Marco Minetti is an artist working with clay in California. His journey through East Asia to learn ancient ways of living, working, and thinking continues to influence his life and work. He is strongly committed to foraging natural clays and ashes to use as a foundation in his work, valuing the direct connection with Nature and its resources. He finds in his work an opportunity to reflect on the potential synergy between humans and nature, manifesting the unpredictable interactions between clay, hand and fire through a reinterpretation of ancient forms.
Drawn to the large fermentation vessels and the techniques to build them known as “onggi,” he dedicated more than five years to practicing this technique in Korea, where he lived and worked in the countryside studio of master potter Kwak Kyung Tae, from the apprenticeship lineage of Heo Jin Gyu, Lee Kang Hyo and Koie Ryoji in Japan. During his apprenticeship he also went to make and live for a period in Jingdezhen, China, and he travelled regularly to Japan. “Buncheong,” the slipware from rural Korea, became a strong element in his work. Buncheong, unlike other methods, is highly sensitive to touch and thickness of application and has a narrow window of time during which it must be applied. The method allows the artist to express intention in his pieces, while its sensitivity captures his energy and state of mind in the moment of creation.
In 2018 Marco Minetti co-founded Ceramic Masterclass: intensive workshops in rural Korea tailored to foreign artists and students of clay. Since 2020 he shares his time between Korea and a studio in Northern California, where he produces an evolving collection of work using native clays, ashes, and foraged materials.
