May Rojas is a carpenter, craftswoman and educator with a deep vocation for the material and a commitment to social change within the trade. May currently combines her work in her own workshop with teaching, dedicating herself to passing the craft on to new generations. She is a vocal advocate for women in the industry and collaborates with SURU to champion local, circular, and honest manufacturing. She is the maker of the Niu Armchair 001 and the Niu Stool 002.
Entrevista en català.
Entrevista en castellano.
SURU. How did you discover your vocation for carpentry and craftsmanship?
May Rojas. Since I was very little, I was especially attracted to anything that could be manipulated. In fact, it has always been that area where I stood out, I suppose because I really enjoyed those moments of freedom inside the rigid institution where we grew up and tried to discover what our skills were: the traditional school, which standardized our rhythms and capacities with impunity; which, rather than awakening curiosities and reinforcing what made us feel valuable and free, highlighted everything we didn't do like the "rest."
As an adult, after finishing university, I studied artistic ceramics. A material so plastic and with so many possibilities... I loved it, but it represented many economic challenges, because the processes are very expensive and, furthermore, it was difficult to properly store the pieces and market them at a decent price. After a while, I started, like many, to approach wood for a matter of self-management, of covering my own needs at low cost without making the Swedes with the big yellow letters richer.
Wood allows you, with few tools and little space, to have a workshop where you can do amateur-level work but also of great quality. At first it was a hobby, which awakened what we all have: the need to create, to transform matter with our hands. I quickly realized that I needed to discover a way to work more safely, using the right materials for each project and shortening machine times. Vocational training was the gateway to an inexhaustible trade where, every time you know more, you feel more like an apprentice. Always a paradox, but anyone who lives their passion with dedication surely understands me.
SURU. What do you like most about your work in the workshop?
M.R. Forgetting about everything! In the workshop, when I am alone, the world stops. The hands don't stop and neither does the brain, but worries don't exist; it's like when you are in front of a beautiful landscape, after walking for hours to get there: you don't think about anything, you just ARE THERE, YOU ARE, and you feel super grateful to life.
Since I spend many hours at the school teaching in the workshop there and running around with life in general, the hours in my workshop are... enjoying the summit. It is my prize: the space to rediscover myself, to discover the duality of wood: so delicate and rough at the same time; like our inner self. If we stop to think about it, we resemble trees more than we believe, but we have forgotten our connection with nature.
SURU. Do you think that artisanal work brings a differential value in the manufacturing process of furniture and objects?
M.R. Inevitably, the first differential value is the final price of the product. A small workshop with high fixed costs working with good materials cannot compete with mass-produced furniture. But it doesn't want to either, and I agree. However, this makes them inaccessible to everyone in the current production system. The culture of buying less and of good quality has diminished in the face of everything immediately and ephemeral. Even so, there are still people who value the material, who enjoy touching the wood and knowing who has sweated and enjoyed in equal parts transforming the trunk (that rough unworked wood) into a unique piece (delicate and durable).
The second differentiation of artisanal work is this: authenticity, singularity... the ability to imprint something personal on it. Attending to a specific need and giving it an answer. Creating a dialogue with clients that brings great knowledge to both parties. This is intangible and is the most valuable part, since it generates bonds with the final piece and it is no longer about a category (a table, a chair...), but it becomes our table, the one we wish to transcend us and be part of a loved one's home in the future.
Craftsmanship is a return to respect for nature and for the human being. Forests are the legacy of our ancestors, and the pieces we make with this wood should be conceived with the will to transcend in time as much as possible. We have such a huge debt to the environment that the option of producing on a small scale and respecting the material and people is no longer an option: it is the only option.
SURU. What influences or references do you have within the world of craftsmanship?
M.R. In Europe we have great cabinetmakers, as there is a deeply rooted culture of caring for the trade and very high self-esteem on the part of carpenters and cabinet makers. Here it is reduced because the demand is less intense and the Catalonia workshops and trades has not been protected. However, all those artists who lived cabinetmaking and carpentry from a more humanistic perspective enthused me.
In the United States, the Shaker religious group was the creator of incredible pieces for their honesty, simplicity, knowledge of the material, final delicacy and... all this using just the right amount of necessary material. They gave rise to minimalist pieces of great beauty and excellent quality. Without a doubt, these pieces are a great reference for me.
On the other hand, although it seems like an opposite extreme, the Modernist artists are always an inspiration: William Morris, Ruskin, Victor Horta, Mackintosh... Gaspar Homar! If I could choose a trip in a time machine, I would surely transport myself to his workshop. They have all the qualities of Shaker furniture, but they blend with nature and recreate its forms. Now we would think it is too decorative, and I think so too, but... we are Mediterranean disconnected from our rich and friendly natural environment. We live surrounded by hard, straight, dead concrete; we need that fluidity of lines, the warmth of wood, a little kindness and tenderness in our home is always necessary.
