About
Mission
Our mission is to inspire women to let go of perfectionism and procrastination by providing them with beautifully empowering ceramics pieces with their own personalised affirmations. We share our daily challenges and affirmations on social media and aim to build a supportive community of businesswomen, mothers, and women seeking personal growth. We hope to expand into the art therapy sector and provide a platform for women to connect and empower each other.
Fra's Ceramics
Fra’s ceramics evokes the beauty of Francesca's hometown nature in Sardinia. The artist, as an Italian from a very small island in the Mediterranean Sea, creates pieces inspired by La Maddalena archipelago colors, plants and herbs.
Her ceramic pieces explore the tension between functionality and art. The shapes are organic with highly textured surfaces, created using lace, plants, textile and Indian hand carved woodblock imprinting.
All the products are functional and designed for homeware and home decor. They fit in the ceramic homeware range of products while being unique ceramic art pieces.
Francesca, as soon as she arrived in Australia, released the similarities between the plants in WA and in the Mediterranean area. She picks the plants she can recognise and imprints them in the clay, creating fossils. She loves to experiment with different techniques, types of clay and glazes and is always trying new designs.
History
Her passion for ceramics started in the early ages when she visited the Tuscany region, in Italy. She was only 5 years old and got completely fascinated by the local potters making arts in their studios along the city center streets. Although she couldn’t access a potter course until she was 27 when finally a local artist in her hometown opened a pottery studio and classes. After he took her first class she was completely hooked.
When she decided to become a professional potter, she had been doing pottery for 8 years as a hobby, already completed her Master degree in Civil Engineering and was working in a corporate job in London. Due to an unfulfilled and stressful job role, and during a very difficult time due to chronic pain, she decided to go back to pottery and started a College course Level 2 ceramics. During that year of college, she could cover a great range of handbuilding techniques and decoration styles. Pottery has been a huge part of her mind-body connection and brain retraining to overcome chronic pain.
After the college course, she joined Pottery studio London, a communal studio with famous artists and potters where she could learn so much by taking inspiration from them and seeing them at work.
Today
Her confidence as a potter grew so much that she opened her own handmade pottery label Fra’s Ceramics and never looked back.
Her personal journey brought her from London to Australia where she continued her studies at Tafe and Fremantle Art Centre.
She also brought to Fremantle her label, continuing her pottery business.
Now she considers herself local, loving her life in Freo with her husband and little baby Gabriel.
Francesca now hosts private workshops and classes for adults and kids and sells her work online, in shops and local artisan markets.