Ana Docavo · Maribel Martínez
MeninasdelMar
Stoneware, oxides and 24-carat goldOne of a kindHandmade in Spain
Ana Docavo · Maribel Martínez
Stoneware, oxides and 24-carat goldOne of a kindHandmade in Spain
Ritual del Mar · Mallorca
9 October
Club de Mar de Mallorca · 2026
A Menina. The Mediterranean. A freediver. And a ritual underwater.
The Menina will descend into the Mediterranean accompanied by a freediver, to be recognised by the sea and return to the surface as a Guardian of the Sea.
A singular gathering aboard the Falcao Uno, in collaboration with Club de Mar and Fundación Almas Marinas.
Time
10:00 h
Meeting point
Salones Sociales · Club de Mar de Mallorca
Bookings
Places
Limited. Advance confirmation essential.
The collection
Meninas once looked after princesses.
Today they are born to watch over something far more fragile: the sea.
They do not portray the ocean.
They protect it.
A starfish, a shell, a coral.
Modelled and glazed one by one
The life of the reef, in colour. Pale stoneware and polychrome: corals, anemones, fish and turtles glazed by brush, creature by creature.
Taken by the oxides, like a wreck. The same stoneware, finished with copper oxides applied in layers and left to oxidise for days, the face masked. The colour is not chosen: it is waited for. Every patina is unrepeatable.
Club de Mar de Mallorca
The seabed does not reveal itself at a glance
Turn her to find all her secrets · «La danza del mar»
Copper freshly applied, before it oxidises
The same piece, days later
Every Menina is unique
Each Menina is born for someone, and finds an identity of her own in her colours, her creatures and her words.
The phrase is engraved by hand on the damp clay, before the fire. A word, a memory, a wish. Something that stays for ever, and that appears again written on the certificate of authenticity both artists sign.
Two pieces may share material and craft.
Never the same story.
Material
High-fired stoneware, glazes and oxides
Details
24-carat ceramic gold, applied by hand over the glaze and fixed in a third firing
Sizes
20, 30 and 40 cm, and made to measure
Certificate
Craft certification of the Comunitat Valenciana · D.C.A. 6401
Large format
Stoneware bodies textured with the imprints of shells, urchins and starfish, crowned by a reef of coral modelled piece by piece. Coral 71 and Galatea are the first two.
Before she is given away
The sea recognises them, consecrates them and turns them into guardians, granting them singularity and an intimate bond with nature.
Our guardians of the ocean come back to remind us how much the sea needs caring for.
Art that protects
what it loves.
The sea recognises her as a Guardian
01 · The sand
A handful of sand from the shore where the ritual took place.
02 · The pouch
Wrapped in linen and tied with a thread.
03 · Inside
Inside the piece, for good.
The artists
From Maribel Martínez's hands comes the form. From Ana Docavo's, the sea. Together they make each Menina, in a dialogue between earth and sea.
Where the guardians are born
Every Menina goes back to the sea before she finds her new home.
And then she is ready to leave.
01 · The clay
The Menina begins in clay.
02 · The imprints
Every relief, texture and detail is built by hand, taking in the corals, the shells and small forms of marine life.
03 · The fire
Little by little the material changes, until it becomes a small fragment of the ocean made form.
Each Menina travels in her box, wrapped by hand, with the collection catalogue and her certificate of authenticity signed by both artists.
The certificate carries the phrase engraved on that piece, and on no other. It is what identifies her for ever.
Beyond the studio
They were born of the same hands. Each one holds a different story.
One of them lives with Rafa Nadal. She is called Eterno como el mar — eternal as the sea — and carries his name engraved on the base, a turtle among the corals and a blue fish on her dress. She was given to him at his academy, with time to explain what each creature meant.
Her Ritual del Mar, in a cove in Mallorca
The grains she carries inside come from that sand
May 2026
The collection was presented to the press on the rooftop of the Gran Hotel Centenari in Valencia, with the Mediterranean and the city behind.
What has been written
Condé Nast Traveler
Meninas del Mar:
art, craft
and sea awareness
5 June 2026
«The first collaborative collection by the artists and ceramicists Maribel Martínez and Ana Docavo.»
Levante-EMV
May 2026
Las Provincias
December 2025
Las Provincias
May 2026
Valencia City
May 2026
Hello Valencia
May 2026
La Marquesa
May 2026
Press coverage in Spanish
Exhibition
19 Oct — 15 Nov
Del fuego al mar · Ateneo Mercantil, Valencia · 2026
The full collection is shown for the first time in a cultural setting: the abyssal series, the glazed Meninas and the new pieces, gathered on a great golden spiral. Alongside them, the Guardians of the Oceans, bronze sculptures by Nada Nadie.
The studio is in the room too: the trials, the half-finished pieces, and the film of the process and of the Ritual del Mar.
When
19 October — 15 November 2026
Artists
Ana Docavo
Maribel Martínez
Nada Nadie Escultura
Catalogue
Visits and commissions
hola@meninasdelmar.com
@anadocavo · @maribelmartinezescultora
Coming · New pieces
In the studio, a set of sea vessels in homage to the Nereids and to the sea. They will be shown for the first time at the Ateneo, on 19 October.
