“We are like a tree, and clay is our culture and life”

Back to the original Oaxaca pottery

SouSou Corner once introduced the Mexican wood carving mythical beasts "Alebrijes", the charming and lovely mythical animals from Oaxaca City, a famous cultural and artistic city in Mexico. This town in southern Mexico apart from carving metal and other jewelry crafts, also has a pottery culture and craftsmanship that has been handed down for more than two thousand years.

Pottery in Oaxaca can be traced back to the ancient Zapotec civilization in 600 BC, and it is mostly related to gods and beliefs. Unearthed burial urns, as well as incense utensils for sacrifices; most of these pottery have exquisite sculptures and hieroglyphs describing the gods in the ancient calendar or deceased ancestors. In addition to burials and sacrificial offerings, unadorned and unglazed pottery is also found in the form of cooking utensils for daily use.

Surrounded by mountains, Oaxaca, which is relatively isolated, has received a late influence by modern industry and plastic technology, and has continued its original pottery-making culture to some extent. There are still more than 70 pottery villages, and the ancient pottery-making methods are preserved. For them, pottery is not just "memories", but a craft that is inseparable from life.

To make pottery, the prerequisite is suitable soil, and Oaxaca has abundant soil suitable for pottery.

Oaxaca, originally a river valley, is a place where many rivers converge. With the alluvial of the rivers, it is rich in sedimentary rocks containing a variety of organic matter, lime and mineral crystals. In addition to sand and gravel, sedimentary rocks also contain "clay" with the smallest grains and smooth texture. In fact, it is the mud that can be seen everywhere around the riverbed and in the fields, and this is the main material for making pottery.

It is difficult to carefully calculate the composition of these clays and minerals, and different mineral ratios also create pottery of distinct colors.

 In the central village of San Marcos Tlapazola, hematite-containing soil is used to burn warm-colored "terracotta pottery", or it is burned over piles of twigs to carbonize it to black pottery, this is the most traditional way of making pottery.

For more than 2,000 years, from Zapotec to the Incan civilization, these villages have used clay and created common daily life articles like pots, bowls, and plates for cooking, and baking pans for tortillas and stews.  Pottery has become the most common object on the table and in cooking.  In Oaxaca, cooking and pottery are inseparable. Not only are they used to hold food but the pottery produced can be directly used in fire for roasting and cooking.

Even the main food of Mexico, Tortillas, are also closely related to pottery. For countless generations on the low ground of the kitchen, using fire from wood, stone and brick, there has been a large, round baking pan called Comales, which is a must-have cooking utensil in many people's homes. Comales are flat discs specially used to bake tortillas. They are traditionally common pottery in households and have become a constant taste and memory in the family.

In the 20th century modern industry emerged with the usage of materials such as glass, aluminum, tin and plastic to manufacture durable and convenient utensils and sell them on the market. Although Oaxaca is surrounded by mountains, due to its geographical location the indigenous culture is rich and prosperous, and it was later impacted by colonization and modern industry. But when plastic products arrived half a century later the craftsmanship of potters was still greatly challenged.

Seeing this, the Mexican government also began to promote various policies. Realizing the impact of lead glaze on the local pottery market, it promoted "lead-free pottery" and developed lead-free glaze. The green glaze industry in Santa Maria Azompa was slowly declining and they began to return to the original ancient method of pottery making, combined with the new lead-free color glaze technology and creating a different kind of  pottery.

In order to promote it, local women went out of the village to find inspiration and even set up a "cooperative" to gather craftsmen, communicate with each other, and develop new designs such as piggy utensils and human face flower utensils; or use different smoking methods to make changes in the pottery. Although the need to make non-practical pottery at the beginning actually made these potters quite puzzled, later, it allowed for more innovation and external acceptance which also allowed the artists here to embrace the advancement of the times. And the pottery in Oaxaca grew with new more ideas. 

In these pottery villages, from collecting mud to cooking the clay are the work of village women. Dressed in brightly coloured puffs and embroidered lace aprons, the women collect the mud and turn it into clay that can be cooked. Kneeling low on the ground, bending over and rubbing the soil, skillfully molding it with their hands while the disc is rotated; sometimes beating quickly, sometimes gently shaping with their palms. With tools that can't be simpler, such as a small piece of leather and corncob, one pottery after another can be completed. They are the "Women of Red Clay", the most beautiful figures in pottery craftsmanship.

Step 1: Collect Red Mud

Image / Freshly collected mud

Source / Cesar Rodriguez

Step 2: Make the clay

Step 3: Freehand Sculpting

Step 4: Air Dry and Polish

The shaped pottery is left to air dry for one to two days until it hardens slightly and turns a darker color.  Then, the women polish the pottery with pebbles picked up from the river.

Because the pebbles are smooth and have different shapes, they need to choose a suitable shape and quickly rub the inside and outside of the pottery to make the surface of the pottery smoother and brighter.

Step 5: Baking 

The women will stack the shaped pottery in an open space and when a mound of pottery has piled up they will prepare the fire for baking. They’ll fill and cover the pottery with natural materials such as wood, branches and leaves, animal dung, etc.

Image / Ancient firing pottery

Source / Nido

It is said that Oaxaca pottery is the most primitive kind of pottery. Plates and bowls are still baked in the simplest and most traditional way, obtained by the convention of the most fundamental elements such as wind, earth, water and fire. By holding a pottery bowl on the hand, you can still feel the power of the skill of the craftsman, the temperature of the wood burning and the traces of thousands of years of history.