Javier G. Paradelo
Puente San Miguel (EFE).- Heir to the now-defunct Santander (founded in 1877) and Torrelavega (1892) Schools of Arts and Crafts, the Roberto Orallo School has been, since its creation in 2008, the only official center in Cantabria that trains the future plastic and designed artists of the region.
Before, they were centers that trained renowned artists in all fields and also workers from Cantabrian companies such as Solvay, but today students from the two training cycles of the family of intermediate grade jewelry and superior, and also of the Enlightenment cycle.
The director of the center, Jesús García, assures EFE that the studies have an entrepreneurial focus and involve leading the training of students towards real projects, in which economic viability and the market must be studied, which is “fundamental” in the studies of plastic arts and design.
During classes, students have to develop projects based on their interests or abilities, but also adjusting to the demands of their environment, learning the best way to get a certain return on their work and even achieving self-employment or finding a job. better job.
A future in animation
The young student Paula Fernández, who sees her professional future in the field of animation, considers the school the ideal place to train, both in the fundamentals of drawing and to experiment in analog and digital techniques, looking for what can be useful in your future job.
In this way, Paula seeks, together with the classes, to create her portfolio -a physical or digital collection of the best creations of an artist- to refer it to animation studios and one day be able to work in that profession in Spain or abroad.
The same thing happens to Valentina Ruiz, a student for whom the plastic arts are her vocation, and for this reason, after the pandemic, she was encouraged to enroll in school and it was one of her best decisions.
His studies are focused on how you can live in rural areas as a young person, either through modeling or modeling projects, in designs or in jewelry, with the ultimate goal of being able to open in his town, Ucieda , his own workshop, to undertake from there to “defend the territory and not abandon those places that see us grow.”
New facilities
The director of the school assures that the current educational offer is limited by the spaces of the old Puente San Miquel school that this center occupies, although the future is more rosy as new facilities are planned next to the Music Conservatory, which will allow increasing specialties and places.
In addition to training, the school organizes various artistic exhibitions during the academic year, such as the one opened at the Madrazo cultural center in Santander, under the slogan “Flamante”, a proposal that brings together both final projects and classroom work from the cycles of illustration, artistic jewelry and jewelry procedures.
The projects are works carried out autonomously by the students who, after completing the cycle, finish their studies with the elaboration of a project that demonstrates their professional training and in which the learning of the various modules studied is integrated.
a panorama
Of medium degree, you can see the final works of María Martínez, Paula Ortiz, Laura Alonso, Nuria Sáinz, Celia Muñiz, Manuel Baquero; while jewelry are those of Víctor Gutiérrez, Cristina Sánchez and Sofía Ruiz; and Illustration those of María Jesús Aguirre, Cristina Ezinmo, Elena Fernández and Claudia Ruiz.
Works that serve as a sample of the specific activity of each module have also been selected for the exhibition, thus offering an overview of the various didactic proposals in which the curricular contents of the cycles are materialized.
This exhibition is a snapshot of the most recent and unpublished work that the students develop in the art school.
Jesús García recalls the “essential figure” in the current configuration of the school who is Roberto Orallo, “one of the most has fought” for the recovery of the teaching of plastic arts and who was the first director of the center, then School of Art number 1, and which now gives its name.
