Mary Shelley chose the clay from Paradise Lost by John Milton for the opening quote of Frankenstein: "Did I ask you, / by chance, Creator, to transform / into man this clay from which I come? / Did I ever implore you to take me / out of darkness [...]?". The following report addresses four current artists from Barcelona who have also put a piece of clay in their hands to transform it into a modus vivendi. The meeting points between the craft of the potter and the myth of creation are abundant. Or to be more exact, that of self-realization in the sense of the permanent search for liberation.
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In all four cases, in that of Maria, Mar, Rosi, and Miriam, clay means breaking with the patterns of a society that insists on making us its way. Hence, the ceramist spirit is closer to the myth of Prometheus, father and benefactor of man according to ancient Greece, than to the arbitrariness of any god. Because a piece of clay coming out of the kiln is the result of a long wait. Of scrupulousness with detail. Of the caress capable of giving life to matter after having loved it through touch, probably the most incisive of the five worldly senses. Probably the one that best transmits and spreads love and pleasure among men. Touch is demanding and, at the same time, does not admit impatience. Touch is present. The child learns with touch because it is his vehicle of intimacy, of innocence. The four admit the rigor and the consequent anger that leads them to throw away pieces if they do not meet expectations. To throw away many. And yet, they accept, and I would say with a certain devotion, like a father or a mother, the imperfect result of creation.
The four artists have reached a level of differentiation that makes them unique in the present universe of ceramicsMusic is a common factor in their respective workshops: classical, Johnny Cash, Adrià Puntí, Ferran Palau, Patti Smith, Pj Harvey, Beirut, Amadou & Mariam. Also the radio, but even when they do not talk about politics or the virus. Learning to copy and seek similarity is commendable. During the interviews there have emerged multiple sources of inspirationBarceló, Picasso, Miró. The photography of Nan Golding or Harley Weir, and sculptors such as Constantin Brancusi or Jean Arp. In any case, the four artists have reached a level of differentiation that makes them unique in the present universe of ceramics.
Maria Pagès, the path is the search
Barcelona does not stand out for its pottery tradition. In fact, the Museum of Ceramics, which dated from the sixties, closed its doors at the beginning of the century to integrate into the Design Museum. In any case, the new times, partly subject to the trend of recovering ancient trades, mean that in some cases ceramics have become an excuse to explore their art. One of these cases is that of Maria Pagès Bonnin (on Instagram: @mabonnin). Maria is born and grows up in an environment of artists. This fact leads her from a young age to embrace the vocation of manual work. For Maria ceramics is the work of patience and self-affirmation: "this learning to wait for the result until, hours later, you open the oven door. This wait is what captivates", she comments.
One of the characteristics of Maria's work is the use of hands as the only resource, without wheels or molds. The key is to envision the character of the work before facing the piece, even though the process involves deviations from the initial idea. It is like someone trying to shape their own emotions knowing that these will try to twist the will. The path is the search. The experiment, more than the academy. And to conclude with the final touch: the decoration and illustration of the piece which, in Maria's specific case, focuses on the Mediterranean navy blue and off-white, which draw from a childhood of weekends and summers in Cadaqués. Her distinctive mark is the precise arrangement of the finish. On some occasions, through the adaptation of the Gyotaku technique, a science that Japanese fishermen used to record the fish they caught and sold at the fish market or in the port.
Mar del Hoyo, feminine beauty in clay
Mar del Hoyo (@levensjewels), an actress by training, found a way to combine the demands of shaping characters with the entertainment of ceramics. What happens is that ceramics has ended up becoming a passionate alternative. She tried ceramics casually during a trip to France. From that first experience came some earrings, and earrings have been the platform for multiple jewelry collections. With her partner, they started the project Levens Jewels as a game. She with the jewels and he with the camera, the perfect organic mix to catalog themselves on social media to the point of turning the brand into an authentic alter ego.
Mar assures that clay is synonymous with kindness, although, sometimes, she says, it ends up adopting traces of remarkable complexity. She also assimilates it to feminine beauty because, according to her, it allows for better concretization of aesthetics, probably because it is more linked to emotion than other materials like iron or glass. In Levens Jewels' pieces, an atavistic, mystical disposition floats. Sometimes defiant, militant, apache. The jewel speaks of the artist's inner worlds in the same way that characters do on stage. But it undoubtedly also judges the wearer.
Rosi Viader, inspiration in Scandinavian lines
Rosi Viader (@viadefang) comes from a family of cabinetmakers who, curiously, manufactured pottery wheels. Rosi studies arts and crafts at the Industrial School and soon gravitates towards ceramics given its connection to ancestral notation. Rosi's pieces recall the restoration and contemporary evolution of pieces discovered in an archaeological study. This particularity is perhaps a consequence of the functional purpose of the work, though without sparing detail in creativity. Rosi likes to combine clay with different materials. For example, wood. And she recognizes in fire the role of the soul that sustains the balance between design and practicality. The style of Viadefang, Rosi's brand, finds inspiration in Scandinavian lines: simple, basic strokes, even while standing out in differentiation through particular design.
Miriam Cernuda, a journey to a primitive dimension
Miriam Cernuda (@workingtheredwoods) assures that ceramics infiltrated her life naturally, almost without her having time to realize it. She trained in jewelry and industrial design, but ended up falling in love with clay fifteen years ago when she started playing with it, to the point of it becoming a necessity that she often wished to incorporate into her professional projects. So much so that she decided to set aside other paths and dedicate herself fully to the art of molding clay and its inexhaustible universe. For Miriam, ceramics is a journey to a primitive dimension, which she recognizes as essential in her way of understanding this art. Probably, she even says, ceramics awakens something extraordinarily close to instinct in her. Like when you find that medium that cradles your soul and that, despite spending hours and days, not only does not exhaust but comforts. Miriam identifies the process of molding clay with a dance that flows as one's own emotions are imprinted. Perhaps that is why she likes to let herself be carried away by the legacy of ancient cultures and traditional manufacturing methods. In short, by the origin and the relationship of the origin with being: weight, texture, color and, of course, touch.
After listening to Maria, Mar, Rosi and Miriam, I have the perception that there is a kind of bidirectionality between humans and clay. As if clay were capable of transmitting the passion that transpires through the skin. If so, given the art of these four proposals, the rest of us are mere amateurs who, moreover, demand to model the soul of those who love us in the likeness of the gods. A complete recklessness.