Creativity Works Internship: El Arvizu ’24

When El Arvizu applied for a Creativity Works internship in 2022, he saw it as an opportunity to learn more about himself as a ceramics artist.

“I was really focused on challenging myself to work with traditional methods of ceramics,” Arvizu says. “So I was working with traditional methods like porcelain and plaster working. I wanted to try and make my own glaze. I wanted to test myself as a ceramicist.” 

His project, an exhibition titled NOT A SIN, was a series of seven sculptures based on the seven deadly sins. It was presented at newsense projects, an artist collective and experimental art space in a Lakewood century home. 

“At newsense projects, we have collaborated with different Creativity Works recipients over the years,” says Kristin Rogers, Arvizu’s collaborator. “El was fantastic to work with and produced an exhibition that was dynamic, thoughtful and deeply aligned with the gallery’s mission to blur the contours between art and domesticity.”

For Arvizu, the experience yielded artistic insights. The first was how much he loved making big work for a solo show. He liked making subjective work about self-inquiry.

“I’m the type of person that likes to look inward to try and fix the problems that I have to make myself a better person and to hopefully find a similarity with other people,” he says.

Arvizu’s project leader was Alberto Veronica Lopez, studio manager in CIA’s Ceramics program. The two connected over Mexican heritage and ceramics. 

“We talked to each other a lot, and when I was doing Creativity Works, I was staying in the school from open to close,” Arvizu says. “He would see me come in, I would see him leave, and he would just be like, ‘So how’s the suffering going now?’”

For Arvizu, the experience held lessons about the grit required in committing to make a body of work and pushing on even when problems arise—such as a few parts that broke off some of the figures depicted in the “sins.” 

“A couple of figures didn’t have pinkies, and people were like, ‘Is that an intentional thing?’ I was, like, ‘The intentionality is that the piece showed up. That pinky’s not there, and I can’t find it in the kiln, so we’re not going to talk about it,’” he says with a laugh. “That was my direction during the talk (at the opening), after I had gone through this long spiel of each piece and what it meant to me as a person and how it defined me growing up.”

The business side of the project also held important lessons, he says. Learning to budget and approach people to speak about his art paid off when it was time to prepare for “an even greater thing,” as he puts it: Arvizu won a $15,000 Windgate-Lamar Fellowship, awarded each year by the Center for Craft to 10 graduating students exhibiting exemplary skill in craft.

He completed his fellowship in 2024.

Photo caption: “GREED” (2023) was part of NOT A SIN, El Arvizu’s exhibition at newsense projects in Lakewood. “GREED” is made of porcelain, majolica and luster and measures 5 x 8 x 13 inches. Submitted photo.