A certain style in ceramics and pottery is the common inheritance of a community. It doesn’t belong to someone in particular. It belongs to everybody.

—Eric Mindling. Clay and Fire, the Art of Pottery in Oaxaca

Through the methodology of Design Thinking^[1], Atzompa presents itself as a great challenge for Innovando la Tradición and Collective 1050°. It is a place to test Design’s capacity to arouse social changes. The timeline of Atzompa spans the historical research made on the different shapes that have sprung from pottery, parting from a specific place in order to create some empathy with the context by acquiring a deeper knowledge of it. The timeline will be taken as a source for recreating these historical pieces which will take us to propose different formal and functional solutions.  This exercise opens a space for pondering on shapes and functions, and their necessity for innovation and contextual logics throughout the creative process. For the first time, we present Atzompa’s object timeline, to the public and the world, through Archivo Diseño y Arquitectura, in Impreso 03.

According to Eric Mindling, who has devoted his life to researching pottery made by the traditional ceramists in Oaxaca, the shapes from Atzompa have changed so radically given its very beginning as a community. It has always mixed and adopted alien traditions. Mindling thinks that, “probably, some of Atzompa’s ceramists are descendants from Oaxaca’s first ceramists,”^[2] for their tradition is evidently pre-hispanic.

The community of Santa María Atzompa, dusty, chaotic and diffusely taken as the immediate outskirts of Oaxaca de Juárez, appears on our historical atlas around 100 years b.C. To draw a line that links those years of pottery production to our days, I have taken into consideration two essential elements: shape and material –meaning, the different kinds of mud used to make the clay. This chronological tour highlights the meeting point between different cultural stylizations in an attempt to reconstruct what is known as the true essence of a certain ethnic group in an effort to recognize it as a process loaded with influence.

We will start by taking a look at Atzompa’s first stage. Although this stage seems to have a lower pottery production, the kind of clay that was mostly produced on that time is the same one master ceramists work with nowadays. This makes us think of the pieces made with such clay as the first ones to appear on this genealogy. Some of the most popular shapes of that time remind us of modern pieces, such as the apaxtle [FIG. 1] –small plates with head and wings on their borders, decorated with embroidered clay–, right besides jugs of striated bordering. We can also find jugs and pitchers with tubular handles; these pieces have suffered the most changes, until turning into what we now know as the traditional hot chocolate jug [FIG. 2]. However, the peculiar style of those years came from Guatemala.

The timeline goes on for about 300 years with forms coming from Teotihuacán. Although these prevailed, new jugs [FIG. 3], pots, flower pots and double-handled flower pots appeared. Small changes and transitions in the registers of Graves 103 and 104 in Monte Albán should also be noticed.

According to researchers, Atzompa sustained its greatest population during this new period, known as Monte Albán IIIb, years 500-700 a. D. Several references point to Atzompa as one of the places most related to ceramics production and distribution systems, which were ruled and standardized by their neighboring city, Monte Albán. There are 34 traces of furnaces built on terraces on that spot^[3], which makes Atzompa the only place in the area with so many of them. By then, Atzompa was already a great pottery producer. The pieces found include ritual objects, such as perfumingpots and tripod incense burners, masks, figurines, urns and whistles. We can also find everyday use and household objects, like earthenware and globular pots, recto-divergent walls, pots with curved and divergent bordering, cylindrical glasses, pitchers and apaxtles.

The first prehispanic periods, 13001521, are known by Mixtec and Aztec occupation. The influence of the first one becomes evident in the typology of jugs, displaying longer necks and a wider variety of handle shapes. From the second one, the only thing that we got left is the Nahuatl word, Atzompa, for I have found no traces of pottery to establish any stylistic bond.

The arrival of the Spaniards resulted into the destruction of cultural objects from the Central Valleys. There is very little information about Zapotecan culture and there are very few codexes left on the Mixtecan people. Once concluded the conquest of Tenochtitlán, Hernán Cortés decided to keep some of the land and chose the valleys of Oaxaca for his retirement, since he had heard rumors of gold settlements around the area. In 1522, he described the Villa del Marqués del Valle in the Letters of Relation he sent to the King of Spain. This villa contained ten Central Valley communities and Santa María Atzompa was among them.

This influence promoted a beneficial transformation, for the Spaniards were the ones to introduce vitreous varnishing [FIG. 5], also known as faience or ornamental tiling at low temperature –a technique of Arabic influence carried on by the Spaniards that finally flourished throughout the Middle Ages. It is known that until 1541, there was no vitreous varnishing in Oaxaca. It was a Dominican monk who finally achieved the precise technique and started building the furnaces needed to do the job, for low fire exposition had to be constant, between 9801050°. The most antique evidence of vitreous varnishing [FIG. 6] comes from a recent excavation in Santo Domingo, 1994. Amongst all the objects found, ten pots were chosen to be compared to Mexico’s, Spain’s and Oaxaca’s. One of these pots had green varnish and it proved to be pretty close to the Atzompa sample, strongly suggesting it had been created around Monte Albán, perhaps in Atzompa itself ^[4] This data suggests an everlasting knowledge of clay, its sources, its production methods and the shapes of vases and pots, which must have been passed on through generations of ceramists, up until nowadays.

