“Mariana Baquero was a corporate lawyer until she discovered the pleasures of working with clay. She graduated from the University of Florida with an MFA in ceramics in 2016. She is currently the Arts Specialist at the J. Wayne Reitz Union Arts & Crafts Center at the University of Florida.

Making everyday objects that are typically mass-produced may seem like an irrational act, but for me it's a rebellion against disconnection and anonymity. I make objects that create connection through the daily rituals of eating and drinking. My cups live in your house; they clutter your cupboards and countertops. My bowls hold your homemade soups and your midnight ice cream. But they aren't mute objects, they tell you my stories.

Clay is the perfect medium for telling stories. In its raw state it records every touch. Heat transforms it into an archival material through which the past speaks to the present. When you use my vessels, your fingers touch where my fingers touched. Your lips feel my words as you drink. I imprint the surface with handwritten stories of my family, collected from letters, photographs, conversations, and my own imaginings. The text is broken up by texture created from found household textiles and custom stencils based on imagery relevant to my stories—hometown road maps, a favorite flower, a rendering of a DNA molecule. I imagine my vessels creating connection long after I have made them, telling my stories and inspiring new conversations and stories every time they are used.

Years ago, I spent a holiday with my family looking at old photographs and listening to stories about relatives, often people that we struggled to identify—great aunts and uncles, cousins twice removed. It made me wonder how long it would take for my story, and my parents’ and siblings’ stories, to be lost.

That sense of bittersweet nostalgia—the feeling that all our stories are impermanent and easily lost—found its way into my ceramic work. I have always been drawn to the tactility of clay, the way it responds to and records the maker’s touch. The application of heat transforms clay into an archival material—ceramic—that preserves the language of that touch. Cup-and-pitcher sets are some of my favorite things to make because they are designed to be shared. For me, they evoke confidences told over a shared beverage on a lazy afternoon.

I imprint the surface of my vessels with handwritten stories of my family, culled from letters, pictures, conversations over the dinner table, and my own imaginings. The texts are digitally scanned and then laser cut into plywood to create a stamp. I cut my stamps at the DCP Fabrication Lab at the University of Florida. Many colleges and universities now have digital fabrication facilities and most allow some type of public access. There are also a number of online laser-cutting services to which you can upload a file for cutting and receive your stamp through the mail. I layer additional texture from found household textiles as well as stencils cut from

paper and vinyl on a Cricut.

Imagery for the stencils comes from places and things important to my family stories, such as road maps of my current and childhood hometowns, the favorite flower of a relative, and even a rendering of the double-helix DNA molecule. The additional texture obliterates and obscures some of the handwritten text. Just like family stories pass on through generations, you never get the whole story.”