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p PAGE 41 • SPRING 2011


THE SCULPTURE OF FERNANDO QUIROZ


THE HUMAN FIGURE AND THE UNSEEN


BY DAAN HOEKSTRA


MAKING ART IS FOR MANY A RATHER SOLITARY PRACTICE THAT NEEDS TO BE BALANCED BY CONTACT WITH LIKEMINDED SOULS. THAT IS WHY I RARELY DRIVE PAST THE YAQUI INDIAN VILLAGE OF POTAM IN THE STATE OF SONORA, MEXICO WITHOUT STOPPING. INSTEAD, I TAKE A 2 MILE JAUNT OFF THE INTERNATIONAL HIGHWAY TO VISIT MY FRIEND FERNANDO QUIROZ. FERNANDO ALWAYS REMINDS ME WHAT BEING AN ARTIST IS ALL ABOUT, AND WHY I GOT INTO IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.


To arrive in Potam is to step back 50 years in time. And the quality of the passage of time here is different — one feels a certain timelessness. “The best thing Potam taught me was freedom,” says Fernando. As a youngster growing up in the country, freedom, open spaces, endless time, fresh air, the night, the stars, and the Pacific ocean just a few miles away, had the greatest impact on him as a child. He enjoyed planting wheat at night with his father and brothers. He cites the contact with nature as his most important early formative experience. “I’m thankful to have grown up in Potam,” he says. He is still immersed daily in Potam’s kind of altered reality and frozen time.


Las Horas, Fernando Quiroz


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