Photos by Werner Segarra Sculptor Francisco Lopez Ochoa, a native of Mexico who now lives in New Mexico, pauses near his massive limestone work Terra (Land), 102" high x 27" wide x 25" deep.

Sculptor Francisco Lopez Ochoa finds his true calling

Francisco Lopez Ochoa’s primitive-looking stone sculptures—many of which portray amply proportioned women—are in private collections in England, Holland, Mexico and throughout the U.S., and his work has been commissioned for public spaces as far away as the Czech Republic and Japan.

It took a tremendous amount of studying for the award-winning sculptor to get where he is today. But the years of formal education were in no way related to art, Ochoa volunteers.  

Born and raised in Mexico, he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in applied linguistics from Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara. There, he taught university students linguistics and visiting students from other lands Spanish as a second language. His American wife, Eileen, who was attending medical school in Mexico, was one of his students, he cheerfully remarks.

Later, he was on his way to completing work for a Ph.D. in linguistics at Georgetown University, when a yearning to be an artist that he had as a little boy started nudging its way to the surface. He remembers telling his wife, “When I retire, I’m going to do art.”

Ironically, getting mugged helped his latent art passion along. “They took all my books,” says Ochoa of his robbers. And grinning, he adds: “I took that as a sign from heaven.”

Not doing well on an important exam also was a sign that his heart—professionally speaking—lay elsewhere. This time, he told his supportive wife, “I want to do something different, now. I want to do art.” Charting her own path in medicine, and having once studied art, she suggested he start with a course in drawing. Moving to New Jersey so that his wife—today a radiologist—could complete her residency, he joined a drawing class at a community center. It was the beginning of his journey of self-education.

Sorpresa (Surprise), limestone, 26" high x 6" wide x 7" deep

The 61-year-old artist recalls that time. “I was in my early 30s and I was still floating. I gave myself 10 years to become somebody—to get my skills going and find a little niche.” Studying at the Art Students League of New York, a springboard for many talented artists, helped his drawing. Another experience, in an artists’ co-op, gave him his first taste of working with stone. “I bought a little set of tools, a basic set, and a chunk of soapstone.” He sold his first small sculpture during that time, and still has his old carving tools.

Another move brought him to Detroit, where he became an expert at wood-block print-making. In the late 1980s, he relocated to Gallup, New Mexico, his current place of residence, where he felt comfortable enough to open his own studio and exhibit his artwork. Nine years later he got his “big break.”

That was the year he followed up on an ad in a magazine and mailed a photo of a small sculpture he had done as his entry in the 1990 Third Rodin Grand Prize Exhibition at the Utsukushi-ga-hara Open-Air Museum in Hakone, Japan. “I sent it just for the heck of it,” he recounts, and was overwhelmed when he received a telegram announcing that he was one of 15 finalists who came from all over the world. Then, a letter arrived advising him that he would be given $10,000 to replicate the small piece in a very large form.

When his unexpectedly huge block of limestone arrived from Indiana, he says, “I sat down and was about to cry. I didn’t know how to carve this monster.” Never one to give up, he asked noted sculptor Allan Houser (1914-1994) if he could visit with him and get his advice. “‘You’re going to need a grinder,’ he told me, and showed me some of his pieces in progress.

Mater Mundi (Mother of the World), limestone, 13" high x 19" wide x 6" deep

“I had all this money, and I bought the electric tools that I needed and started to work,” Ochoa recalls. “After a week, I knew what I was doing.” But before he ever started carving the sea-themed work, he gave it a title, something he does to this day. He called it Mare Nostrum.

“It means our sea in Latin—it is what the Romans used to call the Mediterranean Sea.” And, chuckling, he adds, “This is where all of my linguistics comes in, in titles.” His award-winning sculpture of a family of three, all of whom hold fish, is located at the open-air museum in Japan.

That same year he was invited to carve a sculpture at an international symposium in what became the Czech Republic. After that, another of his sculptures—a metal piece—won recognition in the Japanese competition. More success came when he took part in a Mexican art symposium and was invited by the Mexican government to do a one-man show.

“So, doors were opening,” says Ochoa. And they have been opening ever since.

The artist says his sculpture is inspired in large measure by primitive art sources, such as that of the ancient Greeks and Egyptians and also the pre-Columbians. He gets his ideas for his own solid forms from the slabs of stone. “You sit and study a block of stone for a while, and you get a feeling of what is inside it,” Ochoa offers. “My guiding principle has been to preserve as much of the stone as possible.”  

Standing 8½ feet tall, Ochoa’s limestone sculpture Terra is a prime example of his work. A full-figured nude with pursed lips, the female statue appears to have a stalk of corn growing from her womb. “She is an earth goddess,” he explains. “She is blowing life and spreading pollen to make more life.”


Terra was commissioned by well-known Navajo artist R.C. Gorman in 1995. Ochoa says Gorman had seen a small sculpture of his in a Taos, New Mexico, gallery and asked him to create one in a large size. Ochoa told Gorman that he would not do an identical one—“I don’t copy”—but would do one “in my own way.” When Gorman died in 2005, items from his estate, including the large Ochoa piece, were being sold. “I bought it back. It’s the first sculpture of my own I ever bought,” says Ochoa.

Sharon Figarelli, who represents Ochoa at her Scottsdale gallery, says, “His sculptures span all of humankind. They depict the strength of both sexes—especially his women, who are large, strong and spiritual, the essence of Mother Earth.” The large Terra is a central piece in her gallery’s sculpture garden courtyard.

An art consultant,  Joan Prior has known Ochoa through her Phoenix fine-art printing business for about 18 years. She understands why some say the artist’s sculptures show hints of Aztec and Mayan culture. “His pieces give me feelings of a much earlier civilization.” But, she asserts, “It is still his own. It is stunning and says so much in such a simple way.”

Ochoa’s sculpture struck a chord with Horst Rechelbacher, founder of Aveda cosmetics and an artist himself. “I buy emotionally—I buy what I like,” the Wisconsin man says. He was in Santa Fe when he first saw the artist’s work. “I went to a gallery, and I saw a statue in front of it . . . a big one—quite gigantic. I fell in love with it, and I bought it.” Of Ochoa, he says, “I think he is very unique with his style.”

An Ochoa sculpture of a fisherman carrying fish “speaks” to Paradise Valley, Arizona, collector Angela Singer. “He looks like he’s thinking, ‘Go fishing, be happy.’ I think Ochoa has a beautiful sense of humor, and I love the fish symbol.”

Ochoa says his fish motif is a “symbol of life, of abundance and survival.”

Educating himself as a fine artist, he has survived the 10-year pact he made with himself to give it up if he did not find success. “I did it my way—like Frank Sinatra,” he says with a gentle laugh.

One of his fondest memories is when his father referred to him as “My son the sculptor,” for the elder Ochoa had thought his son might fare better in the world of business.