Tony mindling on sat 5 oct 02
Oaxacan Clay Workshop. Sunday, Day 8.
The Devil's road leads to the superstition-laden ruins that loom above the
village of Atzompa, a town of a thousand potters. The ruins are Zapotec,
dating back to 200 B.C. The village goes back about that far as well.
We won't visit a thousand potters in Atzompa. But we'll visit two. One of
them lives not so far below those ruins, on the edge of the Devil's road.
She is a daughter of Atzompa, but is superstition- laden as well. She wears
pants, has a sharp edged tongue when it comes to defending her rights and
she lives, (gasp!), with a foreigner. This is Angelica Vasquez, an elf of a
woman who is a giant in the world of Mexican folk art pottery. She is not a
trade potter, like the others we visited, dedicated to the humble, holy task
of making perfect kitchen and work pottery. Angelica is an art potter who
turns her dreams and her grandmother's rich legends of old Oaxaca, Zapotec
myths and dusky ruin superstitions into works of sculptural art.
Like Angelica, her works are miniature in size and grand in content. And as
she conjures myths from clay she also weaves a spell with the stories she
tells. For no piece she makes is without a legend behind it, and there is no
better storyteller in Oaxaca than Angelica Vasquez. As we sit and watch her
work she may tell us of the soul grabbing Cheneque, or of the weeping,
siren-like Llorona. Or perhaps she'll talk of the time she went to the US
for the first time to work at the Clay Studio in Philadelphia, where on her
first day they asked her if she preferred porcelain, stoneware, b-mix, etc.
for her work. She was stumped, having never used any other clay than that
she dug out past the village. So she tried them all.
We will also visit with Dolores Porras who, together with her family, took
me in like a son when I was yet a babe in the Oaxacan woods, feeding me and
teaching me to swear in Spanish. She is like an adoring Italian mother, and
if I don't stop by when I visit Atzompa, I pay dearly. Dolores is a sweet,
old school Atzompa potter who would never wear pants, and who pioneered a
small revolution in Atzompa pottery some 20 years ago when she started using
colored under glazes on her pots. Now half the village has copied Dolores
and the competition is stiff.
For more info drop Eric a line rayeric@RNET.com.mx or take a peek at
www.manos-de-oaxaca.com.
Session 1: Feb 2-10, 2003
Session 2: March 16-24, 2003
Short Course: December 15-21, 2002
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