I think that most pieces of  Atzompa display a transition from the Mesoamerican forms into the colonial shapes that survived due to the clash of alien and native elements, giving birth to half-breed ceramics. Between 1693 and 1700, nine ceramists were settled in Oaxaca de Juárez, each one belonging to a different ethnic group and none of them a Spaniard, but Creole and half-breed [FIG. 7]. By asserting that there were no Spanish workshops, nor royal Orderlies for the guilds, we can think that ceramics and pottery developed in free environments; domestic and traditional, as it is nowadays.

Throughout the 19th century,  many small guilds were disintegrated and their labor was redistributed among the decorative Neoclassic and  popular arts, resulting into functional and ceremonial pieces [FIG. 8].  It was up until the 20th century that handcrafted production was seen as an element of national identity. Post-revolutionary society looked for their true Mexican values in the traditional shapes of their past and these had their place in the celebrations for the Centenary of Independence when The Popular Arts in Mexico, by Dr. Atl, was published. It was a catalogue for the exhibition Popular Mexican Art, which took place in Mexico City, California and Los Angeles. The catalogue mentioned the pieces found in Santa María Atzompa, all of them identified as green varnished pottery. It also contains a set of images portraying pots, plates, a pitcher and a jug, all of them varnished in green [FIG. 9 & FIG. 10]. Excepting the pitcher, all the other pieces can still be found nowadays in the community’s street market. However, the pitcher and its handles respond to neoclassic features and its fabrication ceased around the middle of the 20th century.

In the socialist Mexico of General Lázaro Cárdenas, between 1934 and 1940, one of the favorite media used for massive cultural diffusion were the publications in alien languages meant to exploit foreigners’ curiosity. That was how Gabriel Fernández Ledezma came to write, in 1938, an article for the magazine Mexican Art & Life. The author acknowledged the pottery and ceramics of Santa María Atzompa as pieces of everyday use: containers of different shapes, plates and cups produced by neighboring lands for the capital, as well as for Mexico City. The ceramics were characterized by its green varnish made with copper oxide. Some of the decorations consisted of plaited details, though the bordering on some other pieces were flat. Toys of an excellent handmade quality were also made in the shapes of animals: frogs, dogs and birds.^[5]

During the 50s, the Pan-American Freeway brought lots of foreigners and the interest for indigenous communities increased [FIG. 11, FIG. 12 & FIG. 13]. Such was the case of Jean Clare Hendry, who devoted his doctoral thesis to the study of ceramics and pottery production in Santa María Atzompa. Jean Clare established a relation of balance between internal needs and external resources, a correspondence that still prevails if one wants to elaborate on the technology, style and design of each piece. By 1957, pottery had turned into big scale handcrafted production that involved the whole town. Hendry even highlights that they still have a very strong sense of racial and cultural identity.

The Atzompan traditional forms were the apaxtle, the jug (or classic chocolate jug) and the pot. Besides these, they also produced pottery for everyday use, fine ceramics for tourists, toys or miniatures, animals and decorative pieces of embroidery. The ceramics weren’t painted and the motifs were genuine, such as circles, roses and flowers. There is also a record of ceremonial ceramics for Easter; famous Chia pets with varnished heads and a striated body to plant the seeds in them and are placed in household altars during Easter.

By the end of the 50s, health issues related to lead, and the exposure to it while cooking and later eating the contaminated food prepared on varnished pottery, had already been identified. The following decades constituted a moment of crisis, oversight and abandonment of craftsmanship, for the production was substituted by plastic objects. And, since genius tends to flourish when times get harder, in the 70s utilitarian production was set aside and decorative fabrication took its place. Teodora Blanco started creating new forms using embroidered clay, a technique she learned from the Aguilar family. Their most characteristic pieces were the monas [FIG. 14], female figurines inspired by the tinajeras (clay water coolers made in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec), as well as music band figurines and jugs with animal limbs as extremities. Those pieces are perceived as popular art and introduced into product marketing in many countries around the world. Teodora took the reality of the figure and the importance of women to the community and gave them a symbolic place in ceramics and pottery production.   Another trully propositive woman was Dolores Porras. She introduced a variety of colors into the varnishing [FIG. 15]. It was luck meeting artistic inspiration, for it is said that a visit to the Taller de Artes Plásticas de Rufino Tamayo fueled her imagination, which turned into new forms and colors. She retook a set of ceramic paints that a client in Monterrey had given her as a gift and experimented with them. Her production is characterized by certain shapes and patterns, not only utilitarian but, above all, ornamental.^[6]

It is very common for women  to diversify the production, for the young ones get married and go to different workshops than their families’. They acquire new abilities and techniques to create new forms. Although we can find traditional typologies [FIG. 16 & FIG. 17], the Atzompan people adapt to new ways rather quickly. Perhaps due to their historical fusion to so many influences or perhaps, it is no more than the rather basic human need for change.    

