Smoke Break

For the latest issue of WIP magazine, Spanish skater Maria Navarro discusses outlandish ashtrays, her Patrick Bateman-style morning routine, and studying to save lives. 

Images: Adrian Rios
Words: Niloufar Haidari

Maria Navarro is an early riser. When I call her up one morning in March, she has already been awake for five hours and is sitting fresh-faced at her bedroom workspace, ashing a cigarette into one of the colorful, surrealist clay ashtrays that she makes in her spare time. 

It’s a wonder the 23-year-old has any spare time at all: aside from making ashtrays, she can be found filming clips soundtracked by old school hip-hop in Madrid’s best spots, all while training full-time to be a nurse. “Nursing is letting me eat, the ashtrays are to help me not get stuck in my head, and skating is to have fun and be happy,” she says. “Those are my essentials to live in this world.” 

Niloufar Haidari: What does your morning look like?

Maria Navarro: I wake up at 5 A.M. because I’m studying nursing. I take two hours to get ready – I'm like fucking Patrick Bateman! I do my skincare, then I do my morning workout so I can get buff and be super hot and confident. 

I have ADHD, and if I don't start my day being active then I'm fucked. I have learnt that my brain is all about a routine, and if I don't have one, I won’t be able to do anything productive. 

NF: What made you want to train to become a nurse?

MN: I was a really clumsy girl when I was younger. I used to climb and fall down multiple times a day and I remember that I really enjoyed when I got back home with my dad or my mum and we went to the bathroom to treat my wounds. It was like playing doctors! It's not a big deal for me, seeing blood and stuff, so I was like, “Why not?”

NF: Do you think it's because you enjoy helping people?

MN: I really do. I like helping people, and I've always been really curious about how the body works. The study of nursing feels never-ending, because we don't know a lot of things yet. There's always something new to learn about, and that's what keeps me there. 

I'm doing my dissertation about ADHD in women, which is really understudied. ADHD has always been seen as a male disease, but it also affects women – we’re just better at masking it. The fact that we mask our impairment makes it really difficult for us, because it's stressful to keep it on the low and to not let other people know that you have difficulty doing some stuff. That's why I'm interested in working on it.

NF: What’s the skate scene like in Madrid right now?

MN: When I first started skating, I used to go solo. I would hang out with people that would party all the time, and my parents got upset with me because I wasn't following their rules. I wanted to experience new stuff, and I thought skating would be a nice way to get out of the environment I was in. 

I got to a point where I really liked skating and wanted to stick to it, and then I started to meet new people. My friends now are the first people that I met when I started skating Escombro DIY, which is a spot near my house. I used to just skate ramps and stuff, but they got me into street skating – we would go around the spots in the center of Madrid. All the boys are older than me, but they always treated me like a sister. I never had a problem socializing because I was really protected by all of them.

NF: Was part of the appeal of skating the community and the friendships that you found?

MN: For sure. It was my motivation: I'm going to meet my friends, we're going to have fun, I'm going to learn new stuff. I really enjoyed being with the skate scene – they encouraged me to do crazy shit. With time I realized that I couldn't be so crazy because I got injured multiple times - I've twisted my ankle like four times already. I needed to chill and slow down with my impulsiveness. 

My safe space is the streets, and my friends. They're like my brothers and the people that I can really talk to when I'm down or when I need support. They're basically the reason I get out of the house.

NF: Do you ever skate with other girls?

MN: There are girls who skate here in Madrid, but the problem is that we don't live in the same area. It was pretty difficult for me to go and skate with them as regularly as with the guys, especially because a lot of the girls have school or work and busy schedules. 

Two years ago a girl called Hanna moved here, and now we’re best friends. The first time we met, we were like, ‘We look like sisters!’ We both had red hair and short bangs, and everyone would mistake us for each other. Whenever I didn't want to go skate with the guys, we'd go together – it was just the two of us, the girls doing girly shit and talking about stuff that I usually don't get to talk about with the guys. Hanna was a big support for me at that time. 

NF: You also make some seriously weird ashtrays – was that a lockdown hobby?

MN: I decided to make my mom an ashtray for her birthday three years ago because she smokes so much. I posted it on my Instagram story and people were replying, ‘Oh that's so cool, you should make more!’ People tell me their ideas and what they want, and I make it but in my own way, each ashtray is a mix of their ideas and my designs. 

I'm finally in a workshop with a proper ceramic studio space where I can fire the pieces. I'm getting to upgrade my craft and take my ashtrays to another level. My pieces are so dope, but they’re made from air-dried clay so you can't put them in the dishwasher. It was time to make them functional. 

NF: Are there any artists you're inspired by style-wise?

MN: I get my inspiration from little kids’ stuff and vintage toys. I don't have a specific artist that I look to for the ashtrays, but in general I really like Dalí. He's been my favorite since I was little because he paints his dreams, and abstract things, things that come from the heart, from deep inside. I don't like to create things that are strictly real. In my ashtrays I put non-realistic things into reality. 

NF: You also do stick ‘n’ poke tattoos right? 

MN: In the summers I give my friends tattoos; I'm not popular enough to poke people that are not my friends. The last two years were crazy for me because I had to study a lot, so I stopped tattooing as much as I usually do. 

NF: How would you describe your style? 

MN: I like chunky. I like chunky for my ashtrays, I like chunky for my skate shoes, I like chunky for everything! I think it's super cute and at the same time it looks good on everything. 

NF: What does your down time look like? 

MN: After working the whole week, when I get to the weekend I only want to sleep and rest. But skating and doing other sports is really helpful for the mind and for the body – to release rage, to chill and to not think about anything at all. It's better than drinking or fucking yourself up for two days and then going back to work.

This editorial was taken from WIP magazine issue 10, available from Carhartt WIP stores and our online shop.