In the Workshop of a Master

On a quiet, wooded street right before the crest of Turí - a steep hill overlooking Cuenca and its four rivers, equipped with a spotlit church, viewing platform and charming village - lies the workshop of Eduardo Vega, one of Ecuador's best known ceramic artists.

I discovered his work while at a café gallery off Cuenca's plaza Otorongo. While waiting for my order of organic tamales with my friend and her work colleagues, I leisurely perused the local handcrafts on display; amongst a host of embroidered scarves, leather purses and bright oil paintings, the rich colors and abstracted, yet natural forms of a display of ceramics immediately caught my eye. I was fascinated by an ashtray, a shallow, circular dish with a face split in two colors, coral red and cloud white, lined in turquoise blue and ashen black. The style was reminiscent of Picasso, cubist and minimalistic modern art but, at the same time, held a sensibility to the natural world and its forms borrowed from Ecuador's first nations.

"Who is the artist?" I asked.

Ten minutes later, mid-tamale, my friend's boss, a woman of connections, placed a hand upon my shoulder. "This is Eduardo Vega, the artist you asked about."

No elegant words of appreciation or intelligent questions graced my mouth, but nonetheless, Vega invited me to his workshop. He continued small talk with my friend's boss, they seemed to be well acquainted, and I visited his workshop the next day with my camera in hand.














http://www.eduardovega.com/evega.htm