Aldo Álvarez Tostado has moved from architecture to design and from design to art. His work and this constant relationship with color, textures and materials in his work make him an explorer eager to bring the identity of his country to museums and galleries in Mexico and the world.
“I’m from San Pancho, Nayarit. I decided to study architecture in Guadalajara and set up a studio with other classmates, and that’s where I started to get involved with wood, blacksmithing and carpentry. Later, I decided to open the “Piedrafuego” workshop (2013), where we make utilitarian design pieces, small objects. My interest is to get to know these materials and craft production techniques that are deeply rooted in the region. Guadalajara has a great tradition as a producer of handicrafts.
At what point do you realize that you have to make the transition to art?
In 2017, you start working with pieces that don’t necessarily fulfil a fusion, but they do have a symbolic charge. A few months ago, for example, I presented a saddle with engraved patterns that discussed masculinity and the “flirting patterns” that we follow through dating apps. So I like to go beyond the simple piece, in this case the saddle.
Tell us about “Piedrafuego” and what is it like to work with these artisan workshops?
I have been working with the same workshops since I started. I understand their processes and how it is to have a healthy and productive relationship with them. More than the impulse to produce things, I am interested in making them well and that this production is sustainable.
For example, the first workshop I worked with and continue to work with is that of Don Nacho García, in San Lucas Evangelista, called “Piedra Volcánica”. Since I was a child I had a fascination for molcajetes and volcanic stone, that material that is expelled from the earth in a dramatic, incandescent, luminous way, which then solidifies. In fact, “Piedrafuego” is named after basalt.
What inspires you to make a piece?
I’m not on the side of solving a need, but of seeing a material and understanding what I can do with it. I’m more of a sculptor than a designer. Solving the problem is not my motivation.
Do your work or projects follow a trend?
I try not to be like that, but to raise new questions. There is a song by Frank Ocean called “Nikes” which says: “let’s see the future before...”, I like that line very much, that is, anticipate.
What do you think decorative pieces should be like?
Timeless so that they can work at any time or in any situation. In “Piedrafuego” there are very basic elements such as the spice racks or the flowerpots that refer to the past and have the possibility of thinking that they will become ruins, not because of the shape but because of the texture and material they are made of.
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