Meet 2024 Artist in Residence: Alejandra Cuadra
July 10, 2024
Alejandra Cuadra, the Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts 2024 Artist in Residence, is a proud Latina, a citizen of the world, and most importantly a human being. Her artistic practice embraces clay, wood, video, steel, and objects of abundance to weave, braid, and knot together her history—what was, what is, and what is to come. Feeling neither from here nor there, she seeks to reconnect to her roots in Peru while threading together notions of identity, displacement, traditions, belonging, and a desire for freedom.
While her primary medium is ceramics, calling her a potter does not encompass the vast array of work she creates. When she started as a student at the Maine College of Art & Design (MECA) She quickly became fascinated by the variety of ways her voice could expand through the facilitation of space, dialogue, guidance, and community she found in the Sculpture Department. This freedom led her to experiment with materials beyond clay, and she found the mixing of media opened up her creativity and helped her convey the underlying political messages of her work.
Alejandra poses with her work at the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation Residency. Photo by Jo Silver.
Her journey to create the powerful and personal art she makes today began when she signed up for an introductory ceramics class in high school. “I could not do the wheel at all, but something was calling me to keep at it,” Alejandra said.
Even though she found clay frustrating at times, Alejandra grew to love clay. Her teacher, Amy Kandall, gave her the freedom to work independently, which encouraged her commitment to follow through with her ideas while receiving technical and conceptual guidance. However, the moment that planted the seed in her mind that creating pottery could be her calling came on a field trip to the Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill for a Raku workshop led by Lois Hirshberg, which opened her eyes to the wide world of art and led to multiple internships.
“The internship showed me that I could commit to something,” Alejandra said. “Seeing artists and workers in a space after spending two hours traveling and walking down the hill to Castle Hill made the experience feel magical, and that art was a possibility because it was in the community where I grew up.”
As a senior in high school, she participated in a program run by Linda Kemp through the Cape Cod Art Museum, which connected over 200 high school students with working artists on Cape Cod. Alejandra was paired with Linda’s husband, Steve Kemp, who has been a potter since 1978, and their son, Matt Kemp, who is also a potter and educator. At the end of her internship with the Kemps, Alejandra and the other mentees displayed their art alongside their mentors at the Cape Cod Art Museum.
Steve Kemp and Alejandra at work in the pottery studio in 2016.
Alejandra said of the experience, “Being able to be in that space with so many other artists allowed my family to understand my creative passion and that art is more than a hobby for me.”
After her internship, Steve hired her as an apprentice, and she continued to work with the Kemps for ten formative years.
“Working with the Kemps for as long as I did showed me that [being a working artist] was possible. It takes a lot of work. It takes being committed and possessed to discover new possibilities. Having the perseverance to follow through even in the hard times, while being open to new ways of seeing and experiencing the world around you,” Alejandra explained.
Witnessing Steve’s longevity as an artist served as a reflection of what her future in the field could look like. Seeing those everyday interactions and how students, customers, family, and friends would return year after year to take workshops showed Alejandra that being an artist was not just an abstract dream, but a realistic path forward.
That early experience with a working artist encouraged Alejandra to apply to be The Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts 2024 Artist in Residence and experience the other side of a mentor relationship. She is excited to use her residency to show teen artists that being a professional artist is not just a dream but a realistic way of life, just as Steve Kemp showed her in her teen years.
Alejandra’s project, The Preciousness of the Everyday: Vessels of Belonging, is deeply inspired by her journeys and her quest for what it means to belong within the body, soul, community, and the rooted valleys of the earth.
“I think about materiality as similar to growing up as a new immigrant in the States.” Alejandra explained further, “We didn't have all the ingredients from home, but still needed the flavor and warmth to connect us back to our roots. We worked with what we had and had to be resourceful to create what we wanted as a means to reconnect to the seasonings and flavors of home. As a maker, I really try to be resourceful and work with what I have. I love to make, but I also think about the ethics of making more in this world.”
