each other to form small vertical towers which remain to dry for at least 7-9 months. The aging can be prolonged for some years (not more than five) in this case giving rise to a soap even more valuable. E 'at this stage that the green color of this soap, as a result of oxidation in air, takes out a yellow-brown tone.
Soap of Aleppo, in the stalls of the souk is often exposed to open, cut in half, so as not to appreciate in the heart of fragrant green olive laurel that he handed down unchanged for centuries the fame and virtues .
( The Journal of Istanbul , a. XVII, No. 7, July 2009)
Syria, Damascus, Aleppo, Syrian, soap, natural, olive oil, olive oil, steam bath, wellness, healthy, syria, travel, souks, bazaars, souks, laurel, Marseille, savoir faire, lifestyle, art de vivre, Cote Sud