Caterina Roma
Ceramicist Caterina Roma sources her own wild clay before firing her work in a wood kiln in a remote hut high up in the Pre-Pyrenees mountains, far from creature comforts. Her wood-fired sculptural bowls and vases are a potent reflection of the wild beauty and remarkable power of nature. In 2020, she opened an exceptional studio and gallery space inside a 17th-century building, a former hostel for pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago adjacent to Salvador Dalí’s Púbol Castle.
“… I had this moment of crystalline clarity. I knew what I had to do. As if by magic, from that moment onwards, everything moved very quickly. It was as if from one minute to the next I went from not knowing anything about my path and what I wanted to do to seeing it clearly laid out in front of me. ”
“…when I made the transition from being a publisher to a potter, it was a different world. There was a palpable sense of ‘looking down’ on pottery. It was craft and therefore ‘less than’ fine art or intellectual work. ”
“In moments of true crisis during my life, contemplating beauty has lifted me up, taking me out of the darkness. Today I feel that I’d like to give back, and sending beauty out into the world for others in the way I know how is one way I can do that.”
“It comes back to this idea that when you create, if you do something that’s personal, it might have a finite purpose or energy. When you create work from something that’s bigger than yourself, then it keeps rippling like a wave.”
“Nature never fails to surprise me. When I’m working with wild clay and firing in the wood kiln to very high temperatures, the minerals that are in the wild clay and in the volatilised ash melt and create incredibly beautiful effects. It’s a dance between nature and me.”
“My showroom is a building that is historically called Ca L’Humà, which means ‘the home of humanity’. The name comes from medieval times and is an incredible legacy. We want to preserve this feeling of humanity – objects made by humans for humans, with sense and consciousness.”
