We then headed to Sicily (read part one Ceramic Shopping in Portugal here) - so far with no extra baggage and just my loot carefully wrapped in sarongs and T-shirts.
Sicily! Oh, I should have been born Italian. I love the food and wine and people and the sun and ceramics!
I had planned our first stop in Sicily in Cefalù, a very convenient one-hour drive from Santo Stefano di Camastra, the ceramic capital of Sicily! This village has been producing ceramics for centuries, helped by local clay deposits. The streets are literally lined with ceramic stores and, God help me, as we drove in I could literally feel my heart rate increase. With so much choice, this called for some serious work, so I had to ditch the husband and child at a coffee shop and get into my Terminator mode, scanning each store to see if it had what I was looking for.
With so much choice, a lot of the stores were repeating each other, and I knew I wasn’t looking for the more traditional pieces but rather wanted something unique with a fun and cheeky spin. Bingo! I found all I was looking for in two stores opposite each other. And just to make things a little more tricky, they were both called Fratantoni.
Fratantoni Keramos Design is where I indulged myself and bought several Sicilian heads. Not The White Lotus style, but more Poseidon in an incredible aqua glaze.
Across the road, Fratantoni Antonio was where I picked up the smaller pieces, like urchin-shaped plates, paddle cactus leaves, glazed pine cone ornaments (pigna siciliana) and smaller head vases.
SANTO STEFANO
With the boot of the car filled, I thought I was done.
But not yet! I had yet to find myself in Antonio Forlin’s incredible shop in Taormina!! We were walking down the main street when I spotted a sign down a side alley. Well, it only led me to the brilliance of this ceramics store. So much colour and pattern and joy. There was an entire shelving unit of hand-painted plates, each one different from the other, with vibrant stripes and dots. He also loves heads, but with a much more modern spin. I had to bring home another plate with a face with mismatched eyes and another bright plate to complete the wall. I will say, I came back a second time to buy bowls and tumblers.
ANTONI FORLIN
The boot of the car was VERY full now, and I was stressing a bit, but with a German husband I thought it would test his packing skills.
We hadn’t gotten to Noto yet!
The heatwave had really hit by the time we got to Noto, with blisteringly hot days that no sane person was venturing out in. But never fear, as I then had the streets to myself! A sweaty mess, I found myself in the most heavenly store, Santagatha Pozzilei Concept Store. Housed inside the restored former Church of Sant’Agata, it was like stepping into a church of style. The fashion was out of my league, but of course they did have a ceramics section with the most stunning hand-painted plates. A plate with hand-painted cactuses and a golden-brown rim was coming home with me!
SANTAGATHA POZZILEI CONCEPT STORE
By now I thought I was done. I really did.
That was until I walked past a shop selling hand-painted fish. The window display was like that of a fishmonger, with each fish in different crates and prices scrawled on in black marker. U Mari Rintra Na Stanza translates to ‘the sea inside a room’, and they’ve styled the shop like a Sicilian fish market, except everything on the ice is ceramic. Well, I had to take a little school of fish back to Bondi, right?
THE SEA INSIDE SHOP
All in all, I brought back 34 pieces of ceramics. A new record for me. And all I needed to do was buy a cheap sports bag for our laundry, and then the husband packed it all into the hard-case suitcases. One little chip was the only damage.
The Sicilian heads did have to come with DHL though. That would have been too much even for German engineering!
