Dirt and Trash

This Post Probably Isn't About What You Think

You may recall we once spent a day traveling without a plan. We ended up in Setúbal and saw the most wonderful artwork on permanent display in the park. I wanted to return to Setúbal because we had failed to visit the gallery of the artist who made us smile. Coincidentally, we had an American reader who was in Setúbal as part of a “checking out Portugal” trip. So we decided to return, to shop and have lunch.

There was a sculpture on the table to the right of the whale. It is now safely wrapped in our closet.

Creative Souls

I was fortunate to grow up in a time when art was taught in public high schools. And because I went to a very large high school (3500 students spread over 3 grades) we had a well-equipped art department…complete with potter’s wheels. I loved taking such raw, cheap material and creating something useful. Fast forward…I returned to my love of ceramics in my fifties. I focused on creating slab-built pieces that were purely decorative. Silly in fact. I became fixated on houses that had a double meaning. For example, a house on which I graffitied gay celebrities’ names was titled “The Out House”. [I stopped making them only when Denise asked, “What are we going to do with all of these?”. But around that time my father died. My mother asked me to make a saltbox house to store his ashes. I delivered it a few weeks later and she asked, “Will you need to add an extension when I die?” No, I had built it large enough to store both of them.]

The meandering digression above is simply to say, I love creative minds. I love people that transform items recovered from a trash bin. Besides, clay is dirt cheap. And when the end product brings a smile to your face there is nothing better. With this in mind, we went in search of the Maria Pó gallery.

Pasmadinhos … magical little figures that make you smile.

Maria Pó

The gallery opened at 1100, so we waited a bit for the son of the artists to open the shop. You see Maria Pó is actually a collaboration between two artists: a Portuguese ceramic artist, Elsa Rodrigues, and her Polish husband, a painter by the name of Jacek Piątkiewicz. Often the most severe crisis offers the greatest opportunity. That was the case for this family:

Maria Pó started in 2007, the year in which a humble Portuguese artist and her family suffered the zenith of the European economic crisis in their own home.

No one wanted to buy artistic handmade pottery, any more. There were just a few blocks of clay left and no money to invest in the small family business. The feeling of frustration and impotence regarding that distressing situation and the artist’s critical look over society led her to start moulding little statues representing the ‘blindness’ and idleness of the people towards the economic and political state of the country. — Maria Pó

It was Jacek that realized that these small figures were magical. That they could bring a smile to the faces of those that, at the time, felt little joy or hope. Very quickly they became the primary product of the team and now are recognized across the country.

One of a kind…

We had intended to come home with one of the small “Pasmadinhos” as they call them. I assumed there would be replicas of what we saw in the park. But we learned that the gallery only sold one-of-a-kind pieces. That the pieces in the park represented public figures in history and that replicas of those were sold through municipal stores in the city.

When we realized that these were each produced by hand we got a bit carried away. It took about an hour to limit our purchase to five of the small, comical figures and one large piece. They are now super wrapped, so you will have to wait 18-24 months to see them in their new home. (Stay tuned….)

A sculptural vessel made of discarded newspaper.

Reborn

As Maria Pó only takes cash, and we don’t typically carry more than a few euros with us, we walked to the nearest Multibanco to get the money. En route, we ran into Reborn and a Portuguese artist Eugénia de Almeida who upcycles trash into jewelry, lamps, sculpture, etc. When we walked into the store we found her sanding a large vessel. Like the piece above, it was made entirely of strips of newspaper that are wrapped into tubes and then fashioned into functional and decorative pieces.

Eugénia also showed us how she fashioned jewelry out of Coke cans that had been cut into long, thin strips:

Quilling or filigree with a Coke can instead.

And lamps made out of recycled bottles:

Instead of polluting our oceans…let there be light.

Her collection included pieces made from discarded CDs, rubber tires, neckties, and more. There were so many wonderful pieces but we knew our arms would be full from our earlier purchase. We were pleased to learn that she will accept commissions and discussed a functional piece … pendant lamps perhaps.

If, like me, you enjoy meeting people that look at the same things you do but who see something entirely different…consider heading to Setúbal. You might just pick up a piece that makes you smile, saves the planet, and feeds a family of artists.