Writer, sculptor, founder of the socio-cultural magazine El Veguero (1983), responsible for handicrafts at the House of Culture, where he taught clay courses, which were expanded years later with his own elaboration of artisan looms. In his workshop he was looking for the time to design and work in his sculptures such as “The Monument to the Pocero”, “La Tertulia” and “Africa”, among others.
Among its pieces highlights the 80 kilo sculpture called «La Guitarra», which was a tribute to the writer Federico García Lorca, and which is in the Casa de Colón, in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
Belonged to the group of artists called «Espiral», directed by Felo Monzón, participating in different traveling exhibitions in the Canary Islands, the Peninsula and abroad. During these last years he has dedicated himself to social poetry, distributing his rhymes to his friends.
Miguel Rodriguez is a very active person in neighborhood, social and cultural movements of San Mateo. And, as a sample, it should be noted that he was the founder and president of the Cabreja Mountain Neighbors Association, among other facets linked to his Vega.
His multidisciplinary spirit has allowed him to work the forge and write poetry
Son of Pedro Rodríguez Tejera and Dolores Sánchez Munguía, he was born in Vega de San Mateo on June 18, 1937. And he learned the trade as a turner with his father, studying industrial masters.
In his blacksmith shop and lathe Caldereta turning machine he undertook forge work, a turner even as a blacksmith. From 1986 to 2000 he carried out in his workshop several courses organized by the National Employment Institute (INEM) of locksmithing and forging.
As an anecdote, the family recalls that the Tinamar Fight Club his workshop was his training place, “because of the passion he had for this sport.”
Miguel Rodriguez has mutated from blacksmith to sculptor, and its pieces are erected in different corners.
It has been said that “the cultural and artistic experiences that Miguel Rodríguez has undergone throughout his creative career are diverse. Undoubtedly his traditional trade, linked to iron and fire, oriented his knowledge to the world of sculpture, but his facet as a writer and reciter of poetry is recognized, with a great burden of social and political commitment, duty, where practically everything is imbued his various works, not being understood outside of this compromised context ».
His facet as a writer and reciter of poetry is loaded with social and political commitment, as his works show.
One of his most recognized works is the tribute to the wells, in recognition of a profession who performed work as a worker in inhumane conditions in the depths of the depths, vertical and horizontal, and in highly dangerous situations. Not surprisingly, many lost their lives, including residents of the municipality, and leaving widows and orphaned children.
At the beginning of the 80s of the last century, a group of neighbors linked with the House of Culture of San Mateoy with cultural concerns offers the Corporation of the moment the «Tribute to the Poceros» (1984), the work designed, made and donated by the sculptor and promoter of the initiative, Miguel Rodríguez Sánchez.
For its placement was chosen the corner between the intersection of Tinam Avenuear and the extension of Canónigo Tomas Ventura.
«It is about paying off a debt with this working class and that the entire town of San Mateo was obliged to fulfill. The poceros were always the great forgotten of the field, who worked in terrible conditions, and whose wages were not enough to give bread to the whole family, “said the author at the time of its inauguration.
Now this work returns to the present amid the controversy, after the former mayor and Councilor for Agriculture of the Cabildo, Miguel Hidalgor, has criticized the conditions in which the piece has remained after the restoration by the City Council, going from an original black color as a tribute to the people who suffered accidents in the wells and also in memories of the deceased wells, to a diversity of colors.
The family supports the rehabilitation of the ‘Monument to the Pocero’, amid a political controversy
The family has come out for the first time in this controversy, “to, without wanting to get into political questions, to appreciate that at least after so many years of abandoning the place, the municipal officials have taken care to clean up the area in which they are find the sculpture, thus also allowing to enhance the work of Miguel Rodríguez, which was donated by the artist ». An example of this image is that the araucaria covered part of the sculpture until now.
In addition, he also wonders where other works by the artist delivered to the people can be found, with his concern that they may have ended up in private homes. All this, without going to value the colors with which the sculpture was restored.
The piece was inaugurated on Saturday June 23, 1984, with the presence of poceros, widows and their family members, as well as folk groups that accompanied the act of tribute and presentation of the sculpture, supported by neighbors and political officials. .
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