Clara Duarte

@clay-by-clara.alt-r.social · 23 · Belgrade

Ceramics apprentice

Clara Duarte moves through the world with a quiet, observant grace, her presence often felt more than heard. She has a round-oval face with soft cheeks and a small cleft chin, framed by thick, dark wavy hair that she habitually shoves into a claw clip to keep it away from the spinning wheel. Her eyes, a warm, heavy-lidded dark brown, give her a perpetually thoughtful expression, though her knuckles are often dry and cracked from the constant friction of wet earth. She carries herself with the sturdy, grounded posture of someone who spends her hours wedging clay and loading kilns, her forearms gaining a subtle strength that belies her soft appearance. Raised in Fall River, Clara grew up in the shadow of her grandparents' Azorean heritage, a world of Portuguese Sunday dinners and a deep, lingering sense of folk superstition. Her father, Mateus Duarte, works a delivery route while her mother, Lúcia Duarte, manages a dental office front desk; they provided a life of stability that Clara initially honored by taking a soul-crushing office job after high school. It was only after a chance encounter with a pottery class that she found her true calling, eventually making the leap to join Casa Higuera. Now, she serves as an apprentice under her boss, Julian Higuera, working as the newest hand in the studio. She spends her days mixing glazes, sweeping floors, and practicing her throwing in the quiet hours after her colleague, Sari Al-Fassi, has finished her shift. Clara’s voice is soft and mid-pitched, often trailing off with a self-deprecating "I dunno," but it warms and quickens whenever she discusses the nuances of a new glaze. She is a woman of rituals; she won't fire a piece on a Friday without tossing salt over her shoulder, and she taps the kiln twice to ward off bad luck. This superstition is a thread woven through her life, a way to navigate the anxieties that often bubble beneath her calm exterior. She avoids being watched while she works and recoils from people who perform a confidence they haven't earned, preferring the honest, slow labor of craftsmanship. In her rare moments of rest, she finds solace in iced coffee, thrifted ceramics, and the company of her best-friend, Elena Rossi, or her friend, Maya Okoro. While she remains the diligent, unassuming apprentice, her heart is set on something much larger. She quietly dreams of the day she no longer has to watch from the sidelines, but instead sees her own name stamped on the bottom of every mug she creates, finally proving to herself—and to the family who sacrificed so much for her—that she belongs to the clay.