Meet Tere Pensel

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tere Pensel a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Tere, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?

Personally, I find my resilience in the experiences life has offered me. The loss of my mother when I was very young, and the diagnosis of autism for my youngest son, are two moments that have left an indelible mark on my existence. Both situations forced me to make a crucial decision: to move forward or give up. I chose to go through these difficult times with determination, firmly believing that, as painful as it was, I had to keep going.

I consider myself a person with high resilience, a quality that has helped me not only in those times of great adversity, but also in other, less dramatic situations, but still challenging. I worked for almost twenty years in the fashion industry, participating in a beautiful project that, over time, came to an end. Once again, I found myself at a crossroads: what path should I take? I decided to take another step, redefine my life, and reinvent myself as a ceramic artist. That process has also been tough, full of uncertainty and learning, but resilience has allowed me to keep moving forward, adapting to each challenge.

In this sense, ceramics is the very art of resilience: it’s a process of constant research, trial and error, where the results are often not what we expect. However, each failure is an opportunity to learn. Sometimes I wonder if coincidences really exist, or if somehow everything has led me here, to this path I’ve chosen.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

Since I was very young I have been working with my hands. My grandmother taught me to knit and sew. I spent my afternoons in the living room of her house among wool and scraps of fabric.
Art has always been very close to my family. Cinema, theater, exhibitions of plastic artists were part of my childhood.
I was born in the city of Buenos Aires, cradle of extraordinary talents and showcase of an innumerable diversity of artists from all over the world.
The journey through different artistic expressions flowed naturally very close to me.
I have also been nourished by the rich artistic legacy of the native peoples who inhabited my territory in its beginnings and who have had a strong influence on my work.
I have traveled around my country, approaching different artistic spaces where diverse artistic expressions of all times converge.
Ceramics were always present in me although many years passed until I finally approached it in a definitive way.
I graduated as an Apparel Designer, I worked for twenty years as an independent entrepreneur designing clothing collections, at the same time I attended ceramics workshops where I had a good time, I relaxed, it was a game.
Almost unintentionally, I began to put together a first collection of pieces. Encouraged by my sisters, who have always been a pillar in my life, I offered my collection to interior design studios in Buenos Aires, and to my surprise, I sold the entire collection. After that, more and more orders came in and my portfolio of clients grew to such an extent that I left my previous activity and dedicated myself full time to my new ceramic venture.
From 2018 until today, wonderful opportunities followed one after the other, giving me the possibility to continue growing and consolidating myself as an artist.
This year, I have been chosen to occupy a place among the 100 most outstanding emerging women artists of 2024, a publication by the Arts to Hearts Project.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

One of the fundamental conditions for building a career in ceramics is having a strong tolerance for frustration. When I started my journey, I experimented with various techniques, as the range of possibilities is vast. Over time, I began discarding what didn’t align with my aesthetic vision. For instance, I moved away from glossy glazes and started exploring ceramic bodies, aiming for the form and texture of the piece to be the true protagonists. I conducted numerous tests with color and texture until I found the formulas that yielded the best results.

My work is heavily influenced by pre-Columbian American ceramics, an art form that is part of my culture, which is why my aesthetic search was directed toward that concept.

My advice for those starting out is to first define the core aesthetic lines of your work, and then begin the research on materials, firing, and form within the chosen parameters. Having a clear and coherent foundation will make the experimentation process much more enriching and focused.

Before we go, maybe you can tell us a bit about your parents and what you feel was the most impactful thing they did for you?

My parents taught me to value the culture of my country and gave me the opportunity to connect with the vast global art world. I was born in Buenos Aires, a city that has been the backdrop for countless artistic expressions over the years. Since childhood, I had the privilege of traveling across my country, visiting museums and churches that date back to the times of the Spanish conquest of the Americas. Both my mother and father were deeply connected to culture, and they passed on to my siblings and me a unique sensitivity for contemplation and an appreciation for art in its many forms.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://terepensel.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/terepensel/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/teresa-pensel-42644b230/
• Other: Pinterest. https://ar.pinterest.com/terepensel/

Image Credits

photos and video @nutestudio