My studio in Barcelona                   Reduction in a gas kiln

    My admiration for the potter’s wheel led me to go into this fantastic technique as it is the ceramics.

    I started working in a ceramist and later on in a pottery, together with wheel professionals, with people that loved clay and enjoyed it. This is how I learned to comprehend the form and feel it inside myself.

    We throw through the pressure，and helped by the turning of the machine we are able to create objects and volumes that we enjoy to have in contact with our hands when we use them．

    The constant renewal that this life calls for brought me to widen my studies with the Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts, specializing in sculpture.

    This rupture allowed me to go into the sculpture world. I started using pieces of iron that l looked tor in the scrap, yard and used them to press into the clay. The results were solid pieces full of cracks that made reference to the treatment they had undergone: PRESSURE. These pieces suffered some movements during the drying process, as if they were alive, until they reached its final form when the fire gave resistance to the material.

    At the beginning I enameled the pieces as if they were utilitarian ceramic pieces. However, as I got further into the process. I realized that the material reaction was hidden by the ceramic enamel, as if it was a sheath. The pieces I enameled at the beginning had to have a treatment that made reference to the material with which they had been made of IRON. The relation between iron and clay brought me to fully incorporate the former to my pieces.

I worked with diverse types of earths like stoneware and refractory. Then I felt the need of only using compact and fine clay such as stoneware and porcelain. In the short term I did not use refractory clay because it is a rough material in which traces of what had happened were hardly reflected.

 Parallel, I used the potter’s wheel under the sculpture criteria from a solid slab I was able to bring outside the art work that was hidden. I used the stoneware. I was interested in its hardness and resistance, as if it was a stone. At the same time, its fineness allowed me to concrete forms and precise lines more accurately.

    0nce these volumes were finished I gave them a personal touch by hitting them or by working them with the grindstone.

    This showed, like in every human being, the problems they had suffered and overcome.

    The technique was not easy. I had to work by putting a lot of pressure on the material in order to obtain a compact structure.

    The strength that my body was able to put through my hands was not enough to meet the objective. Finally, I was able to achieve this compact structure, this unity, by stepping on it before throwing．

    The desire to create forms and experience them with my own body led me to work the utilitarian ceramics under the non-utilitarian aspect. Vases, jars, bowls, recipients...I used to change its usual function.

  Steping before throwing     Girona study Years 1986~1999

    Every utilitarian piece must be lightweight and do not have holes or cracks. My pieces were heavy and full of cracks, and in some cases, if the crack was excessively big I put some iron staples as if it was an ancient piece that had been, restored. The handles were joined to the piece through holes and did not accomplish its utilitarian function. The handles were made of iron, this way the iron was introduced again in my works as handles, in some cases under the form of cable and in others under the form of screw or female. I joined these two materials before firing them so they could engage in a dialogue together with the fire.

The ceramic shrinks after firing and the iron expands. What a diverse and at the same time possible dialogue. Due to the location where I had my study at that time .I also worked with red clay that contains iron．This fact allowed me to make strong reductions with the aim of unifying the materials and harmonize the resulting volumes.

However, this was not possible with the porcelain. The iron dyed the clay and this obliged me to assemble the handle once the volume had been fired. The same happened with the staples, unless I fired the porcelain in reduction transforming the volume into a black color volume.

The fact of working with recipients made me wonder several questions such as why must the base of a recipient be of the same material than the body? If a recipient becomes non-utilitarian, the base can also be made of a different material such as glass. Glass is very much related to porcelain. Or why not use polypropylene as a material related to new technologies?  Plastic and porcelain, what a great and diverse mixture of materials, one is heavier than the other, one is an organic material and the other is not…

The trace of my hands could often be appreciated on the volumes, fact that granted the pieces a movement sensation.

    And why not a handle made of silicone or rubber? The rubber has a shorter life than ceramics and cannot dialogue well. The silicone handle allowed me to experience with the sensation that a heavy body gives when suspended by an elastic thread. What a marvelous dialogue between a hard and resistant material like the stone and another that is so ductile and flexible.

    And why should goblets be subject to the base forming a single body! The spiral rod allowed me to create a different sensation than the one I was used to.

And why not write with porcelain? Porcelain and paper, fragility, subtlety, tranquility...what relation can they have? Do they understand each other? Sometimes before the firing, sometimes during the firing .Finally, I get to the work made out of paper clay. How should it be worked? As if it was paper or cardboard. To cut, fold, glue, join...The paper texture, the cardboard paper, the racks of the folded parts...

My studio in Barcelona