Alejandra’s thoughtful approach to creation, along with her personal experience as an immigrant, have also led her to consider how culturally specific crafts morph and evolve over time and physical distance.
“Peru has a big craft culture, including textiles, metals, and ceramics. I think about the notion of translation of craft ideas. I am physically displaced from the land, indigenous knowledge, and materials. Therefore, in reconnecting to my roots, I am adding or subtracting to craft inspirations and narratives as I am displaced from their context.” Alejandra said.
In her home studio, Alejandra looks through a bin of new materials of abundance for her to create with. Photo by Hannah Rosman.
Seeing her work as translations of cultural crafts further encourages her to use unconventional materials and be resourceful using everyday objects that some people might call trash, but she calls materials of abundance.
It also exemplifies her amazing skill for finding the beauty in things and people that may have previously been overlooked. “Everyone I get to connect to [inspires me] in different ways,” Alejandra said.
With The Preciousness of the Everyday: Vessels of Belonging, Alejandra has expertly intertwined her passion for the concept of translated craft and her appreciation of the mundane. This project investigates a question we all face: What does it mean to belong within our bodies, souls, communities, and the rooted valleys of the earth?
The project encourages Artist in Residence interns, Olive Allen, Jacob De Palm, Aaliyah Levy, Carlos Serret, and Neela Willeke, as well as community participants in special workshops to slow down and honor the preciousness of the everyday as they create forms incorporating clay and mixed media elements that highlight the personal allegories and memories that have shaped their journeys, through the creation of Casitas.
The design of the Casitas is Alejandra’s personal translation of Mexican ofrendas (altars) and Peruvian retablos (devotional paintings), both commonly found in Latinx homes. The Artist in Residence interns and community participants will further translate their Casitas from the traditional inspirations by covering them with thoughts and imagery that open the door to their individual worlds and hearts.
As Alejandra continues to pave her artistic path, she seeks to live an inspired life—one filled with more questions than answers, constantly learning, relearning, and unlearning along the way. When she was a child, Alejandra’s mother used to joke, “You’re a rebel without a cause.” Now, she has turned that message around and proudly calls herself a rebel with a cause: encouraging her students and the world to find meaning, purpose, power, and most of all, belonging by creating art.
“Art can be done anywhere. It takes a village and a community to create a space that will bring people together. Bringing people together creates a liberation that allows people to express themselves,” Alejandra said.
Alejandra's living room is filled with her creations, as well as artwork by friends and colleagues. Photo by Alejandra Cuadra.
The Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts 2024 Artist in Residence project will include two workshops for teens in partnership with Sociedad Latina’s summer youth program will decorate Casitas and delve into their own conceptions of belonging. Sociedad Latina is a Boston-based non-profit that helps and encourages Latine children and teens to become the next generation of Latine leaders who are confident, competent, self-sustaining, and proud of their cultural heritage.
The project will also include two community workshops which will be open to the public. The first workshop takes place on Thursday, July 11 from 6-8 PM at Mudflat Studio in Somerville, where Alejandra formed community connections during her time as a technical intern in 2023 and is currently subletting a studio. The second is on Thursday, July 25 from 3-5 PM at the Codman Square Branch of the Boston Public Library in Dorchester. If you live in either of those neighborhoods and are at all interested in pottery, sculpture, or expressing yourself creatively, you will not want to miss these! Click the hyperlinks to RSVP today.
The residency will culminate in an exhibition at the Piano Craft Gallery from August 2 to August 18, featuring the work of the Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts 2024 Artist in Residence Alejandra Cuadra, Artist in Residence Assistant Elian Feliz, Artist in Residence interns, and community workshop participants. Join us in experiencing and celebrating their creations examining freedom, belonging, and remembrance. A special Opening Reception will take place on August 2, and a Closing Reception on August 17, both from 6-8 PM.
More information about these events will be forthcoming, so make sure you’re subscribed to our newsletter or follow us on social media to stay in the loop.