I meet Rita Miranda in her studio in Todi, city where she was born, lives and works, for a pleasant chat about her art.
She started rather recently, thanks to the lucky prolific meetings with the Maestro Bruno Ceccobelli and Enzo Tilia, with whom she learned the ancient Raku pottery technique knowing the pleasure of giving life, with her own hands, to forms suggested by her sensitivity, and her fantasy.
The concept of Nature expressed in the title is the main theme in Rita’s art. The four elements of the origin of the universe are also at the basis of Raku technique: refractory clay mixed with impurities (to make it resistant to thermal shocks), once formed is cooked once at 980 ° and then a second time, at approximately 900 °, after the application of the glaze. At this point the pieces, still burning, are extracted from the oven and immersed in the sawdust to modulate the action of oxygen, and then be gently cooled in water.
Nature itself is the inspiration for the art of Rita: the first realizations, that she still produces, have forms and motifs inspired by marine animals, the fascinating shapes of the line “Seeds” where the artist reworks natural forms viewed at the microscope. This line in particular captures my attention and impresses me: highly symbolic, in my opinion, I like to think about the union between the woman and the artist’s seed, both bearers of new life. New life given with fatigue, pain sometimes, so hard is the technique chosen .
The artist tells me that it’s the form, more than the color, to catch her attention, pointing out that very rarely her works are fully glazed, and very few are the colors used: white, red, silver, but it’s carbon black, thick and iridescent, to dominate over all, while the forms are always very clean, the sphere and the circle are preferred over all .
Like any artist Rita Miranda never ceases to experiment and discover new techniques from bone china to the classic technique called “Paper Clay”, a liquid porcelain mixed with pulp, for an even more transparent and lighter result than the classic porcelain, and always receive new inputs, through symposia, one in Egypt which she attended last March and that gave rise to an exhibit in Cairo, at the next scheduled in Tunisia, opportunities to come into contact with artists, techniques and experiences and enrich increasing experience and knowledge.
My personal deep admiration for Rita, whose greatest strength is to be a woman: strong, sweet, stubborn and sentimental, symbol of mother nature thats generates, giver of Life, and Art.
by Benedetta Tintillini
Read the article in Italian
