The pottery workshop of the Morales family is a place of peace. Dozens of clay forms turned into art fill the interior corridors and the courtyard, where so much beauty delights the eye.
Las Tunas, Cuba.- The oldest member of this family of ceramists is Miguel Morales Maestre, with more than 40 years of experience in handicrafts, from the Isle of Youth to Las Tunas, with training in Germany and the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
"I graduated in Plastic Arts on the Isle of Youth, and ceramics was one of the most important subjects in the specialty. There was a small industry and we were working on the shaping of pieces and designs, and so that small industry developed."
"When I finished at the academy, I went into graphic design, which I did for more than eight years, but without abandoning ceramics."
Miguel Morales played a leading role in most of the workshops built for the tableware and ornamentation industries on the Isle of Youth and in the province of Las Tunas, due to his experience and professionalism because he has never been able to let go of ceramics.
"Ceramics grabs you and doesn't let go. It is like a tamer of human beings, it helps you not only to model the clay but also to model your character, because with it you acquire tremendous patience, and it helps your personality, to deal better with others."
Miguel was selected to be part of the group of workers whose mission was to inaugurate the Second Congress tableware factory on the Isle of Youth, whose technology was German, and so he went to Germany to prepare and start up the industry, of which he was head of production for three years. He was then sent to Las Tunas to develop the specialty in this province.
And now, now retired, he continues to work in the manufacture of decorative elements for homes and state entities in a small workshop in his home and the large workshop of the Morales family, on the outskirts of the city of Las Tunas, because since 1972 he has not been able to give up this trade, which has occupied him most of his life.
