Tag Archives: ceramics

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 wanted to know if it was worth it!

She received a photo of the front of the figure along with this description from the dealer:

“Along with her family, Dolores Porras has been creating pottery for over 60 years. She lives in the village of Atzompa, Oaxaca, Mexico. She worked with renowned Mexican potter, Teodora Blanco.   In the early 1980s, she began exploring more colors beyond the traditional green that the area is known for. She developed a translucent white glaze that makes her pieces almost iridescent. She uses it as a background color behind details that are painted in rusts, cobalt blues and yellows.

She develops each piece, adding the raised elements such as flowers and decorates them with her distinctive glazes. Her production has been curtailed by the recent death of her husband, as well as her advancing age.”

I was skeptical since I know that Dolores died in November 2010, almost two years ago, something that the dealer was not aware of although there is plenty of information available on the Internet through good research.  I was not certain that Dolores worked with Teodora Blanco as the dealer suggested.  Folk art families tend not to cross-pollinate (so to speak).  In fact, in looking at the clay dress patterning, I thought the piece looked more like the style of Teodora Blanco or one of her children.  Although, I also know that once a new design is introduced in a village it can spread quickly and all the artisans begin using it. This is true for weaving, clay and carved and painted wood figures.

There was also no photo of the signature.  I have several Dolores’ pieces that I was fortunate to acquire in the last few years before she passed.  Her signature is very primitive.  I recommended that the reader ask the dealer to send her a photo of the signature, too.  For $500, the reader deserved to see the signature!

Here is the signature we received, and indeed, it looks like how Dolores signed her pots.  I am not an expert in Dolores Porras pottery by any means.  The best expert is Michael Peed, a ceramic artist and teacher, who made a documentary film about Dolores.  It is featured on this blog and if you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend you order a copy.  The proceeds go to Dolores’ surviving children.

My suggestion to the reader was to ask the dealer whether there was any negotiating room and to include the packing and shipping in the price of the piece, which IS a wonderful example of Dolores’ work.  It’s likely it was a piece done at the height of her creativity, since her late-life pieces are much simpler and more primitive.

How would you go about authenticating a piece like this?  Do you think it’s worth $500 USD?

 

 

 

 

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 influences brought from Spain during the conquest.  This is evident in both architecture and food.  In the early 1900’s, the city became a favorite of German immigrants, one reason Volkswagen selected Puebla as a manufacturing and assembly site in the 1960’s.

Here are a few extra tidbits of WHAT TO DO AND SEE IN PUEBLA to supplement Freda’s list:

1. Pan de Zacatlan: Relleno de Queso.  I stumbled upon this authentic European-style bakery walking from Talavera Uriarte to Talavera Celia and after a meditative moment at The Rosary Chapel in Santo Domingo Church.

  

The pastries here are amazing.  Most are stuffed with sweetened queso fresco and taste like eating a cheesecake empañada. The shop sells fresh cheesecakes, cheese,  the flan ranks a 9+ in my book, and it’s OMG for the Pan de Elote.  I sampled just about everything and my eyes were bigger than my stomach.  I had the empañada con queso for dinner during a rain-thunder-lightening storm so strong that I didn’t want to leave my comfortable hotel room. The rest of the goody bag came back to the U.S. with me.  My son and I ate what was left for breakfast in Long Beach, California, the next day.

   

Pan de Zacatlan, 4 Oriente No. 402, Puebla, Pue., Mexico, tel (222) 246 5676, pandezacatlan@hotmail.com. Open every day, 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday through Saturday, Sundays and festivals, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.

La Dueña, Pan de Zacatlan

Hungry for meat?  Turn left out the door and a couple of doors down is a traditional  restaurant serving lamb grilled on a spit with homemade pan Arabe (pita bread).  These are all over town, a testimony to the influences of pre-Catholic Spain imported to Mexico.

