The predisposition of Camil·la Pérez Salvà's pottery is truly vocational. For more than thirty years she has dedicated herself to it with intensity. She has carried out an extensive personal work, for which she had to carry out a previous experimental and research task. Simultaneously to the work of creation, she has made great effort for the divulgation of the art of pottery, an aspect of the arts that does not have the recognisation and esteem that others like, painting and sculpture, have.

She has developed all these facets from the Penedès. She was born in Sant Martí Sarroca (1954), where she lived until 1977. This same year she went to live in El Vendrell where she set up her workshop until ... 1996, then she moved to Saifores. Her work, which has been shown in different exhibitions, reaches a considerable magnitude at present. While she was doing her pottery formation she was studying simultaneously to become teacher. She learnt pottery formation at the School Massana, of Arts and Artistic Professions, in Barcelona. For some years she worked as a teacher, but she kept on orientating the educational activity towards the artistic aspect, until she could dedicate herself preferably to the exercise of the art of pottery. Since 1975 she has presented personal exhibitions and she has participated in collective ones, mainly in the regions of the Penedès and nearby.

The pottery, as an applied art, forces the artist to a knowledge of quality and properties of the materials used (clays), of the behaviour in the moulding or conformation to achieve the wished forms, on the transformations from the effects of the high temperatures while cooking, depending on the materials you work on, of the enamels or other products used to obtain colours or for the superfi cial fi nish, of the volumes, of the temperatures, of the atmosphere of the oven and of other variables. The ceramist has to have a previous knowledge and the command of the behaviours of the materials that she has to use. This can only be achieved by the experience and knowledge which is complementary for the work but indispensable.

Josep Llorens Artigas (1892-1980), undoubtedly the most well-known Catalan ceramist with a wide international projection, was besides being an artist, a theorist and a promoter of the technical an aesthetic foundations of the art of pottery, for the understanding of which the reading of this texts are essential.

Every time that I want to approach to the work of a ceramist, I can not avoid the reference to the concepts and the ideas expressed by Llorens Artigas. According to him, the fi re constitutes the true science of the ceramist. Un spite of the progress of the technical discoveries, the fi re always sustains a «mystery» that does not vanish. The artist of the pottery has to foresee the action of the fi re about the pieces that he elaborates, and to have the control; this requires, from the artist, an attentive and continued observation, applied with intelligence.

Whatever, the cooking is, the type of oven, it is an adventure where risks have to be prevented. The fi re offers some huge possibilities, but at the same time it has magical effects that do not have to surprise the artist of pottery. The expert ceramist has to follow all the phases of the process with constant attention. The multiple complexities of the process require a technical, indispensable command for succeeding. Sometimes, trusting the fate, a surprisingly positive result can be obtained, but an acceptable work in its set can only come out of the hand of the artist, of the hand that executes it and who knows how to make the adequated use of the instruments that are necessary.

The observation of the set of the work of Camil·la Pérez Salvà -similarly to other expert ceramists- it allows us to admire the result obtained from a complex process.

At these stages where the artistic trajectory can be divided, Camil·la has centred the attention on different aspects or thematic areas that have served her as motive to her personal refl ection and also for developing the creations in pottery. It is to do with a central idea that she develops in a good number of pieces.

In the motives or general subjects that, in the last stages, she has taken for basics of the work have a special signifi cance the series «privacy» (around 1992), from the introspective look of the artist, «altars, tools, and pieces worked» (around 1994). «Dwellings», prick and picks with lid (from 1994), «Intimate landscapes», «prick, sediments and erosion» (2005), among others. The comment that makes Maria Dolors Giral, in her writing of this same catalogue, refl ects the basic idea about the artist.

Apart from developing the free creation in the types of pieces mentioned, the artist proposes also some pieces or semiutilitarian objects, suitable for some domestic use, more suitable to be used at tables than in kitchens.

She carries out some experimentation at the same time. One that I have personally appreciated is the one of inlaying small fragments already cooked and enamelled in the tender mud, that have to be part of a former element; in the cooking of the new piece they remain adhered solidly, incorporated in an inseparable and permanent way.

Camil·la Pérez is not only an artist, creator of a personal work, but a determined instigator of the diffusion of the art of pottery. She is conscious and regrets that in territories of countries that are not ours, the pottery has a lot more esteem, has a better recognisation, it has better reception of the lovers of the art and of the public in general. Scrolled by this restlessness, she has visited some ceramic demonstrations in foreign countries (contests, collective exhibitions, fairs, etc), and in some cases has participated; she has observed theses demonstrations with attention for grasping what can have application and good reception at our home. Afterwards she has tried to promote some samples of divulging. On the other hand, she has participated in the organisation of some collective demonstrations of pottery. And, in a more personal way, since 2003, she has opened a small and select shop in the centre of El Vendrell, devoted exclusively to pottery, where she shows and she has pieces of her own production, and which she periodically replaces with her latest ones, this is within reach of the public. The shop -maybe more a shop window or a small gallery than a commercial establishment- also offers works of other contemporary catalan and foreign ceramists, so to introduce them.

The pottery is an essential part in the life of Camil·la Pérez Salvà and her work is a fruit of this live, as well as her promoting and divulging action.