Wear Your Apron: Photos From the Feria del Barro Rojo
First, the last day of this year’s (2018) Feria del Barro Rojo in San Marcos Tlapazola is tomorrow, Monday, July 16, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. If you go, wear your distinctive Tlapazola apron, like I did. It’s gingham trimmed in folded ribbon that ends up looking like frosting on a wedding cake. Too […]
Michoacan Folk Art + Textile Study Tour with Butterflies
Arrive Thursday, January 31 and depart Monday, February 11, 2019. Eleven nights and twelve days in the heart of one of Mexico’s greatest folk art centers. Sold Out. Taking a waiting list. ITINERARY Th-1/31, Day 1 Arrive Morelia, overnight in Morelia F-2/1, Day 2 Visit Casa de Artesania in morning. Depart for Patzcuaro at 2 […]
Carol Beron Ceramics Exhibition Opens at ARIPO, September 30
Carol Beron is a ceramic artist who takes her inspiration from much in Oaxaca, from carved animal figures to pre-Hispanic indigenous organic forms. She lives in New York City and visits Oaxaca often. At ARIPO Opening reception: Friday, September 30, 4 to 7 p.m. Exhibition and sale until October 15, 2016. Where: ARIPO — […]
Injustice, Coping: Fine Oaxaca Black Pottery Maker Goes to Santa Fe International Folk Art Market
Right now, there’s mango cardamom chutney cooking on the stove. It’s a clear, cool day after a series of heavy rains and the sky is brilliant blue. White puff clouds hug the mountain just beyond my reach, and I’m thinking about the injustices in our world and how people cope. In about three weeks, I’m […]
A Day of Clay: Visiting Santa Maria Atzompa with Innovando la Tradicion
In their own words, Innovando la Tradicion is a creative platform where artisans, designers and artists share skills, knowledge and stories to rethink and honor the ceramic traditions of Oaxaca. The group helps potters and pottery communities in Oaxaca with support to develop their trade. Before the new year, my sister and I joined a one-day excursion […]
Pueblo Magico Malinalco: Hand-loomed Rebozos and Pre-Aztec Pyramids
The magical town of Malinalco in the State of Mexico is a short thirty-minute ride from Tenancingo de Degollado. One of Mexico’s greatest rebozo weavers, Camila Ramos Zamora, and her family live and work here. Her father was a rebozo weaver from Tenancingo and he moved to Malinalco to marry Camila’s mother. They established […]
Santa Fe, New Mexico Gala Supports Oaxaca Ceramic Arts
It was two days after the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market closed but the celebration continued. Los Amigos de Arte Popular de Mexico hosted a gala fundraising dinner at a private home filled with folk art treasures within walking distance of the city’s historic center. About forty people attended to support Innovando la Tradicion ceramics […]
Color Culture: Oaxaca at the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market
Oaxaca and Mexico is well-represented at the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market, a knock-your-socks-off bazaar of many of the world’s best artisans. Interspersed among the over 150 exhibitors are some of Oaxaca’s best artisans, too. Selection to participate is very competitive. Preference seems to be given to collectives and cooperatives that further the economic, […]
Red Pottery of San Marcos Tlapazola, Tlacolula, Oaxaca
My dad was a potter and I grew up with a potter’s wheel and an electric kiln in our garage. Tools were piled on the table, where also sat clay forms drying to the leather hard before he put them into the oven. This is where he would go to work when he came home from […]
Penland School of Crafts in Ocotlan de Morales, Oaxaca
Our Penland School of Crafts group travels through Oaxaca arts and artisan villages this week. One destination is the regional town of Ocotlan de Morales where we met artist Rodolfo Morales through the murals he painted in the municipal building during the mid-century. These frescoes depict the rich agricultural tradition of the Ocotlan valley and […]
Sleek, Functional Contemporary Oaxaca Pottery with Classical Influences: Innovating Tradition
Oaxaca’s cultural identity is defined, in part, by her ceramic arts. For thousands of years before the Spanish conquest, indigenous artisans were giving shape to local clay to form functional cooking and eating vessels, images of dieties for worship and jewelry for personal adornment. Now, after six years of operating from various temporary locations, La Tiendita […]
Oaxaca Folk Art: Jose Garcia Antonio Ceramic Figures
Jose Garcia Antonio, one of Oaxaca’s best clay sculptors, participated in the 2014 International Folk Art Market in Santa Fe, New Mexico, this July. This is no small accomplishment. This juried exhibition invites only the most accomplished artisans from all over the world to show and demonstrate their craft. Last Friday, we drove out […]
Oaxaca’s Grand Master of Pottery Angelica Delfina Vasquez Cruz
Overlooking the Oaxaca valley at the top of the Santa Maria Atzompa hill is the pottery studio of Angelica Delfina Vasquez Cruz. She has been recognized as one of the great masters of Oaxaca folk art by Fomento Cultural Banamex, the foundation that recognizes the best crafts people of Mexico. We visited Angelica at […]
Don Jose Garcia Antonino: In the Pottery Studio
If you blink you will miss the turn-off to the village of San Antonino Castillo Velasco, just before arriving in Ocotlan de Morelos, where our friend Don Jose Garcia, known as the blind potter, lives and works. Some years ago, Don Jose developed cataracts and without expensive treatment, he lost most of his vision. […]
Tour Puebla, Mexico: Cooking & Culture, From the Humble to the Divine
