Jorge Labandeira (Madrid, 1989) has his workshop in a steep, narrow street that leads down to Santa Margarita park, in A Coruña (north west Spain), where a lot of people pass by, residents of a popular working-class district.

One morning, a woman in a work uniform stops at the workshop window and stares at the"Macetero Líquido número 1", one of Jorge's pieces. She asks how much it is, and when she hears the price, her eyes open wide and she exclaims in surprise:

-"But that costs an arm and a leg!"— Then she laughs and then says by way of clarification,"but it is really beautiful". Then she goes on her way without knowing that that moment with her was the icing on the cake of the conversation between VOA and Labandeira, which started more or less like this:

- How did you end up working in ceramics?

- I was coming back one day from Malpica, I stopped off at Buño, I saw the pottery there and I said to myself: I need to get my hands dirty, because I was really tired of computers. I was deeply involved with Mireiq, my handbag company, and I had a lot of web work, programming, taking photos… I was very tired of all the digital stuff and needed to get dirty. I thought: I need to shatter all this perfection, because at Mireiq I was trying to be perfect. If one piece was a millimetre out of place, the system collapsed. So in 2019 I created Kitsubi, based on the concept of wabi-sabi that's used so much now. I use the slogan Not trying to be perfect, and that's what I'm still trying to do. Not make something broken and busy to make it sell. I try to be honest with my work. I make things simply as a way out, like you're on a motorway and you suddenly take an exit and you don't know why. And I never set out to create a beautiful piece, beautiful as such, brilliant, perfect, I prefer to look for harmony. What problem do I have with Kitsubi right now?

- What?

- I don't care if I say it: more or less everything has been wabi-sabi over the last three years. Here in the West we take over everything and market it with concepts that are actually philosophical. What do people ask for? They carry on asking for the same colours, the same patterns, the imperfection… The problem now is that it's become perfect. Right now, Kitsubi is an honest firm because it doesn't produce. It doesn't produce new pieces because I'm going through a fallow period mentally, thinking things like where's the honesty, where's the wabi-sabi, where's the act of observing beauty in imperfection. The pieces you have in VOA are a way out, different from what Kitsubi was doing. It's like the next step, but I need to keep thinking things over.

- Does repeating pieces make sense when nowadays everything can be repeated quickly and cheaply?

- There's a lot of encroachment onto the world of ceramics, and I include myself in that. Why don't people use the wheel anymore? It's very easy to explain: because they. don't. know…. They make unique pieces, on demand… because I don't know how to make two identical vases. I don't know how to make two identical vases. I don't know how to make them on a wheel. I might be able to make two similar ones on a tournette. I can practice and try to do it, but that's not my aim. Does it make sense to repeat?

- You tell me.

- It depends. You can see videos of craftsmen in India making vases, one after another, and the movement is like dancing, they're dancing with the clay and they do it all perfectly. It's fantastic. The same thing happens to me with etching. You're working on the plate, the work is in the wood, when you're working with the gouge, and it's wonderful. Then it goes onto paper and it's reproduced. Why is engraving so often disparaged? Because there are copies. What does John Berger say in"Ways of Seeing"? Why do people buy a painting? For one simple reason: capitalism, possession, being able to say"I and only I have this painting". It's not an aesthetic issue. And I'm not anti-system, I love being in the system and I love making money, but if I can make you five identical vases, or twenty, do they have less value than if I make you just one? Not for me.

- What's your creative process like?

- For the pieces in the VOA it's as if I literally set up a workshop. Imagine that you turn up with your friend and I say to you: we're going to make one of these pieces. You'd both say: I don't know, I'm not a potter. Because people are scared of failure, of making mistakes. For better or worse, I don't really care about failing. I don't care about making mistakes, pleasing or not pleasing. I just do it. The idea is a big lump of clay and making the piece. And how do I build it? With pinches, bits, cords… It's primitive. That's all there is. You need to give it volume, make it go up to the ceiling. And how do I do that? I don't know. And how do I decorate it? I don't know. If I taught classes, they'd be like that, and I'm really sure that some really powerful stuff would come out, using all the tools you want, without limits, without thinking if it's a lot clay or if you're using a lot of materials… We've all got this primitive ability inside us to work with clay. All of us.

- And where do you see yourself in a decade or two?

- Up till now I've been finding my sea legs to develop with painting engraving and ceramics. As for the future with pottery, I can see myself making really big pieces, ones that I feel are really good, things like sculpture with slabs, that open up the way.

- Colour in your pottery is an inspiration, decorative…?

- Colour is a surprise. I like to work with very little water and a lot of content, with oxides. And there should be a great big blob, something really dense. And squirt, squirt, squirt! I put it on a tournette and I turn it around: Squirt, squirt, squirt! Then I grab a brush and splatter. And then another squirt. Because they're very big pieces, when they're more or less dry, they go straight into the kiln. I take them out and say hello! Whatever comes out. It's just that and having materials, with no limits. It's pure pleasure. The pieces in VOA are pure pleasure. Simply a lot of fun and enjoyment.

- And the worst part of the process?

— When the fucking piece, pardon my language, starts to fall over. When Newton says: here I am and I'm going to flatten your head, you bastard. And it starts to pull away and fall, and you say: Don't collapse, please, you're beautiful! But that's also the most beautiful thing. Because you learn all over again.

- The most beautiful thing? Really?

- Yeah. Look, the other day I was playing tennis and lost an important match and I said: this is the best sport in the world. Because you lose, and you have to think what happened, what did I do wrong, where did I make mistakes… just like with wabi-sabi. The next time you play tennis you try not to make the same mistakes. You try. It's not about never making them again. That's the only way to move on. It's frustrating, but I don't mind making mistakes. I can handle it.