- Ceramics has been around longer than anything else, you know?

So it's like, how the heck do you set yourself apart?

It's a challenge, right?

But people take it on.

I take it on.

It was something about the wheel and the how quick you can sit and throw something.

Granted, I was watching a professional do this, and I thought, that is pretty cool.

I got on it, I couldn't do it.

You know, you make the mistakes.

But I was already in love with it, and I loved it even more when I gained the control and the speed and the, the abilities.

People would tell me like, ah, it's gonna be hard.

How are you gonna survive?

So all of that, right?

Knowing that I could do it, but also thinking, well, you know, they're all adults.

They should know what they're talking about.

They didn't.

By the way I said the name's Vicente Garcia.

I am an artist that deals with clay and steel.

At this moment I'm also a university professor working on my 31st year as a professor.

For my work one of the things that, that allows it to look, the way it does, is my burnishing is basically compressing the clay particles onto itself.

And I use stainless steel, I use plastic, I use glass, and I use stones.

And in that compression, it begins to develop this reflection, right?

Very glossy.

One of the things that I got most drawn to that ended up becoming my specialization was alternative firings.

This is what I really loved.

And part of it is just playing with fire.

I'm just drawn to fire.

But the end result and the chemistry that happens and the finishes that are obtained when it comes to these type of approaches, I never know what kind of finish I'm gonna put on it, right?

Because I love all these finishes.

One of the things that I learned is how to make my own glazes.

That's the cool thing, is that you can design the glaze to your liking.

Like, what do I want?

Right?

I got to take some workshops in New Mexico, learn the horse hair technique that you would drop a strand of horse hair burns and turns black.

So to me that like, okay, what about my hair?

What about a feather?

Everything that burned, what kind of trace is it gonna leave?

So I started playing with it, right?

And then the other techniques is the raku firing, where you put a glaze on it and pulling them out of the kiln at a high temp and putting it in a metal can, where you remove the oxygen and these colors develop.

To me, that's just like so involved with every step of the piece.

A saggar fire used to be in a container, and then you would put your forms in there, your bases, and then put other stuff in there and seal it.

So imagine a, a canister with stuff in it if I decided that I wanted the stuff to be on it and where I want it.

So I came up with this process.

So, and there's other people that do it, you know, I'm, I'm sure I'm not the first one, but I've been playing with them.

But something about putting it on there where you want it, and then firing it, and the peeling and removing, I, I call it reveal, revealing the vessel that is underneath.

That's pretty cool stuff.

I, I have a lot of control, but then mother nature and the climate and temperature and all the other stuff plays in and plays with the end result.

So I like that.

I like that randomness.

It appears like randomness, even though I'm trying to control it.

You know, as a university professor, I run into, you know, students, this is what they want to do.

And I said, go for it.

Right?

This is exactly what I felt at that age.

The more you do it with a passion, the better you're going to get.

The longer you are doing it, the more people will notice you.

At this point, I am where I'm very comfortable doing what I do.

So now it's like, okay, I can retire.

They say, what's next?

When somebody retires, it's like, well, what are you gonna do now that you have completed?

It's like, I'm not completing necessarily.

I'm still doing the same thing.

I get to sit here and plan or work on something, right?

But I'm still gonna be teaching.

So now my teaching instead of being at the university, will be traveling, doing what I do at other studios, other states, other countries.

Yeah.

So it's almost the same thing.

Continue to do what I love to do, teach and create.