August 13-18, starting at $895 per person double occupancy– Chiles en Nogada Cooking Class Sumptuous Dinner Party in a Private Historic Home Elegant Dining and Neighborhood Eating Flea Market and Antique Shopping Museums, Churches, Archeology, History Puebla, Mexico, is a short two hours from Mexico City by bus direct from the international airport. It […]
Extraordinary: Yanhuitlan, Oaxaca and Ceramic Artist Manuel Reyes
Off the beaten path and definitely a must-see, Santo Domingo Yanhuitlan is a small Mixtec pueblo located about an hour-and-a-half north of Oaxaca city, off the Carretera Nacional toll road to Mexico City. It is the home of an extraordinary Dominican Church whose massive stone architecture is reminiscent of the finest European churches, complete with flying […]
Sunday Tlacolula Market: Getting There, Being There
Every Sunday, with the exception of Easter, all the Teotitlan del Valle buses and collectivos go back and forth from the village to the tianguis at Tlacolula de Matamoros. If you want to get from Oaxaca City to Teotitlan on a Sunday, that’s a different story (see below). The regional street market draws thousands of […]
Shop Mexico–Josefina Aguilar Clay Figures, Oaxaca
Here is an amazing assortment from my personal collection of Josefina Aguilar clay figures for sale. Josefina is from Ocotlan, Oaxaca, and creates clay sculptures in herr home pottery studio on the road leading into town. She is famed for her whimsical interpretation of the world, including the life of Frida Kahlo. I also have […]
Shopping in San Antonino Castillo Velasco, Oaxaca
My sister and I set out for San Antonino Castillo Velasco, Oaxaca, to visit the potter Don Jose Garcia Antonino who makes life-size human figures sculpted from local red clay called barro rojo. We decided to go before everyone arrived for the wedding so that we could focus on the shopping day at hand. Barbara has […]
Chiapas Pottery Village Amatenango del Valle
Bela, of Bela’s B&B, our favorite San Cristobal de las Casas home away from home, invited us to go along with her to the pottery village of Amatenango del Valle on a quest to replace a ceramic chiminea. The village is about an hour from the city by taxi in the pine forest highlands where sheep graze […]
Order Dolores Porras Video on New Website: Ceramics Education
Dolores Porras: Artista Artesana de Barro is a 31-minute documentary video made by Michael Peed, a university ceramics professor. This link takes you to a new website where you can buy the DVD. When the DVD was released in 2010, I reviewed it here on my blog because it offers an outstanding discussion of the […]
Shop Mexico–The Artisan Sisters Week 14: Tequila or Mezcal Shot Glasses
Well, these are not really “shot glasses” but beautifully hand-formed and painted, one of a kind majolica pottery cups from Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato. They are just perfect for sipping tequila or mezcal. The patterns are complementary and because they are hand-painted, their loveliness is in their uniqueness — they are not exactly alike! They measure […]
Authenticating Oaxaca Pottery — A Dolores Porras Clay Sculpture
I received a question from a reader this week along with a photograph of a vintage Oaxaca ceramic figure for sale by a Southern California gallery, asking “Is it real?” The California dealer is selling a Dolores Porras pottery figure measuring 28″ high x 14″ wide, and the price is $500. Of course, the reader […]
Puebla is the Perfect Stopover Between Oaxaca and Mexico City
The New York Times just published 36 Hours in Puebla, Mexico by travel writer Freda Moon, who did a similar feature about Oaxaca a few months ago. Freda listed many of my favorite things to do, see, visit, shop for and eat. Puebla is unique. The city is a blend of Spanish colonial with Moorish-Moslem […]
Clay Times Magazine Features Dolores Porras Video Review
Oaxaca is known for folk art and especially pottery. Potter Dolores Porras was one of those exceptional self-taught people who took their traditions, skill and creativity to the next level. The Atzompa pueblo, where she lived and worked, provided the cooking vessels and ornamental pottery for Monte Alban, one of the earliest cities of Mesoamerica. […]
Leaving Oaxaca: Notes, Lists, Preparations
For the past two days I have been preparing for the trip back to the U.S. Taking it slow. Doing laundry. Meandering the village. Saying goodbye to friends. I forget that even under an overcast sky clothes will dry on the rooftop line in several hours. It’s easy to gather them up before the afternoon […]
Artists Added to Las Bugambilias Show on July 16 in Oaxaca
Weaver Reyna Mendoza Ruiz and ceramic artist Angelica Vazquez are joining the group of Oaxaca artists invited to participate in the Saturday, July 16 exhibition and sale of their work at Casa de Las Bugambilias, Calle Reforma #402 in Oaxaca’s central historic district. If you are in town, DON’T MISS IT. ARTISTS PARTICIPATING Brigitte Huet […]
Dolores Porras Documentary Film by Michael Peed Premieres in Oaxaca
Dolores Porras, legendary potter from Santa Maria Atzompa, died in November 2010 as a result of Parkinson’s disease. For years, potter and university faculty member Michael Peed visited Porras, videotaped and photographed her work. He has assembled a 31-minute documentary film that will premier on Saturday, February 19, 2011, at La Jicara Restaurant in Oaxaca. […]
Dolores Porras, Folk Potter Icon, Passes From Us on All Saints Day, November 1, 2010
What could I do to hang on a bit more to my memories of Dolores Porras? I had visited her home in Atzompa, a pottery village on the outskirts of Oaxaca city, on numerous occasions. I had come to know her late in life when her pottery style was well developed and she had created […]