TELEPHONE:
ADDRESS:
Avda. Agrupación Córdoba, 19, nave 9-B – 14001 Córdoba
ACTIVITY
This workshop started up in 2006 and is run by Manuel Jurado Moreno (Cabra, 1983) and Miguel Ortiz Cabello (Córdoba, 1984).
As in their early days they received only small orders, they set about developing new carving techniques and exploring the possibilities of their material. After… a while they began to receive larger commissions, for procession floats and altarpieces as well as assorted ornamental items.
Their interests have always prompted them to explore the traditional techniques used by countless carvers over history, both in woodcarving itself and in drawing or architecture. They seek to recover historical styles in the applied arts that have all but fallen into disuse – having fun and being creative while deeply respecting their craft and its history.
Their creative process is a combination of inseparable disciplines which cannot function alone, such as architecture, design, carving itself, art history and even mathematical calculation, yielding a unitary result often allowing them to replace missing pieces or to create others fully integrated into their setting.
Their work method starts with a study of iconography and style, reflected graphically in a sketch, thereby defining the various aspects and details of the future artefact. They then make full-scale drawings for the woodwork. The wood is roughed and divided into pieces (in staved segments) and each part is carved with gouges following the design. Each job requires a particular type of wood with specific characteristics, according to the intended use and setting.
TRAINING
After their basic and higher education, in 2003-04 they started training at the Córdoba Provincial Council’s La Merced IV Trade School, where they were part of a team that rebuilt a lost 18th-century altarpiece. It was there that they began sharing ideas, starting to work… with gouges and drawings and devising creative processes and procedures for the manufacture of an altarpiece more than 26 metres high. They were then awarded a Leonardo da Vinci grant enabling them to take part in altarpiece interventions in Veszprém (Hungary) and Vienna. From then on they were self-taught, as there are few carving workshops in which to learn this speciality.
SELECTED WORK
Some of their most notable projects have been: altarpiece of the Holy Supper in Córdoba, procession float for the Confraternity of Our Lady of the Good Event (Córdoba), procession float for the Confraternity of the Arrest of Jesus (Córdoba), screen for the Church of Santo… Domingo in Cabra (in Córdoba province), altarpiece of the Blessed Heart in Cabra, and main altarpiece of the Church of San Roque (Córdoba), among other projects, finished or ongoing.
