Sculptor Cristina Córdova, IDENTITY episode

I'm a figurative sculptor. I feel I need to draw out of the clay a sense of presence. You keep playing with the idea of basic anatomical structures and trying to preserve symmetry and just keep slowly compounding that until you feel something clicks in and it's a little bit inhabited. This is definitely an exploration. Staying open and just have a dialogue with the material and just playing and just reacting and building from there. Heads are this primal archetype of consciousness and it's just really what first hooked me with the figure and then I slowly worked my way down and I only really got to the legs like maybe seven years ago. Cristina has achieved a mastery. She masters the material, the scale of her work, the precision but beyond that is very strong images that are potent images. They really hit you hard. The work is very Latin American, it's very Caribbean but I think it can talk to everybody. So I'm originally from Puerto Rico. I grew up there but I've lived in Penland for the past 15 years. I have two daughters, 12-year-old Eva and Paloma who's 17. This place where we've decided to settle that is somewhat foreign to me is a holy home for them like this is their home. I kind of stipple, I just go like this. In North Carolina I feel I'm very separated in some ways in terms of what my first language is and what my history is. When I go back it's almost like Puerto Rico makes me feel invisible in a good way like I'm just part of the background. Puerto Rican identity is at the core of everything that I depart from to understand the world. As far back as I can remember my mom has always been supporting her children's art making. She was a very artistic girl. When I noticed that she was really good at it I put it in some to take some classes when she was only two and a half years old. Even though art was so deeply appreciated in my house I didn't grow up with a model of how that could transform into a viable profession. I decided that engineering might be a route for me and so I started exploring that and pretty immediately realized that oh no. Church going was part of our family tradition and my mom collected carved saints. Coming from a Catholic home I wanted them to be exposed to that type of art because it's true for God. I had always been surrounded by these really dramatic religious images that were intended to draw someone into this very receptive emotional space and I think it's something that I was able to draw from as I was developing my figurative practice. Before I launch into these projects I do like a photographic research session. This model in particular is my daughter Eva. Very human like she studied a lot of like anatomy and the things like there's like a bone here and I was like oh there's so many different attributes that play into making the whole sculpture. I've thought about expression a lot. Are they potentially experiencing joy, torment or sadness? Oftentimes I use maybe a sense of tension or movement in the hands to hint of this emotional state as opposed to holding it in the face. I want the face to be the face you have when all the activities happening on the inside. It's a very neutral gesture in the face. Most of the work breaks apart and I try to do those in alignment with the clothing and I will build a base so that she can fire up right in the kiln. Everything will be bisqued and then glazed until she's like I'm done. After I graduated from the University of Puerto Rico in Madagascar I was just really in love with this material like infatuated and you know the options were limited at the time but I came across a workshop owned by this woman Antonia Hamilton. When she got to my studio I told her you have my distant hands but let's start. She started doing figures, small figures. Her parents came and I said you know she might not make it yet economically but she is one of those few people that the world enriches us with. And so I decided to move to the United States. Went to Alfred University did my master's in ceramics and then I went to study at the Florence Academy of Art and eventually made my way to become a permanent resident of Penland. At Penland people come from all over the world to engage in the creative practice. We specialize in immersive craft workshops and we are always looking for interesting people to invite. Christina said I'd like to invite Jaime Suarez. He was my teacher. He's a very important artist in Puerto Rico. I said great let's do it. I was born and live in Puerto Rico. I studied architecture but at some point in my life I became a ceramic artist. That took me into other things but I've come to the conclusion after many years of work that my medium is not the material that my medium of expression has always been texture and that I say everything through texture whether it's texturing paper and clay and concrete that's the medium. So we're building this texture on this face trying to just create some sort of imaginary historical residue. We're spraying vinegar which causes a chemical reaction on the surface of the clay. This is something Jaime does in his practice. I'm taking the opportunity to collaborate and understand the possibilities of this. One of my passions is teaching and I think the responsibility of the teacher more than teaching it's inspiring. And she says that's what I gave her. So I'm very proud when you see a student that tells you you inspired me to reach the levels that she has reached. I have a large family collection of art that started in 1695 and it's been handed down to only one person per generation. I'm the seventh inheritor. And when I saw her figures I decided to acquire some pieces. And the one that I prized the most is called The Getaway. It's sort of surrealistic. That's what attracted me to it. These are the best contemporary ceramic pieces I've seen. I have others that are from Puerto Rico or from other Latin American countries but this is a top certainly. Puerto Rico has given a lot of very good art art and artists. It's really refreshing to see that in this moment of crisis there's a whole new generation of young artists really doing interesting things. Huracán María was devastating. But even before María we also have political hurricanes. It's a lot of struggle. It's really hard time. So we're losing a lot of people that are coming to the States. But I think Cristina is being able to maintain the connection. Sometimes if you're away from what you where you should be or where you want to be it reinforces the search for that identity. And I think it comes through in her work in many ways. In my work the bow became the symbol for passage and transition. And so she has this flag ready to maybe stake ground somewhere. And this creature that I understand is a part of herself maybe this duality between reason and instinct. And I think in creating this piece that was the spirit that I was lining myself with. It's this energy of wanting to push beyond what was known and wanting to explore and discover and grow.