If you really want to take a nice souvenir back home and also want to visit a special place, then you should definitely visit Serena’s Art factory. When I’m travelling, I like it a lot to take different souvenirs home, and for me that’s the case with a Chichi.
You can find Serena’s Art factory on the Eastside of the island, close to the Ostrich farm, on Jan Luis nr 87a.
If you arrive at the factory you see a very colorful board at the entrance, with a Chichi on it. So you know you are in the right place.
After parking the car, we first walked into the garden. The garden is a spot on it’s own. There are big Chichi’s and other nice colorful things like a drum. There is even a little cable-way for the kids.
On the site of Chichi-Curacao you can read that Chichi’s are sensual, well rounded caribbean figures. In Papiamentu Chichi means elder sister. This sister is vibrant, responsible and dynamic. The Chichi’s you can find at Chichi Curacao are designed by the Berlin born artist Serena Janet Israel. Serena was originally a mould maker. With a diversity of moulds made by Serena, different Chichi’s are made in the factory.
If you walk through the garden, then you arrive quickly at the workspace of the factory.
In this workspace, which is on the outside, the Chichi’s are made with the moulds. It was nice that we could stand close to the workspace, to see how they fill the moulds with plaster. They also use concrete and epoxy for some products.
f the Chichi is dry, the craftsman get her out of the mould. In the next step she is being polished and little holes are filled with plaster. Then the Chichi has to dry for a couple of more days. If she’s dry enough, the Chichi will be brought to the local painters, mostly women, who paint the Chichi’s at home.
If the Chichi’s are painted, they come back to the factory for the final inspection. Also some tags are added, so you have proof that it’s a real Chichi from Serena’s Art factory.
The nice thing is that there is also a number under the Chichi, which give you the opportunity to find out who painted your Chichi. On the site you can find back all the painters.
From the garden, you arrive at the little shop from Serena’s art factory.
Inside you find a lot of Chichi’s, what made it very difficult to choose which one I wanted to take home.
Finally I bought a sitting Chichi. I will show you a photo of it later, because now it’s packed very well for the trip home. And I also forgot to check who painted my Chichi, so I will show that later too.
You can buy the sitting Chichi’s in small, medium and big and next to that they have a medium and big standing Chichi. You can order customized Chichi’s.
They also have workshops at Serena’s Art factory, but I will tell you more about that in another post.
Greetz Claudia
My Socials Cakesandpumps
