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- Duilio Torrez
Duilio Torrez
"I live in San Juan de Oriente, a small town in Nicaragua renowned for its long ceramic history and great artisans. I took my first steps into the world of ceramic art when I was a boy, as I loved playing with clay - by the time I was nine years old I was already at the potter's wheel in my dad's workshop.
<br><br>"When I'm not crafting ceramics you'll probably find me in front of an easel, painting with oils or acrylics on canvas. That's one way I support my community, by painting murals of madonnas on church walls. The thought of having my work on a sacred place makes me feel very proud.
<br><br>"You could say I'm a self-taught artist, I learned from watching dad and other artisans in the village. I never took formal classes nor had a formal teacher. I'd love to one day teach others what I have learned through the years. At the moment I'm regarded as being too you to have apprentices working with me.
<br><br>"I've worked really hard, invested long hours of practice through trial and error to be able to handcraft the high quality pieces I now make. This experience has allowed me to develop my own style of work and create my own designs, just like all artisans must do to lend their own personal touch to every piece they craft.
<br><br>"I'm a quiet person, I tend to keep to myself though I am also very kind to others. I am quite creative and I tend to work alone with mother, though now I do have some assistants who help me by finishing the pieces. I turn the pieces and decorate them, they polish and mom sells since I'm really bad at that.
<br><br>"The toughest time of my life came just before finishing high school, when I went through a severe depression. I didn't care about my studies or ceramics, I was constantly in a bad mood and didn't feel like doing anything.
<br><br>"My mother helped me overcome this and I decided to keep on studying so I enrolled in university to study systems engineering at a technical level. This gives me another reason to feel proud, because having a university degree means I'll be able to improve mine and my mother's quality of life."
<br><br>Duilio and Paola, his mother, knead the clay with their feet - a technique used by many ceramists throughout Nicargua to achieve a desired consistency. Duilio works on a potter's kick-wheel as he shapes the piece by hand and when it's ready he uses a pumice stone to smooth out any imperfections. After priming the piece with three coats of paint, the Duilio prepares colors from crushed stones and proceeds to paint free-hand. Depending on the design and finesse of the patterns, Duilio might use brushes made with human hair or even the spike off a bicycle wheel. He uses the pit of the <i>zapote</i> fruit to polish the piece prior to placing in the artisan kiln. When the piece is baked, it is polished one last time to bring out the colors.