COLOR BRUNO To import in Italy an old Japanese technique like Raku ceramic and to achieve good results capable of joining together sensibility and local traditions, love for art and design and a different culture is what Michela Foppiani and Marcello Massoni try to do with their laboratory. Marcello and Michela, a real couple both in their private and professional life, named their production COLOR BRUNO (Dark colour). Dark is the natural colour of the types of soil used for their ceramics and earthenware, which on the contrary are fair and bright just like their dishes, boxes and centrepieces that are produced with a number of special techniques. Their exploitation of Raku technique is quite peculiar. This technique demands the use of the four natural elements, i.e. soil, which ceramics are made of, fire, necessary to dry ceramics and from where they're removed while they're still blazing, air, necessary to reach the ideal temperature, and water, where ceramics are dipped to cool down. All these operations together provide these pieces with their typical aspect called craqučle, that is they look like a cobweb of different colours and shades that make every single piece different from one another. The two designers chose to use light and bright colours, from yellow to emerald green, from white to orange, instead of employing dark colours that are more traditional for this technique, because they aimed at achieving a personal and unsuspected result. Their earthenware are as beautiful as ceramics. They're produced with a number of different types of soil in order to obtain special colour effects and they're matched with other materials. In particular, their lamps are worth mentioning. They're characterised by remarkable cuts, bores and connections and let light go through creating bizarre light games. COLOR BRUNO ceramiche Via Farnesina, 292 29100 - Piacenza - Italia Tel. 0523/506429 E-mail: cellomas@yahoo.it

Text by: Gloria Refini V. IV. III. II. I. In cooperation with: M.Angeles Fernández Alvarez TOP