A ceramics workshop “shelter” for young and old
A ceramics workshop in Oreokastro becomes a “refuge” every afternoon for students from 2.5 to 80 years old, who want to almost overcome the magic of clay.
The fragility of the material is something that ceramist Thodoris Galigalides often talks about to workshop participants. “I explain to them that some parts may break, some handles may come off and others may come off, because I want them to be prepared, as it is painful to experience abruptness,” Mr. Galigalides explains to APE-MPE, adding that:
“we have to learn to live through it. We’ll make the next one. Life goes on. We’ve lost it – we’ve lost him, in the other sense – but we’re here and going on. It is a loss and the loss is in our lives,” he emphasizes.
The valuable experience from KETHEA for steady steps for life
Thodoris Galigalides collaborates with KETHEA by teaching ceramics from 1997 until today at the site of the ITHAKI Therapeutic Community, where a pottery workshop, a carpentry workshop and a farm operate as production units.
His experience from the unit is valuable, as he emphasizes “we work with some people who are really awesome when they discover their skills and with this huge world. It’s life steps to make a clay project. Where a mistake is made, we might tear everything down, but we can restore it, save it with small movements. We must take steady steps for our work, steady steps for life as well.” He himself does not actively participate in the treatment at KETHEA, however as a part next to it, “you feel that you give and take”, he notes.
A family hug for young, old and even multinational executives
In 2019, Thodoris Galigalides decided to open his own place. It is an inner need for creative activity, but also to communicate some things that has evolved in ceramics.
“What I learn I want to give, because my only thing is that I teach the other what you know, it forces you to become better and this must be constantly fed back. This puts me in a perpetual motion, never stopping. To learn, to never rest on what I’ve done and to always try to move on to something new,” he says.
His decision to open his own workshop coincided with the decision of his wife, Thalia Beldemiris, to quit her job as a private employee. She herself had nothing to do with ceramics. He started to support the laboratory secretarially and maintain a nice environment in it. Timidly, after a year of watching the work in it, she began to get her hands on clay and, as she says, “something started to happen.”
At her parents’ side is also Sofia Galigalides, who in 2018 moved to the School of Theology, but as soon as the workshop opened, she started working there and doing workshops for children.
“From one side of my house we have learned that when we take a step, we support each other” he emphasizes and adds that when asked what work he does “he proudly says that I work for my dad”. Moreover, from a young age she was fascinated by her father’s work. “I remember every summer when school closed, I begged him to take me to the lab with him,” she says.
People take part in the ceramics classes at the family workshop every day – “it’s like psychotherapy”, they emphasize – while recently groups from a multinational company that offers its employees this opportunity, on the one hand to develop their creativity, on the other to strengthen their relationships.
I was fascinated by the wheel
Thodoris Galigalides studied ceramics at the OAED Oreokastro, a course that was a one-way street for him, as he says from the first time he saw a wheel he was enchanted. There was a workshop near his father’s house that made lampshades and a gentleman made a wheel. “I was fascinated by what is constantly evolving and decided that this is what I want to learn. Children my age were playing football and I was sitting at the window and watching the gentleman work on the wheel.”
Ceramics from the Galigalidis workshop are on display until October 30, 2022 at the OTE Thessaloniki Art Showcases, curated by Yiannis Argyriadis.
The texts of the exhibition have been written by the sculptor-painter Dina Anastasiadou, the visual artist Sofia Zarari and the cultural manager Stella Tsiarvoula.
Dimitra Kehagia