Penélope Vallejo

Ceramicist

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Harvesting clay and glazes

Penélope’s artistic research incorporates art and science
It is her second career, she has no regrets about changing
She likes to experiment with the potter´s wheel, paper clay and glazes

Penélope Vallejo was seven years old when she began making pottery as a hobby and realised that she could create pieces relating to the nature that surrounded her in Santa María de Palautordera, a Catalan town in the Montseny Nature Park. At the age of 28, while working as a quality control engineer, she determined that this was not the path she wanted to follow and left her job to devote herself to pottery. Her first degree in Food Industries Engineering had given her a good grounding in Chemistry and Physics, which turned out to be very useful in ceramics. But she wanted a more formal training so went back to study a degree in Fine Arts and attended courses related to her new discipline. She opened her workshop in 2007 and began creating utilitarian pieces. Today she also makes ornamental ceramics, holds workshops and owns a pottery shop. “This ancestral trade connects us with something intimate and basic,” she says, convinced that it has offered her an opportunity to unite sciences with art. “Joining my technical with my artistic side is my challenge and purpose”.

Interview

What is the main education you remember?
The first lesson I learned in a family workshop in my village was communicating with the materials and observing the reality around me to capture it in the mud. Since I was a child, I also learned cultivating patience and enjoying this long and slow artisan process.
Why did you choose this trade?
A primary school teacher suggested to my parents that I would be well suited to ceramics, since I was a quiet and meticulous child in my approach to manual work. When I changed the path of my career, I realised that this would allow me to match my artistic and scientific brain.
In what way is your trade linked to where you live?
My hometown, where I still live and where my workshop is located, belongs to the Montseny Nature Park area. I have had nature close to me and have been able to observe and study its flora, fauna and geological richness. We find here both the clays with which we build our pieces and the minerals with which we make the glazes.
How do you express tradition and innovation in your work?
I like to investigate the properties of the materials I use to bring out their aesthetic potential. I preserve the tradition of our trade, in some cases its utilitarian value, but elevating it to a more artistic level, looking for all the possibilities that it offers us.

Penélope Vallejo is a master artisan: she began her career in 2005 and she started teaching in 2005