Wearing safety glasses and a face mask, craftsman Agnaldo Noleto, 56, carefully selects each material. Every day he wakes at 3 a.m. to begin work at 4 a.m. in the workshop at his home in Santo Antônio do Descoberto, Goiás. Resin, wood and paint take the shape of miniature monuments located more than 50 kilometers away, in the capital he has come to love.
Brasília, which turns 66 this Tuesday (21), fits in the craftsman’s hands and fills his thoughts as he creates, assembles, sands and paints.
Agnaldo produces at least 850 pieces each week to sell at markets around the city. His work becomes souvenirs for tourists and residents. Yet every miniature monument or small palace looms large in his memory. The most meaningful inspiration for him is Brasília’s Cathedral, both the building he sees today and the version that colors his fingers every dawn.
It was watching cars in the church’s parking lot that Agnaldo started earning his first money at age 14, shortly after leaving Riachão, Maranhão. He moved with his sister in 1980, when Brasília itself was only 20 years old. Their parents remained in Maranhão.
“My family struggled on the farm. I helped them, but I think I always really wanted to be an artist.”
Vocation
As a child and teenager, he made wooden toy cars and other clay objects. But it would take a little longer before he earned a living making miniatures. Tour guides encouraged the young man to take instant photographs. His career as a craftsman only took hold in adulthood, when he discovered soapstone, a material later banned and replaced by resin because it contained asbestos. He learned to carve, join the parts and ask with a smile: “Would you like a souvenir today?”
“Souvenirs are a powerful part of life throughout Brasília. I’ve always liked handicrafts. I’ve always liked culture. Handicrafts are my culture,” he says proudly.
His first piece paid tribute to the eight-meter-tall sculpture Os Candangos, in the Praça dos Três Poderes—a 1959 creation by sculptor Bruno Giorgi (1905–1993).
In the craftsman’s hands, it stands only a few centimeters tall, but reminds him of himself, his sister and other people from Brazil’s Northeast who risked everything to live in such a new city in the heart of the country.
Another creation he admires is the Cathedral, whose curves were designed by architect Oscar Niemeyer (1907–2012).
“They were artists. I just copy. But even so, nothing is easy. Every piece is complicated. Brasília Cathedral is very difficult. Anyone can make one, but never with the perfection that’s required,” he believes.
Agnaldo assembles the pieces one by one “until they meet the standard for selling.” That standard allowed him to raise his six children, all born in Brasília.
The craftsman’s routine is demanding. From Monday to Friday, although he starts in the morning, he sometimes works through the night. On weekends, he goes to the front of the Cathedral and sets up his stall from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., “or for as long as there are tourists walking around.”
Activity
During the week, Agnaldo lets another family from the Northeast use his stall in front of the Cathedral to sell the miniatures he makes.
Nariane Rocha, 44, also from Maranhão, has been in charge of selling them since her life was turned upside down. Her husband, Marcelino, died of cancer at age 64 late last year.
“It was very sad to go back to work without him. We spent 10 years here together. I asked my daughter-in-law to help me.”
Her daughter-in-law, Michele Lima, 42, from Rio Grande do Norte, says she too is enchanted by Brasília. “I feel safe here. I can imagine living here forever.”
They live in Novo Gama, more than 40 kilometers from the Cathedral. Along with hopes of opening a small store, they plan to build a house.
The mother-in-law and daughter-in-law dream of opening a shop one day so they will no longer be exposed to the weather. Whenever it rains, they must act quickly to cover the pieces with plastic. They also have to load all the merchandise into the car at the end of each workday.
Returning to school is another dream. Both want to study psychology. “We’re vendors, but we love talking to people and understanding them,” Michele says.
City of monuments
Other craftspeople have neighboring stalls in the informal market in the Cathedral square. Vendor Alberto Correia, 57, was born in Paranã, Tocantins, and now lives in Itapoã, an outlying administrative region in the Federal District. He remembers his early days as a craftsman, shaping pieces on the ground in front of the Cathedral.
At the stall next to his, Rodrigo Gomes, 41, from Anápolis, Goiás, left behind the risky life of a motorcycle taxi driver to reproduce the capital’s architecture. Gomes says he likes creating new pieces and arranging monuments together on a single base shaped like a map of Brazil, a work he calls “Mapa Candango.”
He assures customers that every piece is entirely handmade. “Everything here has an artistic quality. We have to be creative to attract attention. The city itself is a monument. We ask people to take a look at the miniatures.”
Tânia Bispo, originally from Salvador and now a resident of Gama, sells miniatures at a neighboring stall. At 58, she recalls starting out as a vendor selling coconut water.
Today her husband handles that business on the other side of the square. They wave to each other throughout the day. Working at the stalls enabled them to raise their four children.
After 30 years in the capital, this woman from the Northeast feels she has played an active part in building the city.
“I used to work as a house cleaner and I was unhappy. Today I can’t imagine myself anywhere else. I’m enchanted by this big city.”
Source: Agência Brasil
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