Rosa once saw the Virgin Mary move. She felt her penetrating gaze and was shaken to her core. She believed that this statue had spoken to her. She was only six years old and when she dared to touch it and realised that it could not move, she did not lose faith. She decided recreate the same kind of statues in terracotta. She started making early on in life, as she constantly watched her wise and hardworking mother make vases, pots, chorotes, pans, and casserole dishes. Rosa believed her mother was as tireless as she was self-sacrificing. She understood what it took her to bring mazamorra (sweet porridge made with milk, corn and sugarcane) to a table of seven people every day. She also noticed how women who resold products in the Villa de Leyva marketplace earned more than her mother and all the other potters who worked from dawn to dusk.
Rosa María Jeréz
