I remember with excitement, in my first years of school, when the teacher gave each kid in the classroom a small wooden board with a big ball of white modeling clay on it. There were no colors nor tools. Only the ball of white clay, the board, fingers, and imagination.
For an hour we could make anything we wanted and we would put it on the small board. For a couple of days the figures would be exhibited and then they would be put back in the ball, which other fingers would work on.
I have never been able to forget that moment so special to me: I perfectly recall the smell and the texture of that clay. I remember that my works were always full of many characters carrying baskets and cases. The end result was like a large community. Inevitably, I always did the same thing, never growing bored of those characters carrying things on their backs.
Many years later I discovered clay, from which I could never part; and now a days, when I look at my work, I realize that I continue like I began: creating characters that don’t stop carrying.