Whispers of the past
The folk art of Oaxaca in Mexico speaks volumes of the people who create it and their ancestors.
IN a tiny village in the Oaxaca highlands in southwestern Mexico, Macrina Mateo Martinez tells her story as she deftly shapes red clay from the nearby El Picacho mountain.
There’s no potter’s wheel or kiln, just swift, precise movements of her fingers. With barely a glance at the clay, she quickly forms a simple but elegant pot to be fired in an open pit with the same technique that her Zapotec forebears have used for 3,500 years.
Her ancestors once bartered the pots for food. Not so long ago, Martinez’s father carried pots on his back or on a donkey to be sold.
Martinez’s extended family of about 20 lives and works in her compound in San Marcos Tlapazola, where she has created pottery that has made her well known. Most of the women in her family wear long, lacetopped dresses that look like something from the Old West. Many of the older folks speak only Zapotec.
The city of Oaxaca may be renowned as one of Mexico’s cultural capitals and an alluring foodie destination, but much of the region’s cultural story is found in places such as Martinez’s simple compound at the end of a dirt-and-gravel road.
Almost without exception, they are family stories of weaving, dyeing, carving, pottery, embroidery and clay-figure-making, of styles and techniques handed down over centuries, of villages that have prospered around a single craft, of families who have lived modest, unhurried lives working together to make distinctive pieces, one at a time.
For shoppers, the pieces are just too good to pass up. I bought one of Martinez’s red clay pots – just like the one she made while demonstrating her craft to us – for about US$17 (RM76).
Oaxaca city is a fine base for this adventure. About 480km south of