Ground Water Fire - Magma
Marco Vallesi was born, lives and works in Tarquinia where, since an early age, has had an interest in metallurgy, artistic ceramics and its experimental techniques. His work covers all the steps of the process and aims to achieve a minimalist and essential aesthetic balance, capable of evoking, through the mysterious language of the elements, arcane and profound sensations, patrimony of all humankind.
Ground
Marco Vallesi’s search begins with earth, and consists of two initial phases: the first phase involves effusive volcanic rocks, that is, what volcanoes brought to the surface with their activity; the second phase involves several other materials such as minerals, clays, sands, fossils, sedimentary rocks, wood ash, etc.
The rough materials are gathered just as they are found, in small quantities, easy to carry in the shape of fragments of rocks, pebbles, clumps of dirt, sand in some lucky case. The processing of the materials is quite laborious; it consists in reducing the rocks to a coarse sand by hand grinding them in a stone mortar followed by sifting.
Water
The materials are then wet grinded using ball mills, which pulverize them to a point that, once they are put in the right amount of water and stirred, they can stay in suspension for the time necessary to glaze the ceramics.
During the experimentation, either one material or mixtures of two or more can be used for the trials. The subjects of experimentation, the glazes and ceramic bodies, undergo temperatures from 1260°C to 1300°c.
Fire
The firings, depending on the type of kiln used and its environment (oxidizing-electric, reducing-wood or neutral-natural gas), can result in extremely different chromatic effects of the same glaze.
All the materials used are selected and extracted by Marco Vallesi in the geographical area known as Tuscia, a volcanic territory in the northern part of the Lazio Region, rich in minerals and clays.
