Japan Blue and Pottery
it’s now 8:09 am. We are 13 hours ahead of you. I’m not sure how to calculate when the debate will happen or if we missed it. the started with $9 cups of coffee — price unknown to us in the Hotel Granvia lobby cafe until we were presented with the check. Saving grace is […]
New Etsy Shop: SouthwestRoadTrip
Aside from living in Oaxaca, most of you know that I live part of the year in Taos, New Mexico, where I am in love with all things Southwest. Apart from Oaxaca Cultural Navigator and Shop.Oaxacaculture.Com where we feature clothing, home goods, jewelry, gifts and more, I’ve decided to open a shop that focuses on […]
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 — […]
Oaxaca-Santa Fe Connection and the International Folk Art Market
The 2016 Santa Fe International Folk Art Market is over. Hard to believe it’s been ten days since I last wrote a blog post. This is the second year I’ve come to Santa Fe, New Mexico, to volunteer for this amazing, often overwhelming experience of meeting hundreds of artisans from around the world. They come […]
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 […]
Soft Landing Oaxaca, and Teotitlan del Valle
It’s a four-and-a-half hour bus ride from Puebla CAPU to Oaxaca ADO bus station. Taxi from Puebla historic center to CAPU is 80 pesos. Bus ticket is about 450 pesos on ADO GL deluxe service. Easy. Scenic. The road dips and rises through mountains studded with mature saguaro and nopal cactus, flowing river beds (it’s […]
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 […]
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 […]
Oaxaca’s Contemporary Art Museum MACO Shows Ceramic Sculpture
A second floor exhibition of ceiling-height sculptural columns that I interpret as totems are made by ceramic artist Mariana Castillo Deball, who lives and works in Mexico City and Berlin. The show opened last night at MACO, the Museo Arte Contemporaneo de Oaxaca on Macedonio Alcala. The work is on view until April 20 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 […]
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 […]
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 12 — In Honor of El Grito de Dolores, Two Majolica Plates
First, a beautiful, hand-painted and lead-free plate from the village of Dolores in the State of Guanajuato. Home of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, the Roman Catholic priest who first cried the El Grito de Dolores, the town is now famous for its brightly colored, hand-painted ceramics. Hidalgo’s famous cry for Mexican independence from Spain is […]
Shop Mexico–The Artisan Sisters Week 12: Majolica Pitcher and Plate
Beyond the city of Guanajuato, just outside the mining town of Valenciana, is the village of Santa Rosa where a local family has created majolica ceramics for generations. One of the styles is similar to Italian pottery that one can find in the Siena hills outside of Florence, with soft, muted colors and subtle paintings […]
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 […]
Potter of Santa Maria Atzompa: Irma Claudia Garcia Blanco
The daughter of Teodora Blanco squats on her knees at the small potter’s wheel as if in prayer at an altar holding an offering. Her legs are tucked neatly under her. She is dressed in embroidered white cotton, white on white. Behind her is a gray stucco wall. She is framed in the expanse of […]
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 […]
A Tribute to Potter Dolores Porras, a Documentary Movie by Michael Peed
I want to tell you that Michael Peed has made a remarkable, endearing, engaging, and beautiful film about Dolores Porras and her pottery. Michael is the perfect person to have made this documentary because he is a potter himself. That is why the narrative is laced with terrific explanations of the pot-making process, how the […]
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. […]