3 - 28 June 2026: Solid Ground by Fango Ceramics

Private View Wednesday 3rd June 6-8pm

This June, we are excited to welcome Italian ceramicist Jacopo Cucci, working under the name Fango Ceramics.

Based near Bologna, Jacopo’s practice is the dialogue between raw materiality and imaginative transformation. His explorative, playful approach centres on wild materials collected from the Piedmont region, brought to life through the unpredictable beauty of reduction wood and gas firing. The collection also features select pieces crafted from clay sourced and fired during his time in Portugal.

From locally foraged clay to ash and rock glazes made from natural ingredients, Jacopo applies a true 'farm-to-table' ideology to his processing and making.

As we host our first international guest, please join us for the opening night to celebrate the collection and meet Jacopo, who will be joining us all the way from Italy.

How did your relationship with clay begin; where did you learn and was there a specific moment that set you on this path?

I started in a very basic class, with a focus on traditional decorations and shapes. After the second plate with flowers, I understood that was not my way. I used to bring to my teacher pictures of things I liked, and the answer was inevitably: leave it, that is high temperature, not our tradition. So I bought a small electric kiln reaching cone 10 and started melting things in it. After a couple of damaged shelves, I decided it was time to take more in-depth classes.

I took several workshops, being very curious and looking for my own thing: glaze development, raw materials, pit firing, raku and obvara. But the turning point was my first wood firing: the atmosphere of several people working together, the shared passion, the amazing effects in the end. I was hooked. I started travelling as much as possible following every chance of a firing, along Italy but also three times in Portugal, in Switzerland, a residency in New Zealand and one time in Kecskemet (Hungary) to fire the Sasukenei.

Three years ago I moved to my actual studio and built a small gas kiln that can be used with soda.

You live in a beautiful part of Italy - how does your immediate landscape and environment influence the forms you create?

I live in the city, but my studio is on the hills right outside Bologna. Every day, with my dog Chawan, we take long walks next to (or in) the small river, watching birds flying by and tiny fishes swimming next to us. I’m also fascinated by geology and rock formation, and the shapes they give to the landscape. Something that surrounds us so much,
and most of us know about it is so little!

I also feel influenced by the concept of time, and making things that could have been salvaged from the depth of the sea, or discovered from a dig; things that could already have a story even if brand new.

What is the contemporary pottery culture like in Italy? Is there a strong community of makers, and how is ceramic craft and art perceived there?

Ceramics and pottery are very popular these days, but many people doing something doesn’t mean a strong community. I think the approach is changing with the younger generations, less “secrets” and more sharing and confront. There is a strong sense for tradition, which I find a good thing, unless it avoids other perspectives to develop.

Could you describe your studio setup?

When arriving in my studio, the first things you’ll see is the small garden, often neglected, and of course Chawan, my dog, at the front door checking who’s this new person. Next to the garden there is the area where I store and prepare the raw clay, so big barrels for mixing and smaller bins for the material waiting to be dried.

You would then enter the gallery, a room full of pots for sale or display, each with a story, which I’m happy to tell, about where the material has been collected and how it’s been fired. That also works as a deposit for the hardware I need for markets and fairs, and my small electric kiln is hidden behind a cabinet full of small cups.

Entering the second room, the environment changes and it is the true studio: tables, often full of pots being trimmed or assembled; two wheels, mine covered in years of clay, one much cleaner for students; shelves full of materials, glaze buckets and bisqued pots; tools and everything I need to fix and prepare the kiln and to make the tools I use at the wheel; and lastly lots of big buckets full of aging clay. My studio in inside a building which is a shared space for various artists, when I arrived I was the first one doing ceramics, there where sculptors and painters; now there are two more ceramists next to me.

If you ever come to Bologna I’d be happy to welcome you with a cup of tea!

What first drew you to the practice of sourcing and digging your own wild clay?

I like the idea of being self-reliant, I think that was the first spark. Then I tried it and it was just fun. I need to keep a playful approach in what I do, and like it, otherwise I can’t work.
The first time I found some clay, next to a river, I was amazed from how plastic it was. I simply wedged it and quickly made a few vases on the wheel; after a few days, the bisque went smooth and I said to myself how lucky I was to have found such a clay as my first try.

The surprise came the next day: pots in shards, full of white rocks I was sure weren’t there the day before! Turned out to be calcium carbonate, after the firing it absorbs humidity and grows tens of times, breaking everything. I was not demoralised from that experience, but fascinated by the whole process, and started digging more, and..here
I am!

Of course there are several reasons I do it. I am not exploiting natural resources or labour, taking by myself what I will use; I am not feeding mineral companies around the world. But the first one to me is the excitement of finding something in nature and being able to make with it what is in my mind; the feeling of the different clays, the different plasticities, the sands, stones, roots and things you can find in it, and the great fun it is.

For this exhibition, you’ve used clay from Piemonte, Veneto, and Portugal. Are these locations you return to frequently, or are you constantly searching for new “deposits"?

I am taking samples of clays all the time. From a walk with the dog in a new place I’m surely coming back with some small bags full of samples, always looking for ways to remember the exact location in case I have to come back. From my region I still haven’t find any clay capable of reaching high temperature, but many of those clays are used as glaze ingredients.

