My Art Studio at La Cueva, Villa de Leyva

Finally, it is done. The construction of my studio started last October and now, April 12th, on my 70th Birthday we inaugurate it!
Our kids came for the celebration. Ricardo had announced his coming from Seattle since last November.

This kiln was ade by Jorge Perez, some 25 years ago. It work perfect.

gas (will be changed for a 500 L bottle 

The studio, kiln room and Ricardo's workshop seen from our house. Still some work to finish

Mar'ia, Chema and Alejo just showed up from Canada late Thursaday for the intimate celcebration of both events on friday: Birthday and opening the Studio. Both were so filled of love, of soul, of kind and good wishes, tenderness and joy. Hard to describe, it would be easier with a drawing or with some of the photos from this marvelous day. So, here are a few.

I wrote a page, here it is...

2012 Work... work... work...

It's been a produltful year, full of work.
In February, with Hanne, we made the mural
ElMuralNuestrasRaices

other time with Artist Marta Combariza, trying my new wind flutes to be fired

Making ceramic flutes, foo, didjerido, several names of large flutes...
Here, the sound of one:
sound of large flute  

The longest I can fit in my kiln, 75 cm

Add capHanne's leafs, some of my pieces drying

Plastic green house for slow drying clay pieces 

work in process 

Kiln protection against the wind!!!

In march, april, may, work in the provisional Studio

2012 fin de año

Terminar obra, ornamentadores, carpinteros, pintores, maestros... 

Navidad 2011 

Mas fotos en este album,
2012 Año de Movimientos 

Cerrando un año intenso...
Empacar, decidir, reempacar, desempacar, organizar, terminar...
Sembrar, recoger, limpiar, pintar, desmanchar...
Compartir, recibir abrazos, preparar la cena, amasar el pan...
Organizar un Taller provisional en la Casa de El Alto de La Cueva
Iniciar trabajo de cerámica, ubicar el horno... muy ventoso...
hacemos barreras de viento con cobijas, cartones, láminas...
no funciona bien, aqui hay mucho viento permanentemente
Tomar la decision finalmente, de construir mi Taller..
los susurros de Riky: -has hecho ya cuatro... este será el último Taller...
hazlo bien, con todo lo que has soñado que necesitas...
Comenzamos otra obra...
descubro que entre menos, más...
simplificar al máximo el dseño, el espacio...
Un rectángulo con ventanas y un espacio protegido del viento para el horno.
Que sea un Taller de Arte, no solo para cerámica...
que sea para compartir, para crear con otros, para recuperar mi espacio de silencio...
de paz...

En febrero tuvimos la visita de mi amiga ceramista hanne y su esposo Bruce.
Durante el mes hicimos el mural "Nuestras Raíces"
Un mes de trabajo intenso.
El diseño lo hice en Ottawa a raíz de un Taller de Murales, dictado por Peter King en el Estudio de Hugh Hamilton. Al ver lo que se hizo, decidí, esto es lo que voy  a hacer en la Cueva. Un gran mural, honrando nuestras raíces, la guadua y el maíz.  Mural con Hanne

Cerramos el año. Un buen año. Lo que sigue, continuar trabajando, cocinando, creando la vida, cuidando de la familia, los hijos,  nietos y nietas,  sobrinos y sobrinas... amigos del corazón, amigas del alma.... hacer una danza a la Vida... con Ricardo.
R. 

feeling home, work is hard

 watering grass and alfalfa seeds. It works syphoning from the lake, the pond, rather. Such joy!

 Gardening, first flowers worship the Sun

 

Construction over, the garden starts

 From our window, the evening sun

 Our first gathering… what is hope? to plant a garden

10 años en Ottawa, time to go back home

July 20, 2001.
We come to Canada. Ten years ago. Ten years I could name as a main chapter in my life.
Being here, as an Artist. Work, exhibitions, support, a feeling of belonging through art and my work.
Ten years of starting life with our extended family here, in Canada. Ten years of pain, solitude, many questions asked, a new path found. Hard work within, questions like, ¨who am I?¨, ¨what am I doing here?¨, ¨what is this all about?¨... Ah, life. I entered the path of contact with my being many years ago, but these 10 years have been of hard work trying to answer some of the questions asked. During my last show those were the questions in the center of the Labyrinth, now I see I was closing a circle, I was preparing my body and soul for a further move. Now, I see it clearly, it has been an invitation from Life to be back, start again in our own land, our mountains, our culture, back home. The link is to my Blog made during the past couple of years, while starting this Project. Now it is the time to go, live it. Start again, a new beginning, when we will celebrate our 50th anniversay next July and I will be 69 in April. Time to start again. Life will tell us what´s next, we wish to come during the Summer months, live here for half a year, half here, half there. Life will tell...

http://lacueva-villadeleyva.blogspot.com/
http://lacueva-villadeleyva.blogspot.com/

a slide show here of our Project for the next 100 years

El proceso de nuestro proyecto en fotos

Who I am

I found clay with a group of women back in 1983 at "La Casa de la Mujer del San Jorge", the centre of my life during the seven years we lived in Montelíbano, Córdoba, Colombia.
I worked with grass root women doing whatever was needed, and for several years as a volunteer Birth Companion, intuitive work, valued experience to become a Certified Doula today. There, and then, while working as a social researcher I repeated: ¨woman’s liberation starts in our pockets¨ while working with 16 women groups in the region. One group wanted to make pottery; another to give support to pregnant women. And 14 other themes. These two groups changed my life.

