The Finds: A Little Piece of Sicily, Found in Sitges
Sometimes the best things you bring home from a trip are the things you never went looking for.
On one of our last days in Sitges, Spain, we were doing what we love to do on vacation—wandering. No real agenda. A little shopping, a little people watching, and plenty of stopping whenever something caught our eye.
Then we saw this.
A wildly expressive ceramic head covered in fish, shells and creatures of the sea, glazed in extraordinary shades of turquoise, deep red and almost-black. It was strange. Beautiful. A little theatrical.
In other words, we loved it.
Hanging from it was a small tag:
Antonio Fratantoni. Handmade in Sicily, Italy.
And suddenly our find had a story.
Made in Sicily
Antonio Fratantoni grew up in Santo Stefano di Camastra, a Sicilian town renowned for its centuries-old ceramic tradition. Ceramics are also part of his family's history: the Fratantoni family has been producing pottery since 1935. Antonio grew up around the craft and has continued the tradition while experimenting with new approaches to color, form and modeling. (Antonio Fratantoni)
That's what makes his work so interesting to us.
It doesn't feel like a reproduction of the past.
It's unmistakably Sicilian and Mediterranean, but there's something exuberant and contemporary about it. Fratantoni's work ranges from traditional Teste di Moro to sculptural pinecones, vessels, tiles and fantastical pieces inspired by nature and the sea. His work has even extended into collaborations, including a limited-edition project for Birra Messina and a handmade terracotta piece for Acqua di Parma. (Antonio Fratantoni)
Tradition, without being trapped by tradition.
We like that idea.
From Sicily to Spain to Palm Springs
And that's how a piece handmade in Sicily somehow found us in Sitges.
Soon, it will make another journey.
To Palm Springs.
We can already picture it at Laswell: sitting on the kitchen counter, filled with something sculptural and slightly dramatic, bringing an unexpected flash of Mediterranean color into a house built in the California desert.
Does a Sicilian ceramic belong in a 1948 Palm Springs house?
Absolutely.
Because we're not interested in creating a museum of mid-century design.
We want Laswell to feel collected.
A house filled with objects that remind us of people we've met, places we've wandered, artists we've discovered and moments we don't want to forget.
Years from now, someone might look at this wonderfully strange turquoise face and ask:
"Where did you find that?"
And we'll get to tell them about a hot summer afternoon wandering the streets of Sitges, when a little piece of Sicily stopped us in our tracks.
That's the kind of souvenir we love.
Not something that simply says where you've been.
Something that keeps the story going.
That's the art of vacation living.
Antonio Fratantoni’s fantastical Sicilian ceramics stopped us in our tracks while wandering Sitges—a little piece of the Mediterranean, discovered in Spain and destined for a new life in Palm Springs.