Although dealing with the Islamic ceramic aesthetic, Carolinda Tolstoy creates her own distinctive, style. Born and brought up in England, her cosmopolitan ancestral background is a rich source for her work. The descendant of a Middle Eastern dynasty with international connections, she is also linked to the great Russian literary family. During her time at the Chelsea Pottery; a growing divergence from the minimalism of her contemporaries became a chasm. While her fellow potters were drawn to pared-down south-east Asian ceramics, Tolstoy discovered the complex, ornate, often sumptuous character of the Islamic collections at the Victoria and Albert Museum. If at first the inspiration was visual and intellectual, it deepened into a personal, passionate involvement when she began travelling and working abroad. Having discovered Persian art in a book she finally arrived in Iran in 1975. Here she visited ceramic centres in Esphahan, Shiraz and Mashdad, and absorbed the ancient culture of Bukhara, Samarkand and Khiva in Uzbekistan. Immersion in other areas of Islamic cultural heritage - in Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif and Bamiyan in Afghanistan, Istanbul and eastern Turkey - followed. She worked at local potteries in Paris, Mytilene (Greece), 'the place of my greatest influence and inspiration since childhood', and created new designs for a commission from the Umbaldo Grazia Factory in Deruta, Italy.
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