When he was a child, animals and vegetation started to merge in Cesar Correa Cordoba’s mind.
“I was imagining all the leaves looked like feathers, or all the plants looked like parts of animals, or the animals looked like the plants,” he told CBC Hamilton.
The Mexico native is a painter, accordion player and illustrator, but his passion project for many years has been his animals and other creatures made from natural materials.
These sculptures will be accessible for the public to see this weekend as part of the Doors Open festival in Hamilton.
Correa Cordoba uses twigs, fruit peels, leaves, milkweed, cattail and “anything organic” he can find and puts them together with pine sap to make animals out of them. The sculptures take as little as 10 hours or as much as years to complete.
“In the beginning, I didn’t have money to buy the art materials,” he said.
“So I really was focused on experimenting at home, learning from different little courses or in museums or in cultural centres and mix it at home.”
Family and friends were sceptical at first as to why Correa Cordoba was saving what they saw as garbage. But with time, their perception of waste changed a little.
“People see what I do with recycled materials,” he said, “and then they save me things and [they’re] like, ‘oh, I was thinking of you and I brought these pieces.”
Cotton Factory celebrates 10 years
Paintings, books and art supplies are piled in different corners of the space that Correa Cordoba and other artists use as a workshop within the Cotton Factory, a historic industrial complex repurposed for artistic and other kinds of independent workers.
He and many others will have their creations on display for Doors Open but the weekend is also the factory’s 10-year anniversary celebration.
So in addition to the more than 50 sites open to the public around the city, for free, on May 4 and 5, the Cotton Factory will have art exhibitions, live music and food vendors.
“It’s an interesting time to sort of reflect on things and how far we’ve come,” said Rob Zeidler, managing partner at the factory.
He has seen the place grow from an old factory into the home of a creative community in Hamilton.
“It’s very important to support the arts community to make sure that it’s looked after and cared for so it remains strong,” he said.
“[The arts community] makes Hamilton a great city to live in … and not some cultural wasteland.”
Art form with deep roots in Mexico
Correa Cordoba started working out of the space not long after he moved to Hamilton around seven years ago.
He said his art is inspired by Indigenous peoples and traditions of Mexico. The sculptures, and the process to make them, are metaphors for life, death, and the fragility of both, he said.
WATCH | Cesar Correa Cordoba on the three years he spent working on this sculpture:
Hamilton artist Cesar Correa Cordoba uses twigs, fruit peels, leaves, milkweed, cattail and “anything organic” he can find to capture Indigenous traditions in Mexico through sculptures.
In his corner of the workshop, his animals, birds and insects sit on podiums, under spotlights. Jars and boxes of pine cones, bark and other found objects are stacked on shelves in between. It’s dark on this particular late April evening — a time of day when Correa Cordoba often comes in to work on his projects.
The inspiration for the atmospheric display comes from his visits to the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, where pieces from Mayan and Aztec peoples are displayed.
“That left a big impression always in my life,” said Correa Cordoba.
He reflects on the history that the materials he uses bring into his studio, paying respect to the parts of nature that make his sculptures possible.
“How these trees for all these years [grew] just to give these leaves or these pine cones,” said Correa Cordoba. “It’s a lot of years, a lot of energy, a lot of love from the nature.”