Meet the artisan
Doriana Usai
Traditional ceramics from Assemini, Sardinia @ceramichedorianausai
Doriana Usai, a ceramist and art therapist from Assemini, Sardinia.
Doriana inherited the family profession and represents the 5th generation of Usai potters.
Her work is well known in the Sardinia region and in all Italy, she won the contest “Artigiano del Cuore” by Fondazione Cologni in 2022.
We had the pleasure to talk with her about her approach to ceramics ☕️
Hi Doriana, thanks for being here. Please, briefly introduce yourself and your work to the TA-DAAN Community!
First of all thanks to you for the attention you give me… it is a real pleasure for me!
I am Doriana Usai: I am 43 years and I’ve been a ceramist for the past 25 years.
I am an incredibly curious person, attached to my traditions that make me feel as an integral part of my culture: a culture that I like to disseminate and share.
We know that ceramics have been marking your family’s history for generations! When did it all start?
I represent the 5th generation of the Usai family dedicated to the ceramic profession.
Indeed, the first news about it are dated 1840, but we do not exclude that perhaps even earlier my ancestors carried out this tradition of ours!
From an early age I became passionate about the world of artistic craftsmanship, partly because my parents used to take me with them to the laboratory and partly because ceramics have always intrigued me.
Growing up and breathing in the creativity of the family, I directed all my studies and my interests to learning more and more about art and design until I was able to give form to the mix of inspirations.
Even if I feel very attached to Sardinian traditions, I believe it is necessary to reinterpret them and externalize my vision of contemporary Sardinian craftsmanship.
What was it like growing up and playing in a laboratory? What advantages do you think it gave you to live closely with “creation and making”?
Being born in an artistic environment inevitably leads you either to love it or to hate it, and in my case I deeply loved the sector!
The advantages of growing up in a laboratory are evident… you could say this was and is my natural environment.At the same time there are also some disadvantages.
In my case I have always felt the burden and the duty to carry on a tradition that was well established but did not totally belong to me, as it was not initially founded by me.
Therefore I worked a lot to build my own way of working and reinterpreting a culture, so that my own style could be reflected in the ceramic pieces, not only the one of my family.
Tell us curiosities and oddities about ceramics and your way of working.
A curiosity that not everyone knows is that when we work we usually substitute technical terms with the ones from the traditional Sardinian language.
For example, when we waterproof traditional objects, we do not use the term “polishing”, but “ingambanzamentu” (from gabanza) which was the galena mineral that my ancestors used.
And we do this for other technical passages too! I like to recall certain traditional words which, in doing so, are not lost.
One personal oddity:
I often happen to wake up during the night and not be able to sleep anymore because I start thinking about new shapes and new lines to experiment. My dear mother when I tell her about my new (nocturnal) ideas tells me: “dear daughter, occupy the night to sleep, so that during the day you will be able to experiment”… but the night brings me great advices! 🌙
“Art is a therapy. I like to give people the tools to get better with art…”
Doriana Usai – Ceramist and art therapist
You told us about art therapy. What is it about? What projects do you carry out?
Art therapy is one of my great convictions of life …. from the age of 23 I began to collaborate with social centers, professional schools, associations of various kinds and schools of all types and levels that required ceramic workshops.
This convinced me that my work was not only linked to my tradition, but that it could be educational, recreational and healing if necessary.
To clarify arts and crafts could give a great dose of rehabilitation not for the body, but for the psychophysical aspect of each of us .. ..and this I have constantly tested on my person.
So I approached the world of art therapy trying to better understand its principles…specializing in the three years to become an art therapist.
The territory and tradition are very present in your production. Tell us about the bride’s jug. What is it about? How do you make it and how much technique and hours does it need?
The bride’s jug is precisely the emblem of the Asseminese and Sardinian tradition; this jug was part of the brides’ trousseau. Traditionally the jug was born in terracotta with greenish incisions, then reinterpreted by potters with floral applications that evoke the purity of the bride or the lapwings symbol of prosperity and good omen.
The more a bride belonged to an elevated social class, the more elaborate the pitcher was.
The realization of the jug regardless of the size requires many hours of work: from the shaping to the lathe, to the applications, from the finishing to the cooking and enameling…I believe there are hours and hours at least 30-40 days to bring it to the sale.
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