2.  Talavera Uriarte, 4 Poniente, No. 911. So much has been written about this venerable ceramics house that there’s not much left to say.  Their customer service is impeccable, quality superb, and packing and shipping always reliable.  Nothing ever arrives broken.  Ask for Ana!

Maceta for my sister. Uriarte drilled a perfect drainage hole while I waited.

3.  Talavera de las Americas,  7 Poniente 510 . Col. San Pedro Cholula, Cholula, Puebla. Tel. (222)261-0367.  Their operation is a very small, family-owned business and they “bend over backwards” for the customer.  It’s worth the visit to Cholula since the painting on the clay is very fine and detailed, the clay body is very light, and the work rivals it’s better known competitors at half the price!  We have purchased here directly and enjoyed the experience.

4.  Hotel Real Santander, 7 Oriente, No. 13, Puebla, two-blocks from the Zocalo.  These are not rooms, they are spacious luxury suites with thick comforters and towels, and excellent beds,  starting at 800 pesos a night in the off-season. Hotel Real Santander is a perfect, quiet hideaway between the Museo Amparo, the photography museum, and …

5. Across the street is La Quinta de San Antonio, my favorite antiques shop in Puebla.  Contact owner Antonio Ramirex Priesca by email.

6.  Churches on every corner, too numerous to list them all.  When you get there, follow the city guide and map to explore.  But, be certain to FIRST VISIT the Rosary Chapel at Santo Domingo Church.  The gold and glitz dazzles.

 

Some of the sculpted heads here remind me of the interior carved wood and painted figures in the extraordinary indigenous church at Tonanzintla.

  

7.  Talavera Celia.  You can find this good quality DO4 Talavera ceramics at Celia’s Café. 5 Oriente 608, Centro Histórico PueblaPuebla. C.P. 72000. Tel: 01 (222) 242 36 63, near the antiques district and weekend flea market.

A note on Talavera Ceramics:  there are only 10 authorized DO4 makers of traditional talavera ceramics in Puebla, Mexico.  More talavera is produced here than is Spain where the antique methods have almost died out.  I list only the best quality talavera ceramics makers on this blog and you can be assured that they all produce DO4 highest quality.  I would steer you away from buying from Talavera Armando — their customer service and shipping is poor and their products arrive broken.

On a personal note:  I will usually book a flight in and out of Mexico City, take the ADO bus from Oaxaca to Puebla, spend a night or two, and capture the colonial charm that makes Puebla so special.  Then, I will go to the Estrella Roja bus station on 4 Poniente to buy and board a luxury Saab Scania bus complete with WiFi  heading to the Benito Juarez International Airport for my flight to the U.S.

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 memory.

The earth gives forth blessings: tamales to eat, atolé to drink, clay for the vessels that hold them.  A distant village, San Lorenzo Cacaotepec, is ancient source.  Then, clay was hauled by burro.  Now, husband Francisco drives the truck. The work is always heavy: dig the hard substance from pits deep in the earth.

The yield is terra-cotta red or deep gray like rain clouds or taupe like Isthmus sand.  The recipe is historic: Mix together clay and water. Use a long pine paddle hewn from a mountain log. Assure the consistency is pliable, exact.  Scoop it into smaller portions from which to create shape, form, structure.

Irma Claudia Garcia Blanco holds a portion of clay the color of steel. It is malleable and she presses her finger deep into its center.

 

 

She holds it like an infant, tender yet firm.  She caresses the clay body and a figure emerges.

The daughter of Teodora Blanco sets the cone figure aside and begins to roll a clay cigarette to shape one arm, then the other.

Her fingers are nimble.  Perhaps she will add an animal or anthropomorphic decoration:  bird, eagle, snake, lightning.  A chicken playing a fiddle!  A dancing cow!

 In the corner of the courtyard Tia guards the cooking pot filled with softening corn husks that will embrace fiesta tamales.

The daughter of Teodora Blanco has six daughters and one son. She remembers this as she works:  After childbirth the midwife covers her with a cloak of orange leaves, fragrant and soft, so her milk will come in sweeter.

