Negro como mi corazón

Amanda Forment

Mickey 90 by Taller de Obsidiana; Courtesy of the studio.

A black obsidian circle, elegant and smooth, balances on a rustic pedestal made of the same material, unprocessed. A pair of smaller golden circles crown the top. The design evokes a black sun, or perhaps an eclipse – one heavenly body momentarily obscured by two others. While made largely of stone, the object has a two-dimensional quality: it is flattened, geometric, and stripped of any ornamentation.

Most people will recognize this form, in a heartbeat, as the silhouette of Mickey Mouse. Taller de Obsidiana created it in honor of the famous rodent’s 90’s birthday. Yet sometimes a mouse is not just a mouse. This one reflects Taller’s technical ingenuity and embrace of contemporary culture – their bridging of past, present, and future –through obsidian.

Taller de Obsidiana was founded in Teotihuacán, northeast of Mexico City, by brother and sister Gerardo and Topacio Cuevas. This was fairly recent, in 2014, but the atelier’s history crosses three generations. Silviano Cuevas, Gerardo and Topacio’s grandfather, started a lapidary practice specializing in obsidian in 1957. He created replicas of archaeological findings from the Teotihuacan Valley, becoming a pioneer in the dissemination of the craft. Silviano’s son, J.E. Gerardo Cuevas, carried on his father’s business, becoming an expert obsidian sculptor in his own right. Gerardo says that his father “always had a more innovative spirit” than his grandfather, though his modernization of the atelier was partly out of sheer economic necessity. J. E. Gerardo’s studies at the Technical School enabled him to experiment and create specialized machinery for more refined and intricate objects. He always emphasized geometry, precision, perfect angles, and the utmost attention to detail in his work.

Interior of Casa Obsidiana, San Martín de las Pirámides, Teotihuacán, Mexico. Courtesy of Taller de Obsidiana.

The third generation of the Cuevas family are continuing the family tradition today. Gerardo recalls “growing up among stones;” obsidian was an integral element of their lives and they were keenly aware of the infinite possibilities in the material. Nonetheless, they initially decided to pursue other careers, Gerardo as a graphic designer and publicist, and Topacio as an architect and interior designer. Gerardo admits he never wanted to work with obsidian. When he was young, his father made him spend all his vacations in the workshop: “very reluctantly I helped him in the process. I realized I didn’t like being there very much, there was lots of dust and mud.” Yet, both siblings ended up returning to obsidian, applying their professional backgrounds to the family business, and expanding into uncharted territories. They dedicated themselves fully to the project: “it turned into love.”

Courtesy of Taller de Obsidiana.

Courtesy of Taller de Obsidiana.

Just like love, obsidian can be complex and capricious. Obsidian is typically 5 to 5.5 on the Mohs mineral scale, harder than marble. Yet it is still a delicate material, as well as extremely sharp. “Cutting is like the defense of obsidian,” Gerardo says. “It is very precious, very beautiful, and you have to treat it with great respect because of how dangerous it is, and because of its colors which come directly from the center of the earth.”

Topacio and Gerardo Cuevas. Courtesy of Taller de Obsidiana.

The obsidian-making process for Taller begins when the stone is cut. The conditions have to be ideal: if the stone stays in the sun too long, it can get too hot and cause internal fissures, but if it cools down too much, it can break or crack. In modern obsidian production, the stone is typically cut with diamond discs. Taller has innovated this step, and instead uses diamond wires for large-scale pieces. Once shaped, obsidian is carved, polished with sandpaper, and glossed with solvents to reach its maximum shine and smoothness.

Gerardo considers Taller a design studio as well as a craft workshop - “an artisan always goes hand in hand with design, their objects are created from the heart” - and the process used there involves sketching and modeling the pieces, which are then reproducible in series. The siblings design together, often in discussion with their father. “We design like our dad, we like geometry, and let go of the pre-Hispanic legacy,”  he says. But this has brought challenges in terms of the market: in Teotihuacán, “design was not sold, only handicrafts, people were not used to seeing design pieces at other price points.”

As a way to signal their aesthetic aspirations, Gerardo and Topacio decided to open a brick-and-mortar design store in the house that had been their grandfather’s and then their father’s. Its façade and interiors are black, an ode to their favored material. Inside, they created one of their masterpieces, an obsidian wall made from more than a thousand pieces in two finishes, matte black and shining silver, a tribute to the great pyramid of the sun and the moon of Teotihuacán. On the wall is a neon sign reading “negro como mi corazon” – the motto of Casa Obsidiana.

In the Popol Vuh, the foundational text of the Maya, it is said that gods created man from maize. In the words of Gerardo, “If our skin is made of corn, why not? Our heart is made from obsidian. It is hard yet fragile, like the human heart.”

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Amanda Forment is a Curatorial Assistant in the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. She is currently working on an exhibition on modern design in Latin America. Previously she was a Curatorial Fellow at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. She received her MA in History of Design and Curatorial Studies from Parsons School of Design/Cooper Hewitt.