Juan Pablo Martínez Muñoz

Alfarería Tito

Ceramicist

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When tradition meets innovation

Juan Pablo now runs the workshop set up by his father
He won the Spanish national prize for innovation in craftsmanship
He trains disadvantaged young people in his craft

Juan Pablo Martínez Muñoz’s father created a pottery workshop, Alfarería Tito, in 1965, and passed on his love of pottery to Juan Pablo at a very early age. At the time the workshop was created, Juan Pablo’s father faced many challenges related to rapid industrialisation in Spain. He decided that if his work were to survive he would have to transform his production – until then based around the manufacture of clay pitchers – into something suitable for modern demands. These days the workshop creates objects for the contemporary market using centuries-old techniques passed down from master artisan to student, generation after generation.

Interview

Do you take inspiration from anywhere in particular?
Within the workshop, we have a museum collection including some 700 ceramic pieces from all over the Iberian Peninsula, from Galicia to the Canaries. Apart from being an attraction for our visitors, they are also there as a daily and essential source of inspiration.
What do you most like about what you do?
I decorate my pieces with calligraphy using cobalt. I turn the central piece out of clay, and I enjoy doing that, but the process of decoration is what I most enjoy doing. I see it as the most intellectual part of my work.
Which pieces are the most successful?
Those that incorporate tradition and respect form but are decorated in a more eclectic way, with Renaissance or Baroque influences. These are the pieces that particularly catch our customers’ attention because on the one hand they convey tradition and the other a sense of the avant-garde.
Do you train people in your workshop?
I work with a local educational institution and also have annual residents, sometimes from very diverse disciplines. For example, we had a neurologist from Los Angeles who was doing work on neuron rehabilitation, because working on a lathe helps you develop an impressive neuronal ability.

Juan Pablo Martínez Muñoz is a master artisan: he began his career in 1977 and he started teaching in 1995