Rachel and Eric on wed 10 sep 97
Having now formally introduced Oaxaca to this obliging audience (see the
archives for the Sept.5-6 Clayart), I will press even further and explain,
ever so very briefly, how I came to be captured by this picante land. Then,
starting with my next post, I will begin a series of tales told traveling
through southern Mexico, visiting villages of potters from the highlands of
Chiapas, hill and in Oaxaca and up to the mountains of Guerrero. Please stay
tuned and have maps at ready.
I first came to Oaxaca eight years ago as a wide-eyed student of pottery
and Spanish while working on my B.A. at Humboldt State U. in California. The
school offered a semester program for 30 students in Oaxaca through the
Spanish department. I didn't know where the heck Oaxaca was nor could I
pronounce it (wah-HA-ka), but didn't care. I knew it was in Mexico and that
I hadn't been there. That was enough, I got into the program.
As part of the credit requirements we had to do a project in Oaxaca based
on our major. I was doing studio art, and had just recently muddied my hands
for the first time in the ceramic studio. I immediately became an avid and
fervent convert to the clay way. I have always been partial to that which is
raw, basic, utilitarian and beautiful for it. Pottery hit that place in me
immediately. I went to Oaxaca ignorant of what I would find there, only
vaguely aware that there was some pottery being done in those parts. So I
designed my project around that. I proposed to look at a potter, how she
lived in brief, and how she made a pot.
From the moment I first walked into the city at 5:00 A.M. one morning with
the cool aroma of alfalfa from the moist fields in the air, ancient,
fortress-like Spanish colonial buildings and churches surrounding me and the
quiet swish swish of the street sweepers cleaning up with huge brooms made
of branches, Oaxaca went straight to my heart. When I made the first
amazing trip out to visit a potter in a nearby village I was completely
smitten. There it was in the flesh: the raw, the basic, the utilitarian, the
beautiful. Such was the pottery, such were the potters. After that semester
all I could think of was getting back to Oaxaca. Here, I thought, is a place
with many worthwhile lessons to teach.
During those four months of constantly walking around mouth agape, tongue
lolling, I met a wonderful potter, Doloras Porras, who told me of a store
in New Mexico that each summer had folk artists form all of Latin America
come and give demonstrations of their work in the store. She also told me,
tactfully, to close up my mouth and roll in the tongue lest I dehydrate.
Wanting more than anything to hang with Latinos, speak Spanish, and learn
folkarts, I talked myself into a job with that store upon returning to the
U.S. and spent a summer there hanging with guys from Mexico, Peru, Guatemala
and Ecuador, speaking Spanish and learning folkarts. I also got to know the
owner and told him I was going to Latin America after finishing school. He
said as long as I was going, why didn't I go and buy pottery for him.
Travel in Latin America, hang with traditional potters, make a living, all
at once. Would I want to do such a thing?. . . Friends, it took a year to
wipe the ear to ear, toothy grin off of my wide face. And only then because
I thought myself too young to be getting such wrinkles as those being caused
by my constantly contorted face.
Many, hilarious (in retrospect) and ridiculous are the stories of a heavily
right-brained, mathematically challenged and extremely nonlinear thinker
starting a job that immediately required accounting and organizational
skills. But this is Clayart, not Businessart, so I will spare you my
bookkeeping tales. I will only say that, when it comes to getting the
numbers to work, I have found that what I lack for mathematically, I make
up for with my artists' creativity.
Besides, I never came here to be a business guy, although that's what keeps
the roof up. I came here to hang with potters, and therein lie the good stories.
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
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