SPA
HOMEWARE
Art of the ancient civilisations in your home
Phoenician glass art
Archaeologists discovered Phoenician glass artefacts dating back to the 1st and 2nd centuries in the holy land. The stained glass windows in the structure built over the Cave of the Patriarchs date to the 12th century. Glass blowing was invented by Phoenicians between 400 and 50 BC, somewhere along the ancient Greater Canaan coast, where glassworkers discovered how to expand a molten blob of glass by introducing some air into it. This glass making art is a tradition in the holy land, which has been passed through generations of artisans.
Creating the colourful waves of Phoenician glass requires particular knowledge that takes especially skilled hands, which are the masters of this beautiful and exotic art. A unique blend of glass elements are melted in high temperature ovens. In Phoenician glass blowing, artisans add substances to the molten glass, with the resulting reaction creating a range of colours. The hot liquid quickly cools into restful shapes and unique patterns as it is blown and spun on the end of a long metallic tube, finally resulting in a beautiful piece of luminescent glass with swirled colours and patterns giving each piece its own unique blend of colour and pattern, where no one phoenician glass is exactly the same as the other one.
These craftsman were the first to master the Phoenician glass art. As materials became too expensive during the 1940’s, this art faded. Exotic Artistries Group Pty Ltd is proud to have sourced this revived form of ancient glass artistries to beautify and adorn Australian homes.
Handmade ceramics
Exotic Artistries Group Pty Ltd's pottery undergoes a manual, time consuming and labour intensive process. It is a very tedious and precise process that takes a lot of skill and steadiness. The artisans freehand paint the designs of our homeware products, without a stencil or any other mold. No two pieces of pottery are the same, though you can sometimes tell the certain style of the artist. The Holy Land is renowned for its pottery, covered with complex geometric, arabesque and beautiful, rich patterns. And now it is available to you in Australia.
The artists first work the clay on a spinning wheel. The process can take anywhere from ten minutes for an item like a bowl, to more than three hours for something as large as a jug. The molded clay is then set outside to dry, where these bowls, large serving dishes, and jugs are separated according to their kind. Once dry, the pottery is taken to the kiln. These kilns are themselves replicas of the ovens used in the ancient times. Once the ceramic wares have been fired and glazed, the decorative stage begins and designs are dependent upon the region where the pottery is produced epitomising thousands of years of civilisations. The pottery is then fired again, where the paint used for decorating the pots, jugs, bowls, mugs, and tagines settles. Each design and pattern tells a story about the influences, events and culture of that area.
