From floor to ceiling and from head to toe,
Julieta Álvarez is art.
Her love for ceramic, for geometric and chaos, make all her pieces actual objects of desire. From her workshop in Madrid we discovered the essence of her magic.
First of all, why did you choose ceramic? Since when you love this material?
I’m in love with ceramic because is a material that allows almost everything. You can experiment with it, try new things, learn, make jewellery, sculptures or just disconnect from the world and lose track of time. When I was a kid I played a bit with ceramic, my dad is pretty good moulding and he used to bring pottery lumps home. I come from a fashion background and I’ve worked as a graphic designer too, but from five years now, I needed a change and I decided to take a course imparted by Resu Labrador, an artisan that had a workshop near home. I used to go there full of ideas, and she teached me different techniques to achieve my objectives. Since then, I haven’t stopped!
Regarding the previous question, When did you decide to focus on jewellery?
The first thing I’ve made related to jewellery was to participate in a collective exposition at Mad is mad gallery. I prepared some mobiles hanged from the roof, made with wooden sticks and geometric clay shapes. After that, I realized that those little pieces could actually work as independent accessories.
You say that the inspiration to create new things comes from the nature and universe but, is there something more tangible that inspires you?
I’m so interested in contrasts. When you look at the nature you can find geometric shapes, symmetries and repeated patterns following a mathematical behavior, but at the same time you find chaos, disorder, poetry, and shapes without any coherence…
Inside the creative process, how long takes for you to create a piece from the very first idea to the final result? Could you tell us a bit more about the full process?
To be honest is such a chaotic procedure, I can’t control it! Every single idea has its own life and times. I try to follow my intuitions and be patient. Sometimes it takes me some days to materialize an idea, and other times takes years.
We see that your pieces have been exposed in different cities and important museums as Pompidou in Paris. We can not help but wonder how those expositions emerge, could you tell us your secret?
In Pompidou we have our own space in the museum shop, the same way we have it in Contemporary Art Museum of Luxemburg and at the Decorative Arts one in Paris. To reach that, it has been necessary the participation in different international fairs. At first I was so scared, but after I realized that our participation was the key to give visibility to the brand, and the product.
You have collaborated as well with different artists. From the singer Russian Red to designers as Ion Fitz, Ángel Shclesser or Megaman at Casa Decor. Without doubt it is a very different kind of good artists. Do you remember any of those collaborations in a special way?
I remember I’ve worked with the brand POL, I created the jewellery for their fashion show at Cibeles Fashion Week. It was very funny because both of us were brand new in the industry!
And what about future? What collaboration would you love to do?
A dream would be to do something with Josep Font for Del Pozo, I think is one of the best right now.
Talking about future, Do you have any project that you can talk us about?
I’m now working on a personal project that has me really focused on it. It’s a serie of sculptures, and in this time I’m working with different types of clay, investigating about shape, weigh and how every of them tell something different from the same object.
Imagine you have never been artisan, what do you think you could have been?
I think I might have been dancer and choreographer.
To end up, a question that is almost obligated, your recommendation of a book, a film and a city.
I definitely love the last book that my sister has published, Atacama, is really good, and believe I’m not saying this because it’s my sister. I would say The Holy Mountain as my favorite movie, the aesthetic is so good! And a city i like is Salvador de Bahía, love how colorful it is
