Wheel and Extrusion: Exploring Hybrid Forms with Luigi Pullini

This special course offers experienced ceramicists a focused approach to combining wheel-thrown and extruded forms, discovering how these two processes can inform and strengthen one another.

Throughout the week, you will explore how a few well-considered gestures on the wheel can dialogue with the clear, deliberate lines of extruded components to create pottery that feels both essential and expressive. Each form will emerge from a balance between intuition and intention, where every action on the clay has meaning.

Your teacher will guide you through a process that merges experimentation with thoughtful craftsmanship, from the first idea and careful exploration of proportion, to the thoughtful assembly and refinement of the final piece.

You will have a unique chance to fully immerse yourself in studio practice, making progress that would be hard to achieve within the noise of everyday life.

By the end of the course, you will have the opportunity to choose which piece(s) you would like fired, glazed, and shipped to you. As pieces need approximately a week to dry out, this will be done for you once the course has concluded.

Your Teacher

Luigi Pullini is an Italian potter, researcher, and teacher whose practice centers on the use of self-sourced materials for clay bodies and glazes. Based in Italy, he develops workshops and intensive courses aimed at promoting an independent approach to ceramics, directly connected to the origin of materials and not to the suppliers.

After graduating in Ceramic Design at the State Art Institute of Grottaglie, Luigi began a personal research path focused on self-producing stoneware and glazes from local clays, rocks, and plant ashes. His work is deeply rooted in atmospheric firing traditions, particularly wood and soda firing, and has been influenced by the legacy of Japanese and English studio pottery.

Through his teaching, Luigi shares practical methods for collecting and transforming natural and anthropic materials into high-fire clay bodies and glazes, encouraging a more conscious and autonomous ceramic practice inspired by past traditions and adapted to contemporary needs.

Arrival and Departure

We ask that you plan your arrival for Sunday. We have an included pick-up from either Palermo Centre (in front of Hotel Politeama) at 11:30 or Palermo Airport at 12:30. On Sunday afternoon (circa 16:30, subject to change), you will be welcomed to Salemi by one of our team members, who will take you on an orientation walk of the historical centre. This will be followed by a welcome apericena (light dinner) with a Salemi Spritz at one of our favourite local restaurants.

We will bid you farewell at the end of your time in Salemi with an included transfer to either Palermo Airport or Palermo Centre (Piazza Politeama), departing Salemi at 07:00 on Saturday morning.

**For pick-ups and drop-offs outside of these times and locations, please contact us for a transfer quote.