In the last two decades, traditional production has been threatened by prohibition, for the varnish contains lead. Innovando la Tradición, hand in hand with the Ruiz López family and Studio Xaquixé, has made incursions into new research grounds, trying to achieve Atzompa’s energetic self-sufficiency, by introducing furnaces fueled by oil used in kitchens and restaurants. By looking at pottery as an activity containing the necessities, resources, knowledge and lifestyle of its producers, we make the producer and the buyer recognize the true value of objects as everyday use items.

The timeline is part of the research and it points at Morphology/ Oaxacan Clay in Archivo Diseño y Arquitectura. Innovando la Tradición will be opening a workshop in Santa María Atzompa from September 30 to October 5, 2013, side by side with designers and master ceramists looking to reproduce the pieces found in the Genealogy. This exercise will be a space for experimentation and following objectual evolution. The challenge for Innovando la Tradición is rebuilding similar stories and then reinventing tradition to escort ceramists in the endless path of Oaxacan clay.

^[1] It is a method used for solving problems by putting human needs in the middle and connecting different disciplines to reach an acceptable human solution; technically viable and economically affordable. The process follows three cyclical stages: observation, creation, implementation. It is a technique used in the systematization of innovations processes.

^[2] Mindling, Eric. Clay and Fire. The Art of Pottery in Oaxaca, México: Editorial Arte Oaxaca / Innovando la Tradición / CONACULTA, 2011 p. 38.

^[3] Feinman, Gary. Monte Alban’s Hinterland. Part 1. Prehispanic settlement Patterns of the central and southern parts of the Valle of Oaxaca, Mexico. Memoirs of the University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology N. 15, Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1982 pp. 103-113, Appendix IX p. 393.

^[4] (Neff y Glascock, unpublished) Thieme, Mary S., Continuity of Ceramic Production: Examination and Analysis of clay materials from Santa María Atzompa. University of Vanderbilt in Robles, Nelly M. (ed.) Memoria de la primera mesa redonda de Monte Albán; Procesos de cambio y conceptualización del tiempo. México: INAH / CONACULTA, 2001. pp 339-349

^[5] Fernández Ledezma, Gabriel. “Oaxacan Pottery” in Mexican Art and Life, Num. 2, April, 1938.

^[6] González Esperón, Luz María. Crónicas diversas de artesanos Oaxaqueños tradiciones memorias y relatos, México: Instituto Oaxaqueño de las Artesanías, 1997.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Caso, Alfonso e Ignacio Bernal “Ceramics of Oaxaca”, in Handbook of Middle American Indian, vol. II, 1966.

Dr. Atl, Las artes populares en México, México: Instituto Nacional Indigenista, 1921.

Feinman, Gary. Monte Alban’s Hinterland. Part 1. Prehispanic settlement Patterns of the central and southern parts of the Valle of Oaxaca, Mexico in Memoirs of the University of Michigan, Museum of Antropology, num. 15, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1982, pp. 103-113, Appendix IX, p. 393.

Fernández Ledezma, Gabriel. “Oaxacan Pottery” in Mexican Art and Life, num 2, April, 1938.

Gómez Serafín, Susana and Fernández Dávila, Enrique “Cerámica Novohispana del exconvento de Santo Domingo” in Historia del Arte de Oaxaca, vol. 2: Arte colonial, (coords.) Dalton Palomo, Margarita and Loera y Chávez C., Verónica Oaxaca: Instituto Oaxaqueño de las Culturas/ Gobiernos del Estado, 1997, pp. 297-313.

González Esperón, Luz María. Crónicas diversas de artesanos Oaxaqueños: tradiciones memorias y relatos. México: Instituto Oaxaqueño de las Artesanías, 1997.

Hendry, Jean Clare. Atzompa: a pottery producing villante of southern Mexico in the Mid -1950’s, Doctoral Thesis, Cornell University, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1957.

Lores Pacheco, María Elena, Producción alfarera: tradición e historia en Santa María Atzompa, Oaxaca, Thesis, Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH), Mexico City, 1998.

Thieme, Mary S., Continuity of Ceramic Production: Examination and Analysis of clay materials from Santa María Atzompa, University of Vanderbilt in Robles, Nelly M. (ed.) Memoria de la primera mesa redonda de Monte Albán; Procesos de cambio y conceptualización del tiempo, México: INAH / CONACULTA, 2001, pp. 339-349.