SURU. How do you see the future of craftsmanship in Barcelona?
M.R. Alive and respected. There are professionals in Catalonia working with a very high level of demand for this to be so. The limitation of the final price of the product reduces it to a luxury good; if we do not push for a paradigm shift, this trend will only consolidate the only two possible options: mass manufacturing, where low costs predominate, and unique artisanal pieces inaccessible to the majority. There must be the possibility of continuing to produce quality pieces in an artisanal way and for it not to be a utopia reserved for a select group of professionals and clients.
SURU. What is it like to be a woman in a traditionally masculinized trade like carpentry?
M.R. Well, it's like most things you set out to do in life: harder, just for the fact of being a woman. And even harder if, in addition to being a woman, I was racialized. Sociological theories explain it better than I do, but... everything is "easier," more "accessible" if you are a white and heteronormative man. Below this typology are all the other "rungs." And whoever says this isn't true, it's because they've had a lot of luck in life and have lived little.
Women generally have more difficulties focusing on our professional career, because while we work, we are justifying ourselves, we are looking after other people... If you add to this that in masculinized sectors, we don't have references or female colleagues, these are brakes that make the trend not change. But it is changing! The education, visibility, sorority, connectivity... added to the fact that we are beings with a strong and brave essence (because we are historically, even if it seems that there is only interest in explaining certain aspects), mean that women who discover their passion, if they have had to dodge many obstacles before, do so standing out, learning fast and sharing to create community. Because we have always been creators, and we keep this connection more alive than men.
The ultimate hope is that the day arrives when these types of questions are no longer asked, because the man/woman construct is obsolete and each of us has recovered our unique essence.
SURU. What structural barriers do women find today to access and consolidate themselves in trades like carpentry?
M.R. I think it is quite clear in the previous answer. Close references: an aunt who is a carpenter? A neighbor? A grandmother?!? The day we find a girl who signs up for "Formació Professional" - like us, we have few, but we have some - and says she wants to be a carpenter like her grandmother... that will mean that the wheel is already beginning to bear fruit.
It is a slow process, because structural barriers penetrate to our unconscious and make these types of professions not exist in our future projections when we are young. No one needs to tell you that you can't be a carpenter; but you do need to be told that YES YOU CAN be one. In this I make a lot of effort, I think it is vital to break the invisible barriers that chain gender and profession.
SURU. Which SURU values align with your way of working as an artisan carpenter?
M.R. SURU is synonymous with respect and honesty. It is a relationship between professionals of equal value who work to create the possibility for the client to have a quality piece in their home without being a millionaire. It is that possibility I mentioned earlier that could not disappear, and that lies between the industrial process and the luxury item. It is dignity towards the designers, the carpenters, the material... and especially towards the environment, which belongs to everyone, and no one protects, while capital does not stop shortening.
SURU. How do you value the fact that SURU bets on local, circular, and artisanal production?
M.R. That SURU breathes in Barcelona is no coincidence. Collectivity is a historical value of our city. Although the pressure is increasing and pushing us further away, relegating the rights to live where we have a home to Barcelona and its surroundings, the fact that SURU is here and acts as a hinge between clients and artisans is very hopeful. The city is a leader in an alternative movement that bets on a circular economy, and one of the gears of this engine of change is a project like this. It is a "glove" that artisans pick up gratefully, as it allows us to stay connected to the neighborhood, to the environment, and live with dignity from the transformation process, valuing a trade they want to make disappear from the neighborhoods.
They want us in industrial estates (which, in part, are inaccessible to small artisans), disconnected and dispersed. But we want neighborhood carpenters, tailors, shoemakers to exist again... because they are the ones who open the door for you, listen to you and give you solutions. Maybe they won't give you a pencil at the entrance, but they will manufacture a unique piece of furniture for you that will be able to know several generations.
SURU. Finally, what goal would you like to achieve in the coming years in this sector?
M.R. I want to keep learning. As a carpentry teacher, first to keep striving, not to disconnect from the generations that seem younger every time... but clearly, that's not it! It's that I'm getting older!
If the connection happens, trust flows, and they are usually the protagonists of their learning process. We are just a vehicle, temporary and necessary. It is a great responsibility that they consolidate key aspects of the trade. And from there, they find their way and continue learning. The same thing I do with every commission: I learn a little more and realize that there is still much to discover.
I want to be a little ant who, at the end of each day, goes to sleep with a smile, without having stepped on anyone, without having debts to anyone, and bringing a little humanity to the sector and sensitivity to the wood.