Dancing Monkey Pottery

I have been doing ceramics on and off for 20+ years. I primarily make wheel-thrown pottery and occasionally rediscover the joy of hand-built pottery. 

My first instructors were Dominic Mosca at The Pot Shop (Evanston, IL) and Harry Berman at Berman Ceramic Arts - Cahuenga Potters Study (North Hollywood, CA). For about a decade, I learned from great instructors in the ceramics studio at the Audrey Moore Rec Center in Fairfax, VA. Currently, I do my pottery work at the Workhouse Art Center (Lorton, VA) where I continue to learn from Lee Anderson and a great collective of inspired potters. ​I am a member of the Kiln Club of Washington D.C.

 

Pottery by David Fernandez Pardo

<< Under Construction - Coming Soon >>

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"What's up with the Dancing Monkey?"
The inspiration for the "Dancing Monkey" is a figure of a monkey – presumably a grey titi monkey (Saguinus leucopus - "mico tití gris" in Spanish) – as represented by the Calima cultures, native ethnic cultures from the western Andes mountains in today's Colombia that were established between approximately 1,600 BCE and 500 CE. Images of monkeys appear frequently in the rich ceramic and exquisite gold work created by the Calima, as well as the Nariño and Quimbaya cultures.

Alejandro first discovered these monkeys through the beautiful work by Antonio Grass, including El Gran Circo de los Micos, Diseño Indígena Colombiano (Ediciones Grass, ca. 1982).