Tuscan Art Center has a full featured ceramic studio with an extraordinary wood-burning kiln
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A full featured Ceramic Studio
After 10 years of visioning, planning and remodeling, the Tuscan Art Center (TAC) has partnered with California State University at Long Beach as well as other US universities and artist centers in Germany to develop a ceramic studio on its thirty-acre property.
Not only did the students and professors of the universities build a fully functioning ceramic studio, but they also built an extraordinary wood-burning kiln as well.
In addition to the wood kiln, we also have three electric kilns, four electric potters wheels, a pug mill and a ball mill.. Excellent natural clay deposits are found on the beautiful hill that TAC dominates. These combined assets allow artists and students to mine, refine, sculpt, and fire the clay from start to completion. Thus creating a unique opportunity to participate in the entire ceramic process as the world’s earliest potters once did.
In addition to our ceramic studio, we have been given permission from the mayor of Chiusdino to utilize off site facilities as well. These accommodations include an ancient monastery complex, San Galgano (est. 1218) in the valley below TAC where various studio- and exhibition- as well as preforming arts spaces will be retrofitted to re-purpose the old with the new. With this generous offer from the administration of Chiusdino TAC is now possible to expand to a much greater level than previously imagined. Other off-site subsidiaries such as workspaces in Florence and on the Tuscan coast are being examined.
TAC’s mission is to provide an environment of clarity and creativity where artists and the community can be inspired by the ancient arts to create the contemporary. We are extremely excited to bring TAC to Chiusdino and continue to develop the art center in this authentic village as well as in other Tuscan locations. In addition to our ceramics studio, we are in the process of creating additional spaces for the visual and performing arts as a base for artists, students and travelers to not only create art, but to be able to connect to the humanities as well. For example, in the museum space we have begun inviting guest lecturers to present their special academic subjects of interests. The first lecture was held on the history of Italian ceramics and its orgins from the Near Eastern and Islamic civilazations. Besides academic other presentations are planned as well as dance, music and theater performances.
TAC’s multiple facilities all operate on renewable energy sources including solar panels and sustainable forestry.