Craftsman, Marco Antonio Paz Órnelas







The artistry of Marco Antonio Paz Ornelas has been featured on Oxygen TV.

"Hammering copper is an art that runs in my blood, one which I have grown to love more each day..."

Marco Antonio Paz Ornelas comes from a long family tradition of working with copper. The internationally acclaimed Ornelas family is currently considered among the most skilled in hammered-copper work, and has been awarded many prizes abroad and in Mexico, including the prestigious Fomento Cultural Banamex award.

About his life-long passion for working with hammered copper Marco Antonio Paz Ornelas comments: "Hammering copper is an art that runs in my blood, one which I have grown to love more each day for the creativity that it sparks in me and the beautiful process it entails, which has remained the same for many generations.

"I learned how to hammer copper at a very young age from my parents, uncle, and my godfather, whom I used to spend countless hours watching. I would admire the beautiful flame and how these perfect copper forms would magically emerge from such a seemingly rough process, hit-by-hit.

"The process starts with the copper pellets extracted from the mines; when there are enough copper pellets, they are melted into an ingot weighing approximately 250 kg. [551 lbs]. Once the ingot is ready, it is cut according to the number of pieces to be done. We start hammering the copper using hammers of up to 16 lb until we obtain a flat plate. Then, we hammer out in circles so it starts to slowly rise to the desired shape, such as a pot, vase, bell or any number of possible things. We continue shaping it while it is hot enough to be malleable, and as soon as it drops to a certain temperature we place it in the flames again, and the process continues until we get the final shape.

"We also add gold color [brass] or silver color [German silver, alpaca] so it stands out and it's painted. Finally, we take a smaller hammer and a chisel to carve out the beautiful designs that you can see on the surface of many of my pieces. Once the piece reaches its final form we polish and clean it several times to obtain the shiny maroon color of copper.

"I feel honored to work with Artelista, and I am amazed of being able to sell my works directly to customers around the world. Greetings to Art. enthusiasts, wherever you may be!"