The hands behind the clay

I had a happy childhood between Lisbon and my grandmother's house in the countryside. With nothing but nature and time, I learned to pay attention: to ants carrying food, wind bending the grass, birds hidden in the trees. The rest of the time I was making things, surrounded by paper, glue, scissors, and craft shows on TV. From the start, what I loved was the building.

I studied Product and Interior Design at university. My first contact with clay was there, but it didn't catch me at the time. A few years later I went back, and this time it stayed. For two years I learned from a ceramicist in Lisbon, until I felt ready to work on my own.

Now I work alone in my studio, on the edge of Lisbon. When I'm with clay, everything else goes quiet. It's just me and the piece, and each one ends up different from the next. I make pieces I'd want to live with myself.