I fell in love with clay in kindergarten, and I still find it irresistible. It speaks to my senses. As a beginning potter making pinch pots, I felt its magic and strength – and even now, after decades of working professionally with clay, I am still fascinated by it.

My work celebrates the sensual, spiritual and celestial. My current subject matter springs from three sources:  the human form, art nouveau and my mother’s death and her love of the Catholic Church. In each piece, I try to convey the enchantment of the universe and that of faith.

I began my studies as an artist studying the nude. When I get lost in ideas or a lack of them, I always come back to the human form. It grounds me in my body and gives me a safe place from which to start exploring. My representations of the human form and elements of nature are sometimes playful and irreverent and sometimes contemplative. When I draw the figure, I look to create subtleties in attitude, expression or mood.

When I decided to move my fine art drawing abilities into functional work for the home, I began making tile installations for kitchens and baths. It was then I realized I needed images other than the human form. I have always loved gardening. When I was a child, my mother would ask me to help her weed her garden, as well as the gardens of her seven sisters. So, incorporating flowers into my work was an easy, natural choice. Thus, the arts and crafts movement (art nouveau) and my love of botanical images also became part of the palette for my art tile work.

My mother’s love of the Catholic Church and her faith also have inspired me to appreciate the beauty and ritual of religion. Because she died when I was sixteen I can’t help but infuse her and her teachings into my work, which completes the current palette from which I create. I see my future work moving toward more complicated botanical patterns and images inspired by religious icons and stained glass imagery.

When I think about my decision to move to the functional application of art tiles, I loved the idea that people could incorporate art practically into an everyday setting, dramatically and subtly at the same time. I also envision possibilities of larger applications of my work in public spaces because the ceramic medium is perfect for large installations. It is weather proof, and it can be designed with unique, one-of-a kind imagery or a repeating pattern. It has great potential as public art, just like a mural or sculpture.

Whether tiles are used as a sign for your business, to display numbers on your house, or for a sweeping mural in the garden, the clay doesn’t care. Clay can cover columns, be imbedded into concrete counter tops or garden walls, or inlayed into wood. Clay is the most ancient and versatile building material we have. It is the earth.

Artist’s Bio

Marina Bosetti studied sculpture and earned her Fine Arts degree from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Her university work was featured in the Juried Senior Art Show as well as in a one-person show at the Pratt Sculpture Gallery. She has demonstrated throwing at the American Crafts Museum with Elisabeth Woody and worked at the Jack D. Wolfe ceramic supply company, slip casting for artist Nina Yankowitz. Marina also worked with architectural facades at MJM Studios in New Jersey. In 1988 and 1989, she sailed a gaff-rigged schooner from Nova Scotia to the Bahamas, and then to Beaufort, North Carolina — officially transitioning from her life as a New Yorker to a new life as an artist in North Carolina.

In 1990, Marina Bosetti founded Life Forms Pottery. When her professional pottery career began, Marina quickly realized she wasn’t a thrower or a glazer of pots. Her work gravitated to clean simple forms that became more and more decorative over time. Eventually, she moved completely away from the three dimensional form, and began working flat. The word “pottery” and “potter” no longer felt authentic to Marina, at which point she changed the name of her studio to Bosetti Art Tile to describe the work she continues to create today.