He left everything to work with his hands: Carlos Jiménez Cenamor in his home-workshop in PuenteTocinos (Murcia). María Caparrós
In a lane of Puente Tocinos, in the heart of Huerta de Murcia, between ditches and lemon trees, is the warehouse that serves as a study, workshop and home for Carlos Jiménez Cenamor (Toledo, 46 years old). Long before arriving in Murcia, and also before his stay in London, Carlos was a child who walked among the gullies of Carranque, the town where he was born, fantasizing about studying botany, marine biology or Egyptology. He finally decided on architecture, a discipline so flexible and permeable that it is related to ecology and sustainability, design and crafts. As he explains, architecture is “increasingly hybrid and smaller”, because “almost everything in the world is already built, so what already exists must be reconditioned as needs change”.
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The use it makes of the warehouse in which it was installed four years ago, lent by a friend, the businesswoman Carolina Gambín, is a practical example of reuse. The building consists of two main spaces: the exhibition area, full of finished work mixed with freshly picked aubergines and peppers; and the workshop, with the oven and a large table, today covered by sheets of plaster. In the corners there are looms, a piano, clothes he embroidered, cycling jerseys, castanets to accompany jotas and other souvenirs and bibelots that attest that Carlos’ days do not end when he stops working on his main project: ceramics.
A moment in the process of creation and elaboration.María Caparrós
It would be easy to fall into the temptation and affirm that the pieces that Carlos creates are works of art: with a spectacular appearance, they are full of plant motifs and are the result, in many cases, of an experimental process and of his own story. However, Jiménez Cenamor, who bakes plates and cups in his oven, but also lamps, tables and vases, clarifies that he is not an artist: “I do design and not art. Due to my ecological awareness and my training as an architect, I believe that things need to have a function. I think an object is better the more functions it has; What’s more, I hope I’ve never made any object that doesn’t have at least one function!”
Two of his ceramic pieces.María Caparrós
Comfortable with the label of craftsman and designer, the also architect says that patience is his greatest talent and that he enjoys doing things with his hands. “I need what I think to materialize into reality. The world of ideas seems incomplete to me, at least in terms of what it brings me. My work is extremely contextual, that is, I make the most of where I am. For example, now I am experimenting with mud from my garden. Planting courgettes I discovered that they are a clay with a fantastic elastic capacity”.
A chair in her garden.María Caparrós
Carlos’s relationship with the environment he inhabits is more than close. For him, the Garden is a constant inspiration. “The ceramic that I make is influenced by all the shapes, textures and details that the leaves that I find around me have. I recently discovered the world of adventitious plants, the so-called weeds, which are fascinating from a culinary point of view, but also for their beauty, so I have incorporated them in the form of a print or I transform them into porcelain; I make them appear in one way or another in my production”.
Finished pieces.María Caparrós
In London, Jiménez Cenamor taught for eight years at the Bartlett School of Architecture, and came to direct the summer courses at that institution. But, as he gained responsibilities as an academic, he lost the time he needed for his creative projects. The disgust that Brexit produced in him ended up pushing him back. In Murcia he had friends and imagined a life “in his motorhome, with a few chickens, an orchard and a goat to try to reduce organic waste.” A dream that “has almost completely come true: the goat hasn’t arrived yet and the neighbor’s dog killed the chickens, but in the Orchard I have managed to have a wild environment that completes my domestic space.”
Carlos Jiménez Cenamor poses with his ceramics.María Caparrós
Here Carlos says he found that time that he missed so much when he lived in large capitals. He attributes part of his success to how cheap it is to live in Murcia. “The money saved can be used to buy utensils, tools or materials.” He has also rediscovered nature, “the great theme of our time.” Each piece by Carlos recalls what is still possible to do to redirect that wounded relationship. And he immediately goes back to talking enthusiastically about his discoveries, his processes and the orange blossom, whose smell fills everything. To say goodbye, Carlos stretches out, picks up three medlars and gives them to you. They are sweet.
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2023-08-09 06:31:01
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