Area: Urban Parks
Title: "Torre mural" (Mural on a Tower)
Site: Luis Muñoz Rivera Park in San Juan

Area: Tren Urbano
Title: "Encuentros fugaces" (Brief Encounters)
Site: Hato Rey Station

My work is a constant practice of insight and playfulness, an eagerness to leave an expressive mark. I think it has been that way since the beginning, when I was searching for my way. I studied at the National Academy of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires and had some excellent teachers. It was a strong academic foundation, and I did not revolt against it, but over time I have tried to free myself from it without losing its positive elements.   

My background and strength was in painting (1960). I abandoned it for fear of, or respect to, "major art", and sought a closer contact with the object, with "minor art." That object seemed cozy, seductive, fun. It was present in my domestic environment, from European porcelain to simple clay pottery without enameling, and Indian artifacts. Clay seemed to be an appropriate medium to explore in that sense. After finishing school, I worked at a commercial pottery factory, and had the chance to assimilate its theoretical aspects. Later I opened my own pottery workshop and taught art in schools.

Not until the late sixties, when I moved to Puerto Rico with my husband, Bernardo Hogan, did I devote myself full-time to ceramics. Puerto Rico opened up alternatives, new paths and encounters. Those encounters helped us to find our space in the island. During the eighties, Jaime Suárez, Toni Hambleton, Bernardo Hogan and myself established Casa Candina, for the promotion, teaching and development of contemporary ceramics.

At present I share a workshop with Bernardo Hogan. Bernardo's specialty is the potter's wheel, the study of clays and enamels, and I benefit from his knowledge. He makes vessels, in a process of multiple searches. His world and mine may seem apart, but they combine and enrich each other in the day-to-day creative process.

Given my background in painting, at first I used clay as a surface or cloth. With time and my increasing knowledge of the material, I sought to penetrate that surface and emerge from it, to explore its numerous possibilities, as a two-dimensional, tri-dimensional or large scale proposal. The "object" turned into human presences, fauna or flora, distorted or indefinite, seeking to surpass anecdotal reality.

In my many years of work and involvement with the creative world, nourished by the aesthetic of anonymous and known creators, I have not ceased to believe in humankind and creation. Woman-man-sign-animal-scrawls-my imagery.