Manos Que Ven: The Man Who Sculpts From Memory and his Muse
In 2022, I found myself standing in a courtyard in San Antonino Castillo Velasco, a small Zapotec town tucked into the Oaxacan valley, while on a trip to Oaxaca with my mum.
This is the workshop of Maestro José García Antonio, Manos Que Ven: Hands That See. And here he works with his wife, Teresita, and their entire family.
José began working with clay at seven years old, self-taught, impressing everyone around him with horses and giraffes he shaped just for fun. Decades later, he lost his sight to glaucoma. But he kept going.
*Photo courtesy of Taller Manos Que Ven
"I have lost my sight, but not my life. Now I feel I can see, but through touch, because I make figures using my hands as if they were my eyes." - Maestro José
For nearly four decades, Teresita, his wife, works alongside him both as his eyes and as his muse. He sculpts her face so he will never forget it, always with her mole on the forehead. It's in every single piece. His signature. His love letter in clay.
Of his wife, he has said simply:
Being in their presence, I immediately felt their warmth, gratitude, and deep current of love flowing beneath everything they create. His work has traveled to collections around the world. He's been named a Grand Master (Maestro). They call him the "Lord of the Sirens".
What is so beautiful and touching to me, was seeing a blind man shaping his wife's face from memory and their shared belief that has carried them through everything:
"Mas fuerte que la muerte es el amor."
