Camila knows that the Camila who deserves all the praise is her mother. The woman from Barranquilla who brought the warmth and colors of the sea to the capital, and, later in life, decided she wanted to make the tableware for their countryside house. So, she learned ceramics—and that, along with so much more, is proof that nothing has ever been too big for her. This is the Camila Camila wants everyone to admire. But if, in addition to this magical Camila, there was another Camila who imagines everything and has a mother who makes it all possible, then that is the perfect sum of what anyone would want by their side. Well, these two Camilas brought Tybso to life, one of the first, if not the first, ceramic workshops to open in Bogotá, which in 2025 will celebrate its 30th anniversary.

Tybso means “potters’ clay” in the Muisca language, and its logo is a salamander, a creature known for regenerating its limbs when it comes into contact with water and earth. It’s one of those small miracles that also happen with clay. However, to truly understand the fascinating world of this workshop, we need to look back and acknowledge the visionaries behind it: Camila’s parents, Jorge Alberto Gómez and Camila García. Jorge, a brilliant chemist and industrialist, as his daughter fondly recalls, had the audacity to win the heart of the girl next door. This “girl” was the daughter of a university dean, with a mother who was a florist and designer, and they lived in a house inspired by Le Corbusier—so art and aesthetics were in the air from the very beginning. Well, love blossomed from window to window, and the “girl” decided to marry before finishing high school (she completed it much later, Camila proudly says, when she became a grandmother). So, the couple moved to Cartagena, and Camila, dressed in the hippie robes she made herself, also kneaded marzipan sweets to sell on the beach, with a clear goal in mind: to buy a little necklace for her beloved Jorge. Because, to make it clear, Camila García has always made the impossible possible.

Now, back to Tybso. And to Bogotá, where the couple settled long ago. Jorge, who always supported his wife in everything, saw her desire to learn ceramics in order to, let’s remember, make tableware for the countryside house. So, he built her a kiln with space for twelve pieces. She took longer to learn how to use it than he took to find her clients to keep her enthusiasm going. But once he saw her working with clay, handling it as if it were the most natural thing in the world, he knew it was her material. And so it was. The kiln soon became too small for the growing orders, and the machines Jorge had built started to fill a space that they never imagined would grow the way it has. Today, Camila, their daughter, who’s in charge of design and marketing for the brand, emphasizes that, despite producing 10,800 pieces and having a 300-square-meter showroom, all their processes are entirely artisanal, and they intend to keep it that way. This, as she calls it, is the “limbo” in which they want to remain. That’s why they’ve trained over 30 artisans in how to craft the pieces.

So, what makes Tybso so special? It’s all about beautifying the table. This family got into the gastronomy business when restaurants in Bogotá could be counted on one hand. They saw the culinary boom coming. That’s why they create custom-made tableware for each person. Their love for fine dining—hence the focus on tableware from the start—leads them to honor the art of cooking with beautiful dishes that celebrate food from beginning to end. But they also have another unique signature: they’ve created a charming little animal kingdom that, for example, springs to life from a cup when you drink your coffee or tea. Camila, the mother, molded tiny deer, rabbits, squirrels, and cats, and tucked them into porcelain cups. Not only was her granddaughter Matilde enchanted, but everyone who has had the chance to discover them, and it seems there are quite a few of them, as their Noah’s Ark grows day by day. Camila dreams, and the ceramicist Camila makes those dreams come true. In this playful pursuit of beauty, they’ve built an empire—a miniature empire, that is—and that’s exactly how they want to stay.