Rachel and Eric on fri 19 sep 97
Santa Maria Atzompa
From Oaxaca city the bus ride out to Atzompa is quick, maybe ten minutes.
It's easy if you know how to get there. However, the first time I went to
Atzompa, not even knowing my left from right, it took much longer. One is
forced to navigate the entire length of the second class bus station to
catch the bus. With buses going to every backwater and lost arroyo in the
region, the station is filled with crowds of hillbillies and peasants,
mountain folk, coastal folk, ridge and arroyo folk. For a quick tour of the
people of Oaxaca, this station is the place to come. For the bus to Atzompa,
this is also the place to come, you just have to get by all of those
people, their bundles of market goods, blanket rolls, assorted livestock
and passels of children. You will also have to survive the beggars and loud
speakers, not fall victim to the abundant pickpockets, find the ticket agent
and get yourself onto the right bus. But once on the bus there is peace, and
the next thing you know, you're in Atzompa.
This old town lies on the slope of one of the dry hills that is capped with
the immense pre-Hispanic ruins of Monte Alban. These ruins were one of the
mighty centers of Middle American civilization a handful of centuries ago. I
do not doubt that Atzompan potters were supplying those people with pottery
as they are supplying Oaxacans today.
Atzompa is, without question, the powerhouse village in Oaxacan pottery
today. There are probably 800 actively producing potters in this village.
The pottery they make finds its way to every little market in the state,
selling well wherever it is offered. Much to my amazement and consternation,
even in other pottery villages they use Atzompa pottery. The reason for this
is that, 450 years ago, the Spanish introduced glazes and kilns to the
Atzompa potters. As a result, their pottery is sturdier, fancier and easier
to wash than all the unglazed, bon-fired pottery that everyone else is
making. No one seems to have any idea or care that this green glazed pottery
is high in lead. I do my preaching, but it falls on deaf ears. They say,
"How bad can it be? Here we are." And it is true, folks seem fine.
The pottery here is produced on a very simple and ingenious lazy susan type
wheel. The potter places a round bottomed bowl upside down on the ground in
front of her, and on top of that a plate. The point of contact provides a
pivot point that, when handled with practiced agility, is an excellent tool.
The clay is placed on the plate which the potter rotates as she works. The
pots are formed using a fast type of coil building which I call, for lack of
a fancier word, the smear technique. She forms fat coils which she smears
onto and above the previous coil, quickly bringing her cylinder up. This is
then shaped using a piece of gourd and a strip of leather or old hat felt.
Most of the pottery is kitchenware: casseroles, round pots, pitchers,
bowls, water cisterns. However, Atzompa is also famous for its decorational
pottery. There are dozens of potters who do highly adorned pots covered with
raised flowers, vines and animals. In the 60's and 70's Teodora Blanca
became famous for her figures decorated with animals and flowers and was a
favorite of the Rockefellers, who were big into collecting Mexican folk art
One of the women who worked for her, Dolores Porras, has pioneered the use
of multicolored glazes and painting in the pottery which has become a hit in
Atzompa. Another town potter, Angelica Vasquez, has gone far beyond pots and
does incredibly detailed pieces covered with tiny figures depicting myths,
legends, dreams and stories. She is arguably one of the best and most
inspired potters working in Mexico.
Of course I didn't know all of this the first time I bused out to Atzompa.
This was the first village I ever visited. Fresh and green from America,
having grown up with mowed lawns and tidy neighborhoods, I was bowled over
by this town. I thought I was in a movie, for in no way had anything in my
real life prepared me for such a place. The streets were all dirt, reckless
and deep with arroyitos. The houses, adobe and Spanish tile, with sheets of
tin, cactus fences and random applications of stone and brick, followed no
rules. They appeared to have been built and added on to in an entirely
whimsical and haphazard fashion. There was life everywhere, wandering
donkeys, chickens pecking about, snorting pigs, women with long ribboned
braids and black shawls talking in the shade, men in leather sandals and
straw hats chasing herds of goats and oxen, plumes of wood smoke rising from
kilns here and there, stacks of pottery all over and a potter in every yard.
My eyes watered with the greed of wanting to see and know it all, so much
life and texture. I celebrated the deep ruts in the streets, marveled at the
cacophony of the architecture and the smell of the animals, and secretly
observed all the people about, thinking how beautiful and like the earth
they all looked.
Since then, and to my deep joy and satisfaction, I've found that Atzompa
isn't a bizarre and unusual village at all. Every village I visit down here
is like Atzompa in some way or another. These days the bizarre and unusual
villages that I visit are all north of the U.S.-Mexican border line
..
I got off the bus at the end of the line, the Atzompa town square, walked
ten yards to the first house I saw with a kiln in the yard and potters
loading it up and said, "buenas tardes". There began my first conversation
with a Oaxacan potter. It is a conversation that has carried me for seven
years own here, opening doors into the homes of potters in the most remote
edges of this land. Through it I have shared in lives and stories and have
spent many afternoons in good, easy laughter with clay-minded folk. With
those first Atzompa potters , and so many since, we have come together
talking about pottery and through pottery we have met.
Eric
Eric Mindling & Rachel Werling
Manos de Oaxaca
AP 1452
Oaxaca, Oax.
CP 68000
M E X I C O
http://www.foothill.net/~mindling/
telefax (951) 3-6776
email: rayeric@antequera.com
Marcia Selsor on sat 20 sep 97
Dolores Porras and her husband, Alfredo from S. Maria Atzompa are
leaving Billings, Mt. today after a two week visit at MSU Bozeman and
MSU Billings. They are going to Santa Fe to the Jackalope workshop.
They work there for 2 months every year. Maybe those interested in
Mexican pottery can see them there.
Marcia in Montana
--
Marcia Selsor
http://www.imt.net/~mjbmls/
mjbmls@imt.net
Sandra Dwiggins on sat 20 sep 97
Eric--
Are all the potters women, or do men AND women make the pots?
Oaxaca is the town where the most wonderful decorated wood
carvings of fanciful animals are made. The spirit of these carvings and
their incredibly creative painting has captivated me since I first saw them
in San Antonio a few years ago. I had never seen them before, but now
gallery and store owners are bringing them to the states. There are
famous carvers and decorators and whole families that do this craft
generation after generation. They all sign their pieces. Have you gotten
to know any of these people? It would seem that the two crafts might
influence each other down there....have they?
I am really enjoying being a cybertraveler via your descriptions...
Sandy
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