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begins to apply designs to the inner surface. He may incise patterns with a sharp tool or use a small simple form to press a series of repeat patterns into the surface. These patterns vary from fairly simple to intense, detailed patterns which cover the entire surface, and he may leave some areas without pattern. The overall form has a ragged edge revealing the method of production and the overall shape of the bowl is an exceptionally refined, pure and elegant form.
Orestes does not use glazes to apply colour to his ceramics. The finish is obtained with a patina which is applied with a selection of permanent dyes and pure acrylics, which result in mottled, tactile, earthy surfaces. He has avoided glazes because his work mainly involves texture and he feels that glazes are incompatible with that approach. In Guatemala he mixes his own clay using clay from the American Standard Company to which he adds various ingredients including calcium carbonate and fluxes to bring down the firing point he wants to use of about 2000 degrees Fahrenheit. He fires the objects in a gas kiln in his studio.
Orestes now makes his home in Antigua, Guatemala where he moved when he retired from his engineering work in the USA about 15 years ago, but he is originally from Cuba where he was born in February 1932 in Camaguey. In 1959, at the time of the Cuban revolution, he moved with his family to Florida and lived for many years in the United States. He worked as an architectural draftsman and engineering designer in New York and Miami mainly for commercial buildings and projects. It was
during his time spent in Florida that he studied ceramics at the Miami Art Centre for a short time, and then taught there for several years. He fell in love with working with clay and it has been his primary medium ever since. The first objects he made were bowls and he has refined the form into an exquisite simplicity over many years. For nearly two decades he has had a partner, Rolando Suchile Gutierrez, a Guatemalan born in 1967, working with him in his studio. He is indispensable to Orestes, completing many of Orestes’ designs, especially the large wall pieces, and working on his own designs, particularly the elaborate flower compositions.
Orestes loves to look out at the landscape. From the upper terrace of his house he can see the volcanoes at a distance and the forested mountains close by. The attachment to nature is reflected in his work – seen from his terrace the trees of the forest make a repeat pattern not unlike the one he uses for his bowls. But nature is also evident in the tactile quality of the surfaces he creates, which are of the earth and most clearly imperfect and made by hand. He comments that he works from his subconscious and certainly the images and impressions from his environment reappear in his work. In his studio in Antigua, Orestes is producing objects of great beauty and fragility, with a feeling of the ephemerality of nature.
For more information on the work of Orestes Sanchez, contact
vera.artefino@
yahoo.com.
Patricia Ainslie Chief Curator Emerita, Glenbow Museum, Calgary Independent curator and writer
Kelowna, February 2011
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