I usually go to northern Italy because there are caolinitic clay deposits, some of them known for ages from geologist and ceramic industry, and that’s what I mostly use. The one from Portugal is a very special clay, feeling great to work with, but I only got a small bucket and it’s over already, so the pots made with that are the only ones!

Could you walk us through the journey of a handful of wild clay - from finding it in the earth to processing it for the wheel? Do you add any other minerals or ingredients to the mix?

Let’s say we are walking on the hills, we find a stream of water, and most surely there is clay on the banks. We take only a handful, paying attention not to waste material, in case we don’t like the outcome once fired.

Next, in the studio, what I’d do is to make small tests in the shape of cones, inside a small cup of a trusty material, so that if our test melts it won’t ruin the precious kiln shelf. Every firing has several material tests, and in my case most of them melts: some will be further tested to make glazes. But focusing on the clay, let’s say one of our samples is still in a cone shape. Good hit! I will pinch a small cup out of the same clay and glaze the interior, so that after the next firing I can get a better sense of the feeling and aspect of the clay, and test if it holds water.

If everything goes smoothly I will hope that my notes on the location of that material are clear, and come back to that place to get more material. Several more tests can be done at this point. I don’t add any store bought materials to my clays, but sometimes I mix them in order to get different colour shades or properties.

What are the greatest rewards and challenges of working withsuch raw, unpredictable materials for your pots and glazes?

I remember the first time I threw porcelain on the wheel. Everyone advised me it was obnoxious and unforgiving. I loved it from the first moment. I was trying to teach myself how to be more loose at throwing, but it was hard with such a perfect material like stoneware. With porcelain, it was needed a compromise between what I wanted to make and the ability of the material to respond. After that epiphany I dedicated to try and turn that compromise into a dialogue with the material.

It is a challenge to collect and prepare lots of clay, but also a chance for socializing: lately I got quite a heavy amount of material, and a few people came by to help breaking, drying, sieving, cleaning and wedging all that clay!

For glazes it’s still different. I’m focused on achieving the best with what I have. So I don’t start with the idea of making a precise colour glaze: I test my materials in different combinations and percentages, and I choose which results I like the best, and prepare a batch of that glaze.

Once a material is over, the glaze I get out of it will never be replaced, adding uniqueness to my work and challenging me to keep looking for new sources.

How did you discover wood-firing, and what is it about this
method that resonates with you?

I did a workshop with Robert Cross and I was fascinated by all the effort it needs to be done: the wood splitting and stacking, the wadding, the long and careful loading, the bricking up of the door, and the long and sometimes demanding actual firing, with peaks of heat and tiredness only balanced by the deep love for the process. That was even before seeing the fired results!

Do you ever explore other firing methods (electric or gas), or is the flame essential to your work?

I actually usually fire in a self built gas kiln, because in the place where my studio is located it was not possible to build a wood kiln. Reduction firing is essential to my glazes, and also the kiln was designed for soda, so that is something I have experimented too.

Wood-firing is a demanding process—what have you found to be the biggest rewards and the most difficult hurdles of this technique?

The best reward is probably understanding the kiln and the firing, when you want something to happen and you know how to get it, that is a great feeling in front of a beast with 1300° in it! About the hurdle, that’s probably when a firing fails, which can be for many reasons. Surely something that can happen to everyone, and to every kind of firing, being it wood, gas or electric, but probably when it happens to a wood firing, considering all the effort it takes, it feels even worse.

Which/whose kilns have you fired in? And what was something memorable about them.

Wood firings are almost always memorable! I could write for ages, but I’ve had a few disastrous firings, like the Sasukenei, or smokeless kiln (never seen so much smoke out of a kiln, we had to leave the area for half an hour! but that experience taught me it’s not the kiln itself, but how you fire it). I had half day firings and 100 hours firings, with 2 or 15 people involved, trying to understand the kiln or just to bring the firing home; looking for ash deposits, more or less reduction, adding salt, soda, sawdust, ash..

I am grateful for all the people I got to meet, some of which became good friends, and that is an incredible aspect of wood firing which is very hard to find in other activities. Oh, and some great pots :)

Are there any pieces from this exhibition at klei that really excited you, and why?

I am very excited about the fishes, I’ve been working on them for a few months now and this is their first time out of the water, I hope they behave!

What was the most recent piece of pottery you bought for yourself, and who made it?

I recently bought a stunning jug from Isabelle Pammachius, wood firing ceramist from La Borne. Unglazed, fired on its side with beautiful wadding marks, a really strong piece.

Who is a maker whose work you deeply admire—perhaps someone our community in London and UK may not have discovered yet?

I will say Xie Zaiyang, a very talented guy I met last year in Jingdezhen. He makes these beautiful teapots with mechanical parts, bolts, screws and tubes, very precise and light, and perfectly working.

Quite different from my approach but that’s one more reason to appreciate someone else’s dedication and work. I came home with one of his teapots and I admire it every day.

What are you excited to explore next in your practice?

I have some recently collected materials to test once I’m back home, and maybe some new animals...