The Full Story
Meet the Artists!
Santorini Art Studio was created in 2005, originally located near Chicago, Illinois. It was founded on the desire of two artists who were passionate about their art and wanted to be creative and do what they loved full time. Dee Santorini had been on the board and served as president of an art guild, developing new venues for artists to show and sell their art. Bruce had studied with a sculpting afficionado, working in wood and
metal and cement. They then studied for a year and a half with a raku clay master…and found their passion! Since then they have helped nonprofits develop raku firing areas in their arts programs, and developed their own raku and saggar and pit firing focus. About a decade ago their studio was relocated to the mountains of Asheville, North Carolina….and the mountains and forest and fresh air has been integrated into everything they do. You can feel it in their art.
Santorini Art is the creator of the Great Asheville Pyramids….including:
-A beautiful five-foot-tall raku-fired Imagine Pyramid, focused on John Lennon’s
message “Can You Imagine All the People, Living Life In Peace”
-An eight-foot-tall raku-fired Obelisque of Time Pyramid that is earthy, four-sided,
and majestic.
-Smaller Dreamweaver Pyramids made of clay, raku-fired, and strapped to a
forked branch from the forests of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Santorini Art also has an assortment of paintings depicting:
-The grandiose beauty of the mountains and trees in the Asheville area.
-Large-scale paintings of the endangered species from their trip to Kenya. Elephants…Zebras….Giraffes!!! Depicting their lives as a species, a family, and
their babies. *All profits from sales of these paintings will be sent to support saving these species from extinction.*
-Encaustic painting (made with hot beeswax, tree resin, and colored pigment) has great softness, depth, and subtlety of color. It is great for creating texture that is rare with other types of painting.
Dee Santorini
Dee Santorini signifies the original bohemian artist—free-thinking, diverse in her pursuits, and allowing art to be her voice in life. A painter and sculptor, she believes strongly that the arts improve all of our lives. “I find certain materials let me express myself in different ways”, she says. “I paint to capture the essence of the incredible world around us. I sculpt the clay of the earth, feeling it beneath my fingers, turning my dreams into hard realities. And I paint endangered species like elephants and zebras in an effort to save these incredible beings. {Santorini sends the profits from sales of these paintings to save these species} Painting with encaustics is especially rewarding to Santorini because it enables her to use her painting skills as a focus, allowing the encaustic to soften, texturize, and take her art to a different place. Working with encaustic is entirely different than painting with acrylic or oil—and a challenge to this artist, who loves challenges. Dee served as president for several years of an art guild near Chicago, helping them find joy and excitement in their art. She created new shows and venues for them to sell their art, and new opportunities for them to learn and teach classes. Santorini has helped develop art classes and set up and built a raku program at a non-profit women’s center in Illinois. She ran one of their most successful fundraisers, and established them as an important art center in the area. Dee has taught pottery, sculpture and painting classes. Passing on skills and information is essential to Santorini and her way of life. She believes that by trying new things, experimenting with techniques and materials, and then sharing her insights with other artists that art grows and transforms. “All through life we make choices”, says Santorini, “and it determines the path our life takes. I took no short-cuts in my life. All my successes came from working hard. “There are many problems in the world today—tragic violence and horrible ways people are treating each other and the other species on this earth. “I am trying to not be part of the problems of this world….I am trying to be part of the answer.”
Bruce Santorini
Bruce Santorini kind of smells like smoke. And there seems to be a residue of ash in his hair. Bruce doesn’t even notice—years of raku and saggar firing make this seem normal. Bruce is an expert on creating clay sculptures and raku firing—and calls this “the dance of the smoke.” The raku kiln gets heated up to 1850 degrees, and then Bruce dons his leather gloves and takes off the lid of the kiln. He grabs his tongs and reaches inside a kiln that is glowing orange with the heat. Santorini works the tongs around the red-hot clay and swings it up out of the kiln. The piece gets rushed over to the smoking chamber, surrounded by leaves and combustibles, and the lid traps the smoke around the piece. It steeps for a while. “With raku, it’s all about the smoke,” says Santorini. “It seeps into your glaze, and makes it hazy and metallic looking—where the magic happens!” Santorini Art also does Horsehair firings, which involves draping tail hairs from a horse onto a clay piece that is over a thousand degrees in temperature. It creates a wonderful black and white piece with fine black lines dancing across it’s surface. Bruce has studied with a ceramic/raku master from the Chicago area, and is always experimenting with raku and saggar firing techniques. Mixing special homemade glazes provides unique finishes to his sculptures. And, of course, the chaos of smoke and fire that sometimes do what they want, allows him to learn and adjust and explore. Every time he goes into the studio, Bruce is in search of something that does not yet exist. He has a vision, then pushes and sculpts his vision to coalesce into existence. He strives to create something that uniquely represents the beauty of the world around us.
