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Abstract
In this essay, I engage with the work of Puerto Rican artist Javier Orfón. Orfón expands notions of Puerto Rican identity through his exploration of craft knowledges. In his practice he learns about the land and its history while creating a mesh of relations. Through a close look at his practice, I analyze the dialogue between the state-led modernization projects of the 1950s and the current situation in Puerto Rico. The intersection of craft’s material connection to the land, its connections to government-led cultural narratives, and the diverse ways we engage with it is the lens and entry point through which I think of the work of this artist in relation to the wider Puerto Rican context. I intertwine my analysis with an oral interview and historical context that present the ways in which this artist is critically engaging with ideas of the land, its history, and with being Puerto Rican. As Orfón explores ceramics he learns and interacts with local environments and communities. He also creates networks that contribute to building systems that allow him to envision change and a different future. Orfón’s practice is a process of decoloniality. Decoloniality is a messy, nonlinear, ongoing process through which different perspectives emerge and coexist. Furthermore, it entails a multiplicity of knowledges, a plurality of being that can eventually displace Western systems and is essential for the creative thinking necessary for reimagining possible futures.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 For a comprehensive dive on how the debt crises, the Junta, and Hurricane Maria have impacted the national consciousness regarding the colonial status you can visit the Puerto Rico Syllabus https://puertoricosyllabus.com/syllabus/the-question-of-sovereignty/ (accessed January 29, 2024). This syllabus is an archive of resources to learn about the intersecting crises in Puerto Rico. It is managed by a group of scholars from Puerto Rico and the diaspora.
2 The narrative taught in school in Puerto Rico to this today is that Puerto Ricans are the perfect mix of Spanish, Taíno (indigenous people), and African, without a critical or in-depth look at the hierarchies and violent reasons of why certain aspects are more prominent, why we believe the indigenous is in the past, or the African is just in certain regions of the island. Giving prominence to the Spanish ancestry is part of that narrative, with many on the island still referring to Spain as the mother country.
3 Governors had been appointed first by Spain and then the USA. Many were military appointees with a few exceptions, especially starting in the 1940s. The last appointed governor in 1946 was the first Puerto Rican and predecessor to Luis Muñoz Marin’s election.
4 Estado Libre Asociado would translate directly to Associate Free State but declaring it the Commonwealth allowed the United Nations to take Puerto Rico out of the list of existing colonies, thus erasing the murky reality of the relation.
5 Jorge Duany. Puerto Rican Nation on the Move: Identities on the Island (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. 2002), 123.
6 Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, “Boletín Populares: Num.1, junio 1977,” 4-5, https://www.archivoicp.com/boletn-de-artes-populares-nm-1 (accessed January 29, 2024).
7 Ibid.
8 The ICP focused on objects that could be marketable to both locals and the new tourists visiting the colonial city of Old San Juan.
9 Magdalena López y María Teresa Vera, “El Caribe como resistencia: entrevista a Arcadio Díaz-Quiñones,” Cuadernos de Literatura 23, no. 45 (2019): 18.
10 The use of the term “craft knowledges” places emphasis on the plurality that I consider is part of craft. It is a layering of skills, a practice in relation to place and community. It has material knowledge even when it does not use local materials due to scarcity or lack or resources. It has self-reflection and critical thinking regarding the practices as well as the ideas and situations that inform it and mold it. Craft knowledges are a form of vernacular learning from established traditions, subverting and reinventing them. And in this reinvention, they expand who and what they encompass. The plurality of knowledge comes from the work of Boaventura De Sousa Santos where he states that in English there is no distinction between knowledge and ways of knowing. In both Portuguese and Spanish ways of knowing would be saberes. Thus craft knowledges is saberes artesanales.
11 In the Practicum Project, Interwoven Mesh of Re-existence: Craft Knowledges in Puerto Rico, completed for the MA in Critical Craft Studies I analyze the work of three other artists that engage in craft knowledges as they reflect the colonial legacies within the cultural nationalism of the 1950s and look for ways of resisting and reimagine narratives amidst the multiple crises that affect living conditions for all Puerto Ricans.
12 Treaty of Many Caves, Globe of Earth, and Blue Diamond.
13 The Natural Reserve of Cabachuelas consists of a deep tropical forest filled with caves that are part of a wide cave system in the northern region of the island and where underground rivers flow.
14 Hidrante, El Ojo de la Arcilla: Javier Orfón 10/07-14/08 2020 (SJ: Hidrante. 2020), 3.
15 Tainos are the indigenous people of Puerto Rico.
16 Through his involvement with Taller Cabachuelas, Orfón has become a spelunker, exploring caves and underground rivers.
17 Javier Orfón, Artist Statement, https://orfonarte.wixsite.com/javierorfon/statement (accessed January 29, 2024).
18 Ibid.
19 Puerta de Tierra is a community that developed in the 1800s on the outskirts of the walls of the colonial city of San Juan. Workers, craftsmen, and a population of Black and mestizo people were its inhabitants, and some of their descendants still live there despite governmental and private projects of urban renewal that have displaced many and torn down the many buildings and structures that have been left to crumble in order to justify their demolition.
20 Javier Orfón. Interview with author, Caguas, Puerto Rico (September 21, 2021). Translations of interviews are all my own unless otherwise noted.
21 Alice Chéveres is a Taino ceramicist. Alice and her family have shared Taino knowledge through their teachings in Taller Cabachuelas. The techniques they use in their clay pots have been passed down through generations. Perhaps explain in the main text about identifying as Taino in modern Puerto Rico.
22 Orfón interview with author.
23 Walter Mignolo and Catherine Walsh, On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, Praxis (Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 2018), 81.
24 Orfón, interview with author.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Maru López
Maru López is a Puerto Rican jewelry artist, educator, and craft scholar based in San Diego, California. She holds an MA in Critical Craft Studies and is the manager of Education and Engagement at Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. Her craft research focuses on Puerto Rico and craft knowledges in contemporary art. Maru has shown her jewelry in Europe, Latin America, the United States, and Puerto Rico.