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Like most craft artists in the village of Bichinhos and all around Tiradentes, Fábio Heleno Teixeira started on his artistic path at the Oficina de Agosto workshop. There he worked for 6 years. “I learned a lot with Toti, the owner of the workshop. He was then starting to work closely with the community and I learned a little of everything. I learned to put pieces together, saw, finish, paint, etc. Then I started to make some things by myself, out of my own head. Toti was very nice and encouraged me to find my own path, my own style. And so I’ve been working in my own workshop for the last 5 years, with my father, who also worked at the Oficina de Agosto workshop a long time ago.” The bottle caps he uses on his pieces were a gift from the workshop. “The original idea was to use them to make clothes, but it didn’t work. The caps were put aside, nobody wanted them, and they were given to me. My first idea was to make a mermaid, because I thought I could use the caps to make scales. I used to attach the caps to a wooden base using nails. Now I tie them up with wire. The piece ends up lighter and I can fit light bulbs inside.” Fábio was born in Bichinhos in 1979 and now employs young people to help him, and many others flatten bottles caps for him at home. “I buy the caps from people. At first they used to collect them and give them to me, but because the pieces started to sell well, I started to buy them.” |
