Identity
N. & I. Lempesis Co. is a family business that produces and manufactures ceramic products. The members of the company are Giannis Lempesis and his son Nikos. They founded the company in 2003 with its scope being the manufacture and sale of pottery products.
The company has been operating with its current legal form for 6 years, but it has accumulated 25 years of business experience since it constitutes the continuation of Giannis Lempesis' sole proprietorship founded in 1984. Based in the area “Valanies” of Apollonia, Sifnos, they began their joint business activity and built there the new pottery workshop that houses their exhibits.
O Giannis Lempesis was born in Artemonas, Sifnos on September 14th, 1951, and began to learn the craft of pottery at the age of 7 in Cherronissos, where he grew up. With his father as his teacher, he continued the family tradition, according to which the family has been working with pottery for 7 generations.
He began to work professionally at the age of 16-17, when he also took over his father's business. For many years, he also worked in Cherronissos at his father's workshop, with tools such as the pedal-powered wheel and the kiln using branches for kindling.
By preserving the old techniques and modernizing tools, such as replacing the pedal-powered wheel with an electric one, and changing the breaking up of the soil (the raw material for making pottery clay), which used to be carried out by manual labor and now was done with a special machine (a crusher), in 1984 he transferred the business from Cherronissos to Agia Anna in Artemonas. He continued to make the clay himself and he still baked the pieces of pottery in a kiln fired by kindling and wood. Nowadays he is often assisted by the new machine that feeds the wood-fired kiln with sawdust (wood shavings). Faithful to his family's tradition, Giannis Lempesis also wished to teach the craft himself to one of his sons.
Nikos Lempesis was born on April 9th, 1982. He grew up in Artemonas, Sifnos, and approximately at the age of 14 he began to learn the craft of pottery at his father's workshop. After a few years, once he had been initiated in pottery techniques at his father's side, he entered the family business, helping and increasing production, while always placing his own personal stamp on the ceramic goods, without altering the traditional character of ceramics from Sifnos.
Work by Giannis and Nikos Lempesis has been displayed in Switzerland, at the Panhellenic Ceramics Exhibition in Marousi, winning distinctions for their work at visual arts and ceramics exhibitions in Fyrogia and in the exhibitions of the potters' association of Sifnos. In February 2004, invited by the professor of art Daliana Katsiafika at the University of Minnesota, they presented their artwork for 15 days to a group of professors and students, putting their knowledge of Sifnian Pottery into practice, while simultaneously providing several elements of general folklore from the cultural heritage of Sifnos.