Swift and de Freitas chose Porches for its history as a pottery centre, dating back for many centuries, and for its clay pits.
The origins of Porches Pottery date to the early 1960s, when Irish artist Patrick Swift first came to the Algarve and encountered a region with a system of commerce and production based around craft activities that had changed little since the Middle Ages.
‘People don’t buy them anymore’, say the potters, ‘so we’ve stopped making them.’"[1] Swift was motivated to revive the craft and prove that the traditional craft-based form of socio-economic production, that had existed throughout Europe until the Industrial revolution, could be successful in the modern world.
Swift purchased common oxides from the local hardware store, constructed a wood-burning kiln and proceeded to decorate Gregório's pots.
They trained local people in the mastered control of the brush, painting freely and directly onto tin glaze in the traditional majolica technique.
Style: The two artists researched the designs and motifs of ancient pottery, visiting museums throughout Europe, until finally some basic patterns began to emerge as being typical of the influences imposed by past civilisations that had once dominated the Algarve.