The only way to develop your potential is to be straightforward, to follow your senses, to believe in your own ideas. Even a lunatic can make surprisingly interesting work, but the artist decides, aware of the world and sensitive to the present.

It is not necessary to be a genius, but is necessary to have mettle and honesty. Don’t do something in order to please other people or to get your work exhibited. It’s necessary to know where you are heading, to know your line of work, to believe your senses and have artistic ambition.

I first worked with clay when I was 12, still in primary school. Just for fun, I decided to model a classmate’s face. Looking at sculpture books for guidance provided answers to a lot of questions; for example, that it was not necessary to make the pupil of the eye. These “stolen” solutions were a secret that burdened me for years. I felt dishonest; I knew the 9-inch-high head was good, but I thought it was not entirely my work.

I didn’t do any other artwork for some time. After a couple of years in college (studying medicine and later dentistry), I tired of telling myself that what I really wanted to do was paint. When I finally started to tinker with oils, I soon felt there was an external world, extremely rich and complete in itself, that corresponded to my inner world. I realized then that the “theft” I had thought I committed as a child was just part of a path, a possible and even necessary step in the development of an artist.

I quit college and took lessons with various artists in their work-shop (painting, sculpting, etching, drawing) – daring attempts that afforded much pleasure and demand perseverance. I was striving serious: to reach a world that I had made into myth; to achieve an artistic language of my own. Meanwhile, I educated my eyes by going to museums, reading books, contemplating nature. With each new experience, I was widening my artistic outlook.

Then came marriage and children (twins). It wasn’t long before I felt the need to interrupt the non-stop routine of bottles and diapers, and decided to take throwing lessons once a week. At that point I wanted to concentrate on something entirely new, where scratch. What began as an escape from domestic chores soon acquired fundamental importance in my life. I started working exclusively with clay, built a studio at home and learned to divide time between work and family.

I have always lived in Sao Paulo, a very large and heterogeneous city, home immigrants of many origins. As an inhabitant of this major city, I had very little contact with native Brazilian art. What few cultures that survive here can only be found far from cities.

Native Brazilian art seems more remote than that of Europe-although in includes a type of ceramics that can be rich and interesting, especially that found on Marajó Island in the northern state of Pará. The same can be said of Brazilian baroque art, mainly found in the states of Bahia and Minas Gerais. Still, in Sao Paulo, it is much more difficult to find a book about Brazilian ceramics than one about work from Europe, the Orient or North America.

During childhood, my contact with art depended totally on the random availability of whatever was around me. Information could come from my grandparents, uncles and aunts (all where immigrants from foreign countries); from art books in my uncle’s library or my mother’s books about impressionist painters and the Italian Renaissance.

Later I discovered cubism and the art movements of the 2oth century, but always through reproductions. (Only as an adult, during the two years I livid in Italy and England, did I have direct contact with the originals-a time of many visits to museums that included much note taking and sketching.)

Before I started working with ceramics, I often felt a certain envy of those who have an established, perhaps ancient cultural background; who have a starting point of deeply rooted and well-absorbed truth, something basic and complete.

Today, I have come to believe that a nonacademic background is my greatest asset. I feel no inner restrictions to experimentation, nor do I have to bear the weight of tradition, which in some countries may actually hider or repress artistic expression.

Why raku? The technique is not very well known in Brazil. Highfire production is more prominent among studio ceramists due to the influence of Japanese immigrants, who settled mainly in Sao Paulo. Why, then, did I choose raku?

By chance. The first kiln I bought was a raku kiln-the cheapest I could get at the time. It was cylindrical, gas-fired and lined with refractory fiber. I still continue to use it, especially for bisque firings.

The night before my first firings I was so anxious I could hardly sleep.

The next day, after the firings, I was exhausted and enormously surprised by the outcome: some pieces cracked; on others the same glazes produced widely differing results.

What Should I do with all that rich and contradictory information? Go back to work, of course. During the ensuing trials, I learned everything I know about raku firing and glazing.

My pots are wheel thrown from a fine-textured, commercial body. Sometimes I mix various clays together to obtain different colors. Recently, I stopped adding grog, giving me greater control of the throwing process.

As to form, I start from the shapes of common, utilitarian objects-symmetrical and exact, polished by time and human use. But my concern is not with usefulness. As I develop each form. I try to reach a point of equilibrium, lightness, gentleness and harmony, making objects that transcend their utilitarianism.

My bisque firing is to Cone 08. Sometimes I reduce at the end for its effect on color.

The “drawing” stage is done in an intuitive fashion. I use several types of adhesive tape, integrated-circuit tape or any other waterproof material. As I draw on the three-dimensional form, I often remember seeing a sculpture by Matisse; it helped me understand what sculpture really is. As I walked around that piece, it transformed itself entirely (as does the human body, where each angle affords a different perspective); everything came together and formed a whole, a continuum, without beginning or end.

To accomplish this, every detail-such as the choice of a line, its quality, its position-is important. My inner rule demands a calm stroll around the piece, without being startled, except by the pleasure of discovery.

As more tape lines are added, it is necessary to know when to stop, for everything will be defined during the firing, which will add further nuances. Many a piece that seems to be finished at this stage will be ruined by the effects of postfiring reduction.

Sometimes I don’t know to continue and the pot has to wait for months, or even years, until I take it up again. In these pieces, those that seem too simple or uninteresting, I may later find a surprising solution, a new open road.

Before glazing each pot, I study possible positions in the kiln. I may decide to just set it on the shelf, or lean it against refractory material, or put it under some protection in such a way that different parts of the same piece are exposed to different temperatures.

The glazing stage involves layering two different glazes: first I dip the pieces in the least-melting (higher temperature) glaze; after drying, they receive a coat of the most-melting glaze. The tape resist in then removed and the pieces go into the kiln.

In raku firing, I control the temperature according to my intension for the pieces, playing upon the fusion point of the glaze. Color depends on the possible colors of the fired clay. Other effects are produced by the thickness of the glazes, by reduction and by smoke.

Along with that first kiln, I use another kiln that I developed myself. Also gas-fired, it consists of bricks piled up to form a base and walls that can be maneuvered according to the size of the pieces. Only the kiln’s top or lid id made of ceramic fiber.

When the desired temperature is reached, I remove the lid, throw in dry sawdust in variable quantities and, using a counterweight system, lower a metal combustion chamber, thus diminishing thermal shock by avoiding direct made of clay generally considered inadequate for raku are unlikely to crack.

The firing modifies everything, thought not always helpfully. It is still a mysterious process, and I am far from having absolute control over the variables. Many pieces go back to the kiln two or three times-until I can accept the combination of what I have made and what the firing process has added to that.

After each pot has cooled, it is washed with a coarse sponge. The unglazed areas, masked by adhesive tape or other water-repellent material, turn out black. On the glazed areas, depending on the thickness of each layer of glaze and on the temperature, at which the glaze fusion was interrupted, there will be differing amounts of crackle and black dots.

I have detailed notes and sketches of the whole process. Yet the more I keep track of the variables, the more possibilities appear-not to mention mistakes, most of which are very interesting. It is necessary then to try to understand how and why, so I can take advantage of them in the future.

My claywork was developed in this way: making decisions about desirable results and mistakes, selecting those that answered needs or opened pathways toward exciting possibilities. I have thus established my own “vocabulary,” articulated by well-determined intention, while counting on the complicity of change.


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