Paparkone Ceramics: From Wheel to Wonder

Antònia, the dimoni, watches from the corner. Her mischievous grin carved into clay seems to flicker from a shelve at the Paparkone showroom, hidden at the end of a leafy backyard off Carrer Sant Feliu. You step through the door and suddenly you’re not in Palma anymore. You’re somewhere softer, slower, where time behaves differently. Here, everything is made by hand, and nothing is made in a rush. A mug winks from a shelf. A platter leans nonchalantly against a wall like it knows its own charm. There’s nothing loud in this place, yet everything whispers a story.

A Collection of Stories

Paparkone’s ceramics don’t come in collections as much as in chapters of a personal novel. Take the Amalfi series. It began with a memory. Roberto as a boy, barefoot and sunburnt, helping the fishermen untangle nets before the boats went out. The blue-and-white dishes, edged with lazy fish in cobalt strokes, hold not just food but the smell of salt and the hush of morning.

The Babette series came during a time of joyful chaos, endless dinners, friends visiting from Italy, laughter echoing off tiled walls. Those plates, round and generous, are meant for feasts. Not perfection.

From Naples to Palma

Roberto Paparkone was not always a ceramicist. In fact, he was once an architect, trained in the exactness of line and angle. But somewhere along the way, architecture began to feel too rigid, too final. Then one day, someone gave him a ceramic workshop for his birthday.

Just a few hours. He didn’t think much of it. But something happened with the clay. A slowness. A silence. The ability to shape, destroy, reshape. He never quite walked away from the wheel again.

In 2023 Roberto was awarded a Premio Artesania, the Artisans awards assigned by the Consell de Mallorca. Yet he doesn’t consider himself an artist or a master potter. More like a translator between memory and form, between usefulness and beauty.

Hands in Clay, Together

Paparkone isn’t only about Roberto’s hands, though. It’s about community. About collaboration.

Over the years, the studio has created custom pieces for beloved restaurants like Ca Na Toneta, where form and flavor meet. And Made in Mallorca took Paparkone’s work abroad, telling the story of the island through design.

Workshops happen often, some spontaneous, others planned. The wheel spins. Ideas form. Clay teaches all the same thing: let go, shape gently.

And Still, the Dimoni

And as you prepare to leave the studio, Antònia, the dimoni, is still there. Watching. She’s the guardian of this little world. Wild, wise, and slightly wicked. At Paparkone, you don’t just buy a bowl. You step into a story. And if you listen closely, the clay will tell you one of its own.