Storyboard artist Ako Castuera discovered her passion for ceramics in second grade. “It was the only art class I was allowed to take as a kid,” she says. “My mom didn’t want to put me in drawing class because I was drawing all the time.”
Today, inspired by local clays found in the Arroyo Seco, she manipulates the earth into dynamic hybrid forms. Her most recent work is for a collaborative project called “Frontier” with indie comic book publisher, Youth in Decline/Ryan Sands.
“Clay is a tactile medium,” she says. “The material really has a personality and I take some direction from that.”
Treasure Box Beast is both sculptural and vaguely narrative. A mythical beast features six compartments, each one containing an object that reflects on a thematic chapter of Castuera’s life. For example, a feather or frond represents a physical connection to the natural world while a small seed person embodies our intangible heritage like “an oral history or … an emblem of a cultural treasure.”
Indeed, it was a traditional artifact from Castuera’s Okinawan culture that inspired the shape of the beast—Shisa dogs. “They always come in a pair,” she says. “One scares away bad fortune while the other keeps good fortune in.”
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