> otchipotchi...............

in her artist statement paula valentim wrote : "I like color, trees and flowers, sunshine
and thunderstorms, cats and dogs, books and magazines, silence and water, birds singing,
the smell of fresh bread and the earth after it rains, simple details, the sea and big skies ...
I currently live in Portugal in a town where orange trees are as old as time with a cat
and a dog. after doing many distinct things in life I decided to swap a settled job for
the challenges of becoming a ceramist."

sounds like a beautiful normal girl with dreams...likes..and..dislikes......like many of us...
however she took another step to shape her dreams into ceramic forms. otchipotchi!  
and.......oh my gosh! what creations! her ceramics are precocious! they are dreamy!
they are timeless! her soft and romantic observation of nature is very inspiring.
im absolutely in awe of her work...her simple vision....her inspirational ideas from nature!
her process of natural prints on ceramic reminded me a bit of one of my old dreamy
ideas of  using nature found pieces and somehow make them look embossed/compressed
on thick hand made wet papers with their impressions! or sealed them between white paper
and wax! lets see if i ever give shapes to my dreamy ideas!

her work is inspiring/tempting enough to make me start ceramics again.
white flower impressions on raw clay or paper or else.......

living in a small town in Portugal sounds very romantic and inviting too!

keep dreaming...........