By Ben Haugmo
Culture and coffee combine at the first ever Cone Pack Mug Market is being held this week at Twenty Below Coffee in Fargo.
Cone Pack is a group of artists from in and around the Fargo-Moorhead area promoting public awareness of ceramic art through lectures, exhibitions, and events such as the mug market.
Each hand-crafted mug will sell for $25.00 and come with a drink token so that customers can immediately take their purchase for a test run.
Guillermo Guardia is one of the Cone Pack artists featured in the mug market. Guardia’s earliest experiences with art are playing with modeling clay as a child. Since then, he has become well familiar with the techniques and challenges of ceramic sculpture.
“Especially when you make large pieces like sculptures,” said Guardia, “it has to be hollow. Otherwise, if it’s a solid piece, there’s a good chance there’s an air bubble. If there’s an air bubble, and you fire it, it will explode.”
Guardia primarily produces figurative pieces. Common motifs he employs are renderings of the human form etched with puzzle pieces, or the character of the baby devil, which he recently began decorating with images that call back to his home in Peru.
“I am from Peru,” said Guardia, “and I’m just trying to incorporate something of my background into my artwork.”
The utilitarian, functional ceramic form of the mugs presented a new challenge for Guardia. He had to adopt new approaches to make the mugs, and to express his personal artistic style.
“I know how to throw, I know how to make stuff like that, but it’s not something that I do for a living. I was actually very challenging. I can make a mug, but I wanted the product to look related to my work. I made very simple mugs with no handles, but I incorporated the Peruvian designs on the surface.”
The hope is that those who are familiar with Guardia’s work will see the symbols of Peru his art is associated with, and connect that back to him.
If you feel the need to add some unique artistic flair to your mug collection, check out Guardia and the other Cone Pack artist’s work at Twenty Below Coffee this Saturday.
If you go:
Mug Market
Saturday, May 14 at 9 a.m to 3 p.m.
Twenty Below Coffee, 14 Roberts St N, Fargo, ND
