The small idol of protection used by the aborigines of Tenerife is the fetish of El alfar de Agael, a piece found in the Barranco de Herques that separates Güímar and Fasnia and a short distance from the home of this unique artisan, defender of pottery and pottery. ancestral techniques and the need to innovate and advance in this field. Always with the clay as the main element.
Painter, sculptor, potter … Multidisciplinary and self-taught artist. «I like to transform everything that comes into my hands into something beautiful», reflects Agael León, a woman whose hands shape clay – «I get it where my ancestors got it, and that is a state secret» – using aboriginal techniques to create pieces vernacular, traditional and creative. Dedicated half his life to keeping alive the culture of the first settlers of the Islands, he is committed to “innovating, creating and giving life to works that go beyond traditional crafts.” Always using inherited techniques and clay as a central element.
In The alfar of Agael -The number 32 of the street Tambora de Abajo de Güímar is in an ideal environment, in which the ancestral exudes, such as El Escobonal, the upper area of Agache- the visitor (it is open every Sunday until Christmas, from 10: 00 to 14:00 hours) know today from tothat woman who, at the age of 25, made the figure of the Idol of Tara – “I don’t know where it ended up” -, in a free-time monitor course offered by ICFEM. It was the germ. From there, everything has been training and research until reaching Manuel Afonso, master and craftsman Teguestero. «With him I finished learning what I needed to know. Afterwards, it was a matter of me liking it and experimenting with clay, ”he enthuses.
Agael León is the first of the family to work as an artisan. «My maternal grandmother made a draft, but like all the women of the time. Nobody was dedicated to crafts, and nobody painted; I have, since I was little. Today his paintings are in the family home.
Experimenting is the essential word in the language and in the development of her activity as an artisan. Agael León disagrees “with those who say that sculpture cannot be made in traditional Canarian pottery. I have done it. To the point that one of his greatest successes was Ancestros, an exhibition developed in 2018 with figures as the axis.
Without forgetting the legacy, The artisan combines part of her works with traditional pottery and Canarian calado. A fusion that arose from the work “of those women who created crafts with the materials that came with the conquest of the Islands”, making “many of their sacred symbols” with thread.
The Agael alfar has a “fetish piece”: the Guatimac. Small in size, it is the only idol of protection used by the Guanches. It was found in the Barranco de Herques (border between Güímar and Fasnia) and ended up in the Luis Diego Cuscoy Museum. “Almost no one knew it, even the clients asked me what it was.” He chose it as a symbol since he started making pottery “because it is from my region, because they found it close to home and because it was so unknown that I even felt sorry for it,” Agael ends laughing.
But it is not only Guatimac. There is a piece that León does not sell because he does not want: The cradle of man. “A sculpture made thinking of women as the origin of humanity and to convey that man has to share and make a family.”
Agael León admits that his interest in crafts it is proportional to its low profitability. She fights such a situation through the workshops that she teaches in her pottery. “I am lucky to have a group of students (between 30 and 60 years old) involved, but this is a tough activity to which you have to dedicate time and a lot of effort that is not compensated”. In his case, he maintains that “I’m still here not because of what it brings me financially, but because of what makes me happy to do what I’m doing.” The conclusion: “People who see crafts as a business, quit.”
His versatility has led him to reproduce pieces “always made by hand” of various origins. For example, from all the Islands, North Africa, Morocco, Galicia, Egypt and the southern peninsula. Another characteristic that these pieces must have in order to awaken your interest in replicating them is “that they are very old”, in the case of the pre-Hispanic town of Los Millares, located in Almería. In preparation, he has an exhibition that he wants to open in March and that will be made up of pieces from different parts of the world, whose origin is prior to year zero (before Christ), which will be accompanied by detailed information about it. “Always mud and only mud, including the colors, which I obtain with earth and herbs.” The objective is “to convey the message that man is much more and goes much further than what he led us to believe.”
