In celebration of a decade of study with Maestro Roberto Paolinelli at Casa Italiana, Carma Fauntleroy opened her new studio in Silver Spring with a colorful array of Italian Renaissance-style ceramics.  More than 30 traditional forms - vases, plates and tiles – were decorated with mythological figures, landscapes, historical scenes and portraits. Fauntleroy began painting ceramics in 2001 as one of a number of novices who came to study under the Maestro at Casa Italiana.

Paolinelli is a master of the Castelli school of Italian artistic ceramics, named after the historic village of Castelli in the Abruzzi region, an internationally renowned art center known for its hand-painted ceramics since the Renaissance. Featuring naturalistic depictions of historic and religious scenes, this decorative style of low-fire earthenware, or majolica, Castelli ware was especially prized in 17th- and 18th-century Europe.

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Celebrating a decade of study with Maestro Roberto

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The following article was written by Carma Fauntleroy, a student of Maestro Paolinelli's ceramics classes at Casa Italiana.

For more information on Casa's ceramic classes, click here.

Its characteristic tonalities are evident in the work of Paolinelli’s students like Fauntleroy who use a limited color palette of seven transparent underglaze colors.

Students are encouraged to draw upon historical traditions of technique, motifs and subject matter. The central image in Fauntleroy’s most recent work – a large presentation plate – was inspired by a tribute to ceramicists in an illustration in the 16th-century treatise I tre libri dell'arte del vasaio (The Three Books of the Potter’s Art) by Cipriano Piccolpasso of Castel Durante (present day Urbania, Le Marche).  It documents the materials, techniques and stages in the production of majolica.  Seated around a moveable table holding bowls of colored ceramic slip, painters decorate ceramic pieces.  Posted on the rear wall of the workshop are design sketches and written instructions for commissioned work.

Earlier this year Paolinelli was honored with the Vincenzo Palumbo Artisan Award bestowed by the Italian Cultural Society of Washington, DC. 

Carma Fauntleroy, Plate, 2010, earthenware, 16” diam.

Carma Fauntleroy, Vessel, 2007, earthenware

10” x 8” x 8”

A former art museum director and curator, Fauntleroy cherishes “the unique opportunity in the U.S. to study a centuries-old Italian painting tradition under the tutelage of Maestro Roberto, whose mastery of the medium and extraordinary gifts as an instructor can best be described as those of a living national treasure.”