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 embodies the spirit of a true bohemian artist—free-thinking, multifaceted, and deeply guided by creative expression. As both a painter and sculptor, she uses a range of materials to bring her inner world to life, from capturing the essence of nature on canvas to shaping clay into tangible forms. Her encaustic work adds depth and texture, offering both challenge and transformation in her process.
Passionate about making a difference, Dee creates paintings of endangered species and donates the proceeds to support their protection. Beyond her own work, she has dedicated years to building artistic communities—serving as president of an art guild near Chicago, developing classes, launching exhibitions, and establishing a raku program at a nonprofit women’s center in Illinois.
An experienced teacher of pottery, sculpture, and painting, Dee believes in the power of sharing knowledge and continuously exploring new techniques. Grounded in hard work and purpose, she strives to use her art not only as a form of expression, but as a way to contribute positively to the world.
Bruce Santorini
Bruce Santorini carries the unmistakable traces of his craft—smoke in the air, ash in his hair—earned through years of raku and saggar firing. A skilled ceramic artist, he calls his process “the dance of the smoke.” Working with a kiln heated to nearly 1850 degrees, Bruce carefully removes red-hot pieces and places them into a smoking chamber, where fire and combustion create the hazy, metallic finishes that define raku. “That’s where the magic happens,” he says.
He also practices horsehair firing, using strands of hair on intensely heated clay to create delicate, organic linework. Trained under a Chicago-based raku master, Bruce continues to experiment with firing techniques and handcrafted glazes, embracing both precision and unpredictability.
Driven by curiosity and vision, Bruce approaches each piece as something yet to be discovered—shaping clay into forms that reflect the raw beauty of the world around us.
