Marcia Selsor on wed 14 feb 07
Stephani,
My dear friend Louana did decades of research in Puebla. I have some
of the info in my files because she wanted me to do glaze tests.
The recipes were very secret. Industrial cut throat.
The tile factory where she was working closed after their kiiln
firing specialist
died and they had 4 or 5 bad firings. -bankrupting the factory.
Louana was an ethno-archaeologist. She had been working on a book for
decades also.
It is suppose to be completed by another archaeologist colleague but
they were having
difficulties finding her illustrations/pictures. ACERS didn't want to
publish it because there
were so many illustrations. She died in Dec. 2005. She and her
husband had gone to
Mexico in 2003 to check on what places had been destroyed by the
ealier earthquake.
I remember getting one postcard from her years ago from a convent
covered with talavera tiles.
Today there are strict rules on the glaze production there. I guess
the lead is out of the tin
glaze but the whole production is regulated by the state (from what I
understand).
She had a great collection of Talavera pottery and tiles.
Marcia Selsor
http://marciaselsor.com
On Feb 14, 2007, at 10:10 AM, stephani stephenson wrote:
> have any of you traveled or studied in Puebla Mexico?
>
>
> Puebla keeps coming up in the historical probings i am
> engaged in at the moment.
> i have been tracking some of the migration of Moorish
> style and techniques in tile. one reference, the book
> "Ceramica y Cultura" describes how Mudejar (Spanish/
> Moorish) potters and tilemakers came to '"Nueva
> Espana' (western hemisphere/ the Americas"... fleeing
> Spain (they were Muslim..or Mudejar...had to convert
> to Christianity during the reconquest after the fall
> of Granada , etc in Spain..... finally .being expelled
> from Spain in 1611, etc.)
>
> so Moorish/Mudejar, as well as Italian and Spanish
> potters, tilemakers,craftsmen came to
> build Spanish colonies in New World
> .Puebla , one of the early centers
> (south of Mexico City) was one of the few cities built
> from the ground up , i.e not on a preexisting
> Aztec/Mayan/ native site.... built in the early 1500s
> and producing tile in the 1520s....
>
> so all the aforementioned European influences mixed
> with indigenous influences....
>
> then , and this is what is amazing.... Chinese pots
> as part of the Asia trade were being brought
> across the Pacific Ocean... hauled over from the
> Philippines to what is now the Pacific coast of
> Mexico, on the Manilla Galleons....
> unloaded at Alcapulco on the Pacific coast , carried
> overland
> to the Atlantic port of Vera Cruz. Puebla was on the
> overland route, and some of the Chinese pots stayed
> there ... they were viewed and some of the decorative
> characteristics of the Chinese ware were incorporated
> into the already rich brew of European and native
> Mesoamerican ware
>
> this is fascinating to me
>
> thinking that this 'outpost' was the confluence of the
> richest veins of ceramic tradition from the world
> over...
>
> Puebla remains known for it's 'Talavera' pottery and
> tile...but the story is rich ...Puebla was also still
> a main center for tile production in the 20s..lots of
> mural and tile work in California is from there
>
>
> so...anybody been there? stories? have suggestions on
> places to go, connections?
>
> Stephani Stephenson
>
Marcia Selsor
http://marciaselsor.com
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