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METAGEUM '07
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Conference session: Neolithic Pottery
Workshop: Neolithic Pottery
Book now for whole or part of the Metageum event. |
About Sina Farrugia
Sina Farrugia Micallef was born and educated in Malta. She graduated with distinction from Mater Admirabilis College of Education in 1971. She studied Art at the Malta School of Art and Ceramics at Targa Gap School for Crafts. She has been a teacher of Art and Ceramics since 1971 and is now Education Officer for Art at the Education Division and visiting lecturer in the Faculty of Education, University of Malta.
In 1984 Sina Farrugia Micallef set up her own Ceramic Studio. She continued furthering her studies in Ceramics at Brunel University England, where she worked with many potters specialising in different areas and techniques of the craft.
She is a member of the Malta Society of Arts Manufacture and Commerce and Flameworks Creative Arts Facility- Plymouth England.
Sina has taken part in many collective exhibitions and has had a number of personal exhibitions in Malta, Germany, France, England, Rhodes, Cyprus and America. She has also conducted pottery workshops both privately and during In-Service training for teachers for the past eight years. She has also taught pottery at the Institute of Visual Arts in Valletta.
Work
The work Sina Farrugia Micallef started in the seventies was mostly related to vessels. The pots made during this time were both thrown and hand- built. The hand- built pots were made by the ancient method of coiling.
Eventually the nature of the work took a more personal vein that was expressive in nature. While her contact with her English tutors gave her a love for the vessel form, her Maltese tutor showed her the joy of the free-style sculptural approach favoured by Italian school of Ceramica d’Arte in Faenza. Both schools have influenced her work.
Nowadays Sina Farrugia Micallef’s hand-built work combines vessel forming techniques with modelling and sculptural ones. She also makes decorative plates, murals and plaques. Besides working with clay Sina also draws and paints.
Firing
The work is fired in an electric kiln at earthenware temperatures. Some of the work is fired many times and various glazing techniques may be used on the same piece until the desired effect is achieved.
Some of the work is Raku fired on the roof of Sina’s house in a home-made top-hat kiln.
Inspiration
The drive to work in clay comes naturally to Sina. Making clay works is a way of expressing both feelings and ideas. Sometimes the work has its roots in emotions accompaning the fabric of everyday existence: relationships, happiness, sorrow, pleasure and pain. It is about us. At other times it springs from the joy generated by the handling of the clay itself. Here it is more playful and experimental or disciplined and controlled as the case may be.
Whatever Sina has to say comes through themes that are mostly inspired by nature, poetry, mythology and the Maltese environment culture and history especially the Neolithic remains. Studio: ‘Paros’, 134, G. Abos Street, L-Iklin, IKL 1021, Malta. Website: geocities.com/sinafarrugia