The Cool Projects

marina in the studio with a myriad of samples, old pieces, pieces in the making, ready ones waiting to leave the studio, to be exhibited, to find their final destination. Some other pieces by students and participants who have been coming in the last 3 years to follow classes, workshops and retreats.

Creative Flow
19-25 September 2026

A few spots left for a unique week in Aegina. The sun will still be warm and shiny, the sea welcoming, the food tasty. An ideal last minute gift to yourself or a dear friend.

A week immersion into your own creativity with the soft guidance of Yanis. He will help you see how to approach the creative process in a way that may be unfamiliar and yet will feel natural to you; in a safe environment, a studio filled with colours and tools. Observation and play will come together and allow you to draw, paint, explore, take a break, go for a walk, come back, try something new...

Want to know more? DM us, email us, call us.

Pieces made earlier this summer in one of marina's Shape & Decorate retreat where clay is burnished and polished, and then fired in reduction to get this beautiful black, at times mat, at times shiny and other times shinier. As participants walk to the studio, they pick up elements from nature that might inspire them to use as texture on their pieces - a way of decorating them: a fig leaf, a flower, a seed, a shell.

Next Shape & Decorate Workshop: September 26 - October 3. Please not there are only workshop spots left. Contact us for more information.

As our three summer exhibitions in Amorgos, under the overall title Mnemosyne, curated by Yanis Zagorianakos have come to an end, we remember hanging some of Yanis's paintings earlier this summer, still in Aegina, to start getting a sense of how they will look when hanging together. We could never have imagined how beautifully and almost magically these exhibitions would have gone, particularly Mneme, the third and final one, which brought together many artists, each with their own practice. Practices and pieces that kept on growing and changing and creating new dialogues as days went by. The old school of Kolofana, a space with a special energy and wonderful analogies, the garden around it, the wind became the perfect setting for an ongoing dialogue between all of us.

Exploring wild clays and where clays come from, how to forage them is a central part of marina's ceramics retreats. It is a way of connecting to the long line of potters who came before us and have been making pots of all sorts for thousand of years. A way of understanding the amount of work that goes into it: foraging the clays, preparing them, letting them sit, for months of even years, to finally use them and make pots and vessels of which we see so many shards as we walk the earth, as well as reconstructed pots or even unbroken ones in museums.
Contact us if you are interested in one of our retreats. We will be delighted to welcome you in our studio.

There are three more workshop and retreats with Yanis until the end of the year to explore the creative process through colours and pigments and a myriad of painting exercises. Come dive into the creative flow and let yourself be guided by your own creativity, however hidden you may feel it is and allow it to do its thing.
Dates available:
19-25 September
17-23 October
5-11 December
Contact us for more details. In the meantime, enjoy your summer.

Looking to close your summer holiday with a creative holiday? Why not take a plane and then a boat to finally dock on the island of Aegina and spend a week in marina & yanis's studio to explore clays and how you can use them to hand build pieces that you will take back home with you.
Contact us if you are interested.
We look forward to welcoming you at Aegina Retreats, in September or any other time.

From our workshop with George Vavatsis.
We picked wild, local clays. Prepared them. Mixed them. Used them.
We made slips and tried them too.
We fired them and had wonderful results... and many cracked pieces that didn't make into the kiln.
More research to be done. A clay body to be used with what the island has to offer us.
Thank you George, thank you all of you who came and took it all with such generosity - the creative process in ceramics is so similar to the process of life. We are constantly faces with our limitations and with our ability to imagine and adapt.

Enjoy Spring, enjoy the birds, enjoy nature!