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About our Mediterranean style handmade
hand painted ceramics
Our handmade hand painted
ceramics are either Italian, Moroccan, or Tunisian. Our entire collection
of ceramic bowls, dinner plates, salad plates, vases, pitchers, serving
plates, serving bowls, dipping sauce dishes, and mugs are food-safe and
fully usable. However they can be used as decorative wall plates,
decorative pottery, and decorative ceramics. They also make a perfect gift
idea, whether it is a wedding gift, housewarming gift, business gift,
client gift, family gift, unique gift, or executive gift.
Here is some more information
about our ceramics.
1. 100% Hand-Made: All of our bisques are made by hand. The "
Bisque" is the raw clay that is shaped into the desired piece and then
fired the first time in the kiln. The bisques are then painted. Our bisques are
hand-thrown, hand-poured, hand-pressed or whatever it takes to make our shapes.
2. 100% Hand-Painted: We paint our bisques all by hand. Not one aspect of the
decorating process is machine-painted. Many ceramics producers hand-paint a
small aspect of the piece and then machine-paint the rest but still label it
"hand-painted".
3. Food-safe: All of our paints and glazes are food safe (FDA, California
Prop 65) for lead and cadmium.
4. Dishwasher-safe: Our glazes can withstand any detergents so they may be
safely washed in any machine and on any setting. Just take normal care to place
each piece to avoid banging and chipping.
5. Light Microwave Heating: Our pieces can be used in the microwave for a few
minutes for light cooking or reheating. After five minutes or so, the piece
itself will begin to get hot. It will not be damaged by being placed in the
microwave for longer than five minutes, but it will be hot to the touch.
6. Light Oven Heating: Our pieces can be placed in the oven up to 300 degrees
or so for light reheating but should not be used for high-temperature cooking. When
placed in the oven, it should be put on the rack furthest from the heat element.
7. No Stovetop Heating: Our ceramics cannot be used on the stovetop with the
exception of our Cookable Tajines.
8. Durability: Our ceramics are Majolica clay (red porous earthenware) fired
at 980 degrees Celsius, so they are considered low-fired and are not as durable
against chipping as stoneware.
9. Quality: Since we paint each piece by hand, there will always be
little telltale signs of the artisanal nature of our workmanship. We inspect
each piece at three separate stages in our effort to eliminate substandard
pieces.
10. Technical Aspects: Our ceramics are porous red earthenware, also known as
Majolica, just like the well-known ceramics of Italy and other Mediterranean
countries. We buy our paints and glazes in Florence, Italy that are fully
certified to European Union specifications as food-safe. We fire in both gas and
electric kilns (both types made in Italy) that are cleaned and inspected
regularly. Our paint and glaze master was trained in Italy and Spain and passed
the Tunisian Ministry of Artisanal Affairs certification process and received
additional training at the Institute for Arts of Fire (glass and ceramics) in
Tunisia.
11. Work Conditions:
Our artisans
work in safe, healthy working conditions and receive above-standard
benefits, including 13th month salary and additional bonuses for holidays. |
