My creatures live somewhere between Oaxaca, memory, and imagination. They aren't based on one culture, one story, or one time period. They borrow from ancient traditions, dreams, accidents in the kiln, and the strange ideas that keep me awake at night. Each one arrives with its own personality. Some make me laugh, some make me uncomfortable, and some seem older than all of us. I don't try to control them. I simply give them a body and let them exist. I hope they make you pause long enough to invent your own story about who they are. —- Juan Escobedo 2026

These aren't monsters. They're memories. They're ancestors. They're questions.

I call them my creatures, but they're really companions that show up one at a time. I never sketch them first. I sit with a lump of clay, and eventually someone begins to emerge. Every crooked smile, oversized eye, horn, and imperfect surface carries a personality that surprises even me.

My sculptures are influenced by years of walking through Oaxaca, listening to stories, studying ancient figures, and meeting people who continue to protect tradition. But they are not replicas of the past. They are conversations between the ancient and the imagined, between archaeology and dreams.

I like it when people don't know whether to smile, laugh, or stare. That moment of uncertainty is where curiosity begins. These beings aren't asking to be understood immediately—they're asking to be encountered.

They're playful. They're awkward. They're stubborn. Some look like they wandered out of a Zapotec myth, while others seem like they just arrived from a future nobody has visited yet.

I don't make perfect sculptures. I make honest ones. Every fingerprint, every crack, every glaze that surprises me in the kiln becomes part of their story. They remind me that imperfections don't need to be hidden—they're where character lives.

Welcome to my growing family of creatures. They have been waiting a long time to meet you. — Juan Escobedo 2026

Almas En Camino (Whispers Between Worlds) (2025) is a multidisciplinary body of work that brings ceramics and film into quiet conversation, exploring memory, ancestry, and the spaces between the living and the ancestral. Presented at ESMoA and at the El Camino College Anthropology Museum and Schauerman Library solo show, the ceramic “creatures” and sculptures function as sculptural witnesses—guardians shaped by folklore, travel, and ritual—while the accompanying film deepens their presence through story, landscape, and voice. Together, the works invite viewers into an intimate reflection on cultural continuity, preservation, and the whispers that move between worlds, blending contemporary art practice with anthropological and communal inquiry.