Her husband takes the birthing water and discards it far from the house.  This is his role.  On the third day, her first sip will be clear chicken broth.  For 40 days, she will be confined to bed with the infant, drinking only unsweetened atolé to escape death.  This is mystical, in the old traditions, says Irma Claudia, as she works the clay that becomes a woman holding two chickens.

Lulu, the youngest daughter still at home, stands to the side.  She is quick with math and checks the transactions.

Years before a Rockefeller came here and anointed Teodora Blanco with fame.  Centuries before, her antecedents fashioned pots, fired in deep pits with wood ignited by dung.  This was their tribute to Monte Alban rulers who lived closer to god, high above Atzompa.  The vessels and figures offerings to embellish tables and tombs.

Now, the function is obscure.  We call this sculpture and decorate our homes, offices, gardens. The potter, daughter of generations, sits before her wheel.  It is metal, not clay.  The currency is pesos, not tribute.  The kiln is concrete, not adobe.  The fuel is still wood.

 

 

 

 

 

Irma Claudia signs her name for tourists, not royalty.  The beauty endures.

      

Irma Claudia Garcia Blanco Artesanias, Av. Juårez, #302, Santa Marîa Atzompa, Oaxaca, Mexico. (951) 558-9286.

Upcoming workshops:  Photography/Collage/Painting, Portrait Photography, Women’s Creative Writing + Yoga Retreat.

As mentioned in The Barra de Navidad Daily.

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 and Ivan, Kanda Designs, San Agustin Etla– Carved and hand-cast silver jewelry
  • Jacobo Angeles, San Martin Tilcajete — alebrijes: copal wood carved figures brightly painted
  • Reyna Mendoza Ruiz, Teotitlan del Valle — tapetes, tapestry woven rugs and pillows
  • Angelica Vazquez, Santa Maria Atzompa — barro natural, ceramic figures and sculpture
  • Silvia Cornelio Sanchez, San Antonino–finely embroidered blouses
  • Maria Lopez, Juchitan–huipiles of the Isthmus
  • Senora Martha, Oaxaca — antique filigree jewelry
  • Boris of Oaxaca–recycled artisan designs

Reyna's pillow covers

A Tribute to Potter Dolores Porras, a Documentary Movie by Michael Peed

Dolores Porras -- The Movie -- DVD Cover

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 clay is made, wedged, formed, dried to leather hard, decorated, then fired.  What I really loved about this 31-minute movie is that interspersed between the interviews with Dolores that Michael (Miguel) did over the years, are magical scenes of Oaxaca street life, music, festivals, markets, and the jumble-bump of an unsteady cinema verite that represents the hubbub and vagaries of Oaxaca life.

What I really love is how Michael explains clay.  You know he is knowledgeable, that he was a university professor, and you can trust his narrative.  Yet, he is not pedantic in his descriptions.  His narrative is warm and engaging and he captures Dolores perfectly.  You really get a sense of her origins, life in a small Zapotec village, the history of the village as it related to the magnificent political center of Monte Alban (now a major mesoamerican archeological site), and the defined roles of women in the art of pottery making.

The other really charming and delightful part of the movie is the involvement of Dolores’ entire family in the pottery making process.  You see her home, her children, her animals, and the larger environment of which she was a part.

I met Dolores just three years before she died in November 2010.  This film gave me the perspective I was lacking to see Dolores as a younger woman, vibrant, creative, and innovative.  I am grateful to Michael for making this film and I hope you will take the opportunity to purchase the DVD from him and see it yourself.

If you love Oaxaca and indigenous arts and crafts, you will not be disappointed.  If you want to know more about traditional pottery, this is a perfect film for you.

In homage to Dolores Porras, and in tribute to my dad, also a fine potter.

To order, contact Michael Peed:  imdeep@earthlink.net

Dolores Porras 2010