Stunning Handmade Ceramics Made in Athens

Handmade ceramics have never been more popular and it’s easy to see why. Organic materials and perfectly imperfect finishes are at the forefront of décor and interior design- as people seek to reconnect with nature and themselves.

And there’s no denying Greece leads the way when it comes to ceramics, as this form of art has been a part of Greek culture since antiquity- with Ancient Greeks using ceramics to store oil, water and wine since the Bronze Age.

Led by brothers Efcharis and Nikos Paltoglou, the creators behind Homatino, this stunning studio in Athens goes beyond everyday ceramics. Featuring a wealth of knowledge and experience, thanks to their father Michael, who had a ceramics workshop in the 1970s and taught them from young- the brothers have now taken over creating bespoke art pieces that are simple yet stunning. Turning everyday items (think: candle holders, plates, mugs, vases and bowls) into masterpieces- each collection is carefully designed to be used as both dinnerware and décor.

Reminiscent of Ancient Greek artefacts, each item has its own unique character showcasing Efcharis and Nikos’ keen eye for detail and their age-old technique that includes some modern finishes.  

“Inspired by clay, a simple raw material, using traditional techniques of the past, however, influenced by the contemporary way of life, we mold by hand, ceramic molds and shapes which aim to be a part of our lives for the following years,” they explain.

“We are a workshop that got its name from the etymology of the word ‘homatino’ which means made of fine-grained earth (soil) or clay. We chose this name bearing in mind who we really are. A local workshop which chooses to remain true to tradition, crafting ceramic objects, modernizing, protecting and promoting the work of the family business, with respect,” they add.

As a child, Efcharios says he “felt the need to create things with my hands. I expressed this need through clay and from the first moment I felt an overwhelming attraction to this simple material, without knowing of course that it would eventually become my profession.”

Nikos says it was in his adulthood that his “restless nature in combination with my heightened sense for creativity changed pottery and ceramics into one of my most enjoyable interests. After travelling through various parts of Greece and on a search, professionally, in various occupations, ceramics and pottery are what eventually won me over.”

The pieces, which feature organic shapes made by hand – reflect the tones and textures of Greece’s beautiful landscape and rich history and if you are in Kalogreza, Athens, you can visit the brothers’ studio, where you will be able to have a tour and check out the tailor-made pieces up close.

“We approach ceramics in an ‘earthly way’, attempting to create a harmonious balance among form-texture-colour and functionalism, giving it a rawness along with an elegant finish. A basic value is for each piece of ceramic work to send out the message of exemplary design, quality, timelessness and for it to be a part of the daily routine and way of life of each individual.”

Homatino Ceramics

Traditional Handmade Gifts From Greece

If you are searching for some beautiful handmade gifts from Greece that are made by talented local artisans, including traditional ceramics and paintings, you can find them at Delfis Art Studio in Kos. 

Delfis is an art workshop and gift store located in the beautiful mountain village of Zia. It’s doors first opened in 1997 and here you will meet owner and local artist Maria, who launched her studio with the idea of satisfying the wishes and needs of local and international visitors looking for unique handmade Greek creations that are affordable.

Insights Greece - Traditional Handmade Gifts From Greece

“The idea is for the pieces to have authenticity and Greek identity, away from the mass produced and imported “tourist” products. This is the main idea behind our work,” says Maria. 

Every object is original and reflects the personality of each artist who created it. Here you will find a wonderful selection of ceramics, paintings on wood, as well as paintings on Greek marble. Maria cooperates with small workshops from Crete, Athens, Patras and other regions of Greece to ensure all the pieces in her store are different to what you will find at an average tourist shop. 

Inside the studio is a ceramics workshop, where Maria herself produces a wide variety of pieces that are both made for use and as decorative pieces. The ‘Delfis‘ range is one of the most popular amongst international visitors who purchase the tiny ceramic Greek churches and homes to take home with them as a reminder of their holiday to Greece. 

In the wide selection of products you will find dinnerware, coffee and tea sets (made without toxic colours and glazing) that are all available in a variety of colours and designs. Each item is painted with fire colours and baked in the oven with lead-free glazing.

Insights Greece - Traditional Handmade Gifts From Greece

Maria also works with her clients to create one off pieces that can be custom ordered in the colours and designs of your choice. Orders can also be shipped internationally. 

However, if you are in Kos, we definitely recommend you pay Delfis Art Studio a visit! 

Where is Zia? 

Zia is a picturesque mountainous village scattered on the northern slopes of Mountain Dikeos (17 km from Kos town). It is one of Kos’ most popular spots thanks to its breathtaking sunset. The area around Zia boasts outstanding natural beauty with free-flowing springs and the village itself has been declared a traditional settlement. Here you will find restaurants, cafes and shops. 

A: 85300 Zia – Kos

Amalia Melis: Sculpting Stories With Words and Wires

Living between Athens, Andros and New York, writer/sculptor Amalia Melis talks about her life as an artist in Greece.

By Amalia Melis 

I have a vivid imagination. When I was a kid, I wanted to live on the bottom of a Spanish olive jar eating olives and drinking brine to survive. It’s true. I live in my head: I think more than I do on this earth at times. I still observe clouds and watch ants in the dirt.

I love to write. I have practiced almost every form of writing there is to earn a living in Insights Greece - Amalia Melis: Sculpting Stories With Words and WiresNew York and in Athens. News reporting, features, essays, poems, short stories, speeches, ghostwriting. I always felt like an oddball and writing gave me voice: it allows me to role play without appearing anywhere in person. I have interviewed dictators, drug traffickers, award winning writers, for newspapers and magazines and found I can plow through any situation.

I grew up in a chaotic household in the Greek immigrant neighborhood of Astoria (New York) with my younger sister and two very hardworking parents who also made things in their spare time. My mom is a self-taught painter and my dad is a creative mad genius who makes things from nothing. His family films were entire productions and I was often his helper, so all this activity rubbed off on me.

Insights Greece - Amalia Melis: Sculpting Stories With Words and Wires
Sculptures using discarded metal & wire

I started making assemblage sculptures about 10 years ago. I find discarded metal and wires thrown on the side of the street or near garbage cans and I drag them home to see what new life I can breathe into them. The assemblages I ‘ve been making are my three-dimensional stories. I am a hunter of many things; metal, wires, sea glass, sea pottery, rocks, whatever strikes my fancy.

I just listen to what comes out of me and go to what attracts me. I listen to what is happening in nature around me. I listen to what happens between people. I walk the path the energy around me takes me on. I feel like I am at the right place right now in my life because I see how connected everything and everyone is around me. Maybe it is how I best process and express pain.

When I write fiction I am sculpting a story that hides a real pain or truth. It has many layers and the more I work on it the more it takes on a life of its own. When I cover a news event as a reporter, I report the facts. I do not embellish.

Insights Greece - Amalia Melis: Sculpting Stories With Words and Wires
Writing Studio in Andros

The Aegean Arts Circle writing workshops are my pride and joy. I created them when I needed a writing community. I was alone in a new country. I brought the talent to me and from the experiences in these workshops I flourished as a person and a writer. I was working on my first novel, which took years to write and finish and I was privy to stories emerging from other participants who came from all over the world to be part of these small annual groups in Andros. We have made friendships that span the seas. Many of us publish, work professionally as writers. I have published short stories, essays and poems many of which were worked on in the workshops.

Andros was the first exotic experience for me as a child. We visited my great grandmother, a grandmother, stone houses my parents and generations before them were born in. In Andros, all my senses opened. Lemon blossoms, dirt, chickens, fresh eggs, ballo dancing, violin and other traditional instruments, stories; piles of stories about the past- the seamen stories, island stories.

From that moment on I became a gatherer. I gathered these stories filled with failure, struggle, harsh conditions and I let them incubate inside me. I used them to write my own novel about three generations of women from a Greek island who search for home; to belong, to be.

Andros has had the luck to have the Goulandris Museums (archeological and contemporary ones) the Kydionefs Foundation and, Adamantia Art Space, a lovely gallery in Nimborio, among other spaces. I see as much as I can each summer on the island. I participated with my assemblages in several group shows in Apikia at Blue Enigma. Visitors should explore all art events organized in Andros. There is also hiking, roller blading, biking, skating, scuba diving, boating and more. They can come to write or swim and visit precious monasteries maintained for generations with great care. Andros is unfolding as an island. Just exploring the island gets us to explore ourselves.

 

Pantelis Melissinos, A 360-Degree Artist

Known as ‘The Poet Sandalmaker’, as was his father Stavros, whose sandal shops in Monastiraki drew the world’s celebrities to buy his designs, Pantelis has taken his art to another level.

From the moment I entered Pantelis Melissinos’ Art Gallery / Sandal Shop in Makryianni, where it opened two years ago, it was like diving into another world. First, I was hit by the bold colours and shapes from his artworks – sculptured chairs, paintings large and small, leather bags, and elaborate sandals hanging from the ceiling and stacked against walls.

As I stepped down into the shop/gallery Pantelis turned and smiled at me from the piano, where he was playing a piece in the living room-style space where masked clients sat patiently waiting to have their dream sandal design created to fit their foot to perfection. And then Poi Poi, a 10-year-old white griffon dog with the cheerful bounce of a puppy hopped and barked up to me delivering a giant donut toy we could play with.

Pantelis, looking fit and wiry from his passionate health regime and youthfully dressed in jeans and a waistcoat, escorted me to the corner where we sat at his desk to chat about his life and art.

Now Pantelis has taken the reins of a store with 100 years of history, once religiously visited by the likes of the Beatles and Liz Taylor, Onassis, Nureyev, Jackie O’ and Kallas, and still today receiving streams of visitors from around the world, who have heard of the famous sandals created by the Melissinos family.

“I bought this place, which is big and spacious and I use it as a gallery for my art because I studied painting for so many years and deep down I feel like an artist, not only like a sandal maker. That’s why my sandals are more on the artistic side. They’re functional but at the same time artistic, and they’re not mass-produced. I like to create different things and my customers love that – they come for that. Many times, they see them on Instagram or Facebook and change their travel plans to be able to stop off here. I couldn’t believe that at first! Often for them, the sky’s the limit; my clients, especially women, often suggest their own ideas and we work on them together.

Insights Greece - Pantelis Melissinos, A 360-Degree Artist

“I started creating when I was very young, as an escape from school, because I didn’t like it! I decided that this is what I wanted to do and I moved to New York and studied illustration at Parsons School of Design and then I got my Masters’ Degree in Painting. After I finished that I directed the Greek Cultural Centre in NY.

“I always loved walking around Manhattan and picking up objects like chairs from the street– things that were sort of dead and I wanted to give them a new life. I would strip them of their old upholstery and would create something new.

“I had a friend and we called ourselves ‘The Trashers’ because we used to collect trash together and turn it into art. I brought some of those pieces back with me when I returned to Athens. Here too I continued to collect stuff and create art with it. I also worked for the theatre here in Greece for tragedies mostly, doing the set design, costumes, and jewellery. These productions were very magical; they were in Evia on a mountain near Gymnou village. I also wrote plays and music.

“Discipline is a prerequisite in art. Some people think that being an artist is just carefree and being totally crazy. No, it’s not like that! It takes a lot of discipline to master an art, it’s more like science. For example, the old masters – Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Beethoven – studied like crazy – I think contemporary people don’t work so hard at evolving, they think it’ll happen by divine intervention or something!

“When it comes to art you have to always feel like you are 20. Not a day older. Like the Goddess Athena, who was not a Virgin goddess as people think in a sexual way – her mind was virginal. She was the goddess of wisdom and creativity because her mind was ever-fresh.

Insights Greece - Pantelis Melissinos, A 360-Degree Artist

“When I create sandals, I try to be ever-young and always find new ways, new designs to please myself and my customers. I focus on all my art in one day; I start the day playing the piano to relax, then I write something I have an idea about- a poem or something else – I’ve also been working on the idea for a novel for many years – then I take care of business, work on sandal designs, paint, all in one day.

“Currently I’m working on making a video portrait about my art with a cinematographer friend, that I am directing and have written music for. I want my art to talk about me through a video. Life is too short and being a businessman is not my greatest dream in life…Today everyone is so caught up in this high-speed living and we don’t enjoy life as our parents did.

“A lot of artists gathered at my father’s old shop – Tsarouchis, Argyrakis, and growing up in this environment made me think seriously about art – because all these people communicated with each other and exchanged ideas under the shadow of the Acropolis. I loved the Fauve artists like Picasso, Gaugin, and Matisse especially – both for their use of colour and for their freedom. I am always trying to discover my own freedom.”