PALM BEACH — Each month, Caribbean Queen at Palm Beach Plaza Mall honors one local female artist who lives and creates here. The Caribbean Queen program was launched when the store opened in late 2011, and has been running successfully ever since.
For the month of March 2015, local artist Cecilia Morales is the boutique’s celebrated Caribbean Queen, showcasing her iconic impressions of Aruba. Born in Puerto Cabello, a city on the north coast of Venezuela, she grew up surrounded by arts & crafts created by talented family members. Her mother, a known Venezuelan ceramist, introduced the kids to their first artisan environment, where traditional children’s toys and games mixed in with clay, wood, paints, pencils, and brushes, among other materials and tools.
Cecilia took several courses such as clay modeling in art school in Valencia, Venezuela; then as a young adult, she studied photography and jewelry making. Now as an adult she continues her artistic journey, considering her craft as an expression of her soul and her curiosity as the tool for learning as an ongoing process throughout life.
Living in Aruba for more than 16 years, raising her kids and working as a technician by trade, Cecilia has continued to develop her early skills, also coming up with new craft techniques, such as knotting, beading, and stringing in jewelry, and most recently, Textured Stencil with Stucco. In this current artistic development, the warm, white Aruban beach sand is the backdrop, revealing iconic shapes relating to the island’s culture and nature in the forefront: Divi-Divi trees, lizards, the sun, sea turtles, shells, starfish, and more. These decorative pieces have been recognized by the Ministry of Tourism as authentic Aruban souvenirs and were given the certificate of authenticity in 2014. Cecilia plans to venture into more complex motifs in the future in her effort to further promote TSS, Textured Stencil with Stucco.
Caribbean Queen earmarks a percentage of all sales for its Tikkun Olam (Repair of the World) program. The collected funds are given quarterly to local not-for-profit organizations in an ongoing effort to do good and serve the community. All the foundations served with donations from Caribbean Queen are dedicated to the promotion of art and artisan education on the island.
Enjoy these unique pieces by Cecilia throughout the month of March, and drop in to witness a live demonstration of her craft at the boutique on the third Thursday of the month, in the evening hours.
