Hi, I'm Marianna. The human behind undamari.
Ceramics began as something I had always wanted to try.
What started as curiosity quickly became a practice that now occupies an important place in my life.
I have a scientific background, and perhaps because of the way I was trained, observing, testing and asking questions came naturally.
I became fascinated by how much could emerge from relatively simple forms and materials — and by what happens when clay, fire, minerals, ash, earth and other local or foraged elements meet.
That curiosity gradually expanded in two directions.
In form, I began exploring simple volumes, cavities and openings, looking for objects that feel familiar without being entirely identifiable.
In surface, experimentation became a practice of its own.
Every surface is developed from scratch in the studio, through my own glaze formulations, layered applications and extensive testing. Natural and sometimes unexpected materials often find their way into these experiments.
Materials shaped by natural processes in the landscape around me are transformed again; forms and surfaces sometimes suggest something that has already lived through time, without quite revealing when or where it belongs. Over time, these explorations began to come together as a language of my own.
undamari grew from there.
The name echoes the Latin and the sense of flow I experienced when I first started working with clay.
I was drawn to its connection with waves, but also with movement more broadly — water, sound, energy, matter — and, simply, to the way the word sounded.
Today, I continue my research between form and surface, function and presence. Each piece is developed and made by hand in my studio in Tuscany, Italy.
Beyond the studio
I hope my pieces will be lived with, touched and used.
That they will find a place in someone's everyday life and invite a little curiosity and attention.
That one object may stand on its own for years, or eventually find another to sit beside it, creating relationships I could not have planned.
Most of all, I hope they remain open enough for people to make them their own — through use, interpretation, or simply through the way they choose to live with them.
Their making ends in the studio. What happens next belongs to someone else.