I am now a Mixedmedia Artist and a Doula. I believe this is the way Life shows its beauty and its gifts. “Our elders were potters, so we must learn how to do it”. And we did. The hard way. Go to the creek to look for clay. -“It looks and feels like soap”-, my daughter María told me over a long distance call. She is an artist and knows. She is my mentor and critic, my "Maestra".

Our work started, simple, elementary: low temperature bisqued figures of dancing women, their dresses painted red with acrylic colors and white polka-dots. And there it came to me, the BLISS of clay work. More than twenty years have gone by. They still work with clay and I am still in love with the softness and plasticity of clay, and yes, it feels like soap.

Clay is endless: all possibilities to express ourselves, to develop our own artistic language through the mystery of form, of contraction and expansion, the interaction of my soul through my hands with earth, water, air and fire. Now I am in Canada with Ricardo, my life-companion since 1962.

I have made a bridge between work in South America and my life here. Daily work in my Studio and an endless learning about life: "our main work of art is our own life". I have participated in collective and solo exhibitions combining woman-flowers, birds and angels as a statement against violence towards women and war. Again and again I make a “mountain” of clay to express our belonging to mother-earth; I play with light and shadow following Carl Jung’s concept of archetypes and our individual and collective shadows. It is the work we must do with our own personal shadow and our collective shadows.

 I work flowers, birds and angels, sculptures as symbol of love, freedom and peace. I seek to express myself as a woman committed with Life, peace, suffering, violence, death, joy, hope, love and Being. Now, I am over 60 and start each day on my path with a new understanding where the Unknown moves deep inside and pushes my daily Work. All of it. I live love with Ricarado, my family and others. I live the passion of giving support to pregnant women as a Doula (or birth companion)

I express myself in all I do, -cooking, knitting, gardening, playing, painting, making pots... all this is "my main work of art, my life".

2009. New year, new life, new plans and dreams

New Year. New Life. New Work...

plans and dreams of travels.

Last year was a difficult one.

So I did these "Six Healing Angels"

to heal and give myself support and gratitude.

They keep us company in our home, in front of my husband Ricardo's Father's oil painting of El Quijote

And a sculpture honoring Lysanne and Alejo, our son, expecting their first baby, Gabriel

Gabriel, born Sept 13 2008

at the General Hospital in Ottawa!

Alejo has been a dad for 10 minutes.

Emilia and Luisa with their cousin, Gabriel

Some of my work this year:

Madonna of the Garden

and Madonna of de Sea

Set of porcelain plates with birds,

bisque fired, drawing with under glazes,

engobes and oxides. After they will be will refired

with clear glaze.

These Five little windows are called

"I peek... inside myself"

During the past three years I have been fusing glass in the kiln. Now I also have a small jewlery electric kiln.

It has been a challange, new experience

and a whole world of learning...

How to make jewelry with glass, how to fuse, make moulds or to fuse it on my pieces.

Sometimes successful

others a total frustration

and an invite to continue...

small glass dish, fired 4 times

In February we will go back to Seattle

to give support to our son.

To be with him for radiation treatment

after two Thyroid cancer surgeries

in October and December.

He is now healed!

Photos during our last visit, the Needle in Seattle:

Visiting Stephen Hirt's glass Studio with the boys,

and the amazing Uwajimaya Market

Candle lit honoring Claudia.

She left a year ago.

when we are back, ready for Spring our grandson Gabriel

will be six months old!!!

Today we were with him and Lysanne, his lovely mom.

He is the most beautiful baby we have seen.

Smiling, goooo goooo ing and chewing his chubby little tiny hands.

Gracias a la Vida...

2008 in my Studio, starting again

My Studio is my temple. Each time I go in, I start again. Whatever. There are tree spaces in my studio: a fireplace makes a cozy corner for reading, sitting and being in silence. In front of the window is the second space for work in the computer. the third one is my work studio, my temple. Here there is no time, the only thing there is, is to be here. It is where I sit and work. And when lost, I start again. I play with photos, send them and keep contact with family and friends through the most wonderful technological invention ever: email. And here I work with clay, glass, rods, copper wire, wax. Whatever material to be transformed into living forms.

My temple is silence, solitude, peace. Taking each work at a time.

2007, this Good Year, painful year, and my work

2007 has been a pain year with Claudia's health. We were with them in Seattle in april for Easter and Birthdays, Tomas' and mine. By the end of the year she was so ill... in November we thought of traveling to be with her and the family, but our son Ricardo said, let's wait. And we did. We knew it would be her last Christmas and New Year's.

So my heart has been in sorrow, being here but also there with them in my heart.
And while here working, kept on my work with Angels. It helped me to be in peace and understanding the non-understandable. How can a young mother die?

This year I finished a beautiful series of eight Angels. New expression. New mixed media, some glass, textures, shapes. They became powerful. Tall, wide, terracota work and the wings in clay did not look so well, too big and heavy, so I changed them to 3/16 copper tube.

Angel of Peace. . . .
Angel of Love. . . .
Angel of Nature. .
Angel of Youth..
Angel of Maternity

Angel of Life. . . . .

Guardian Angel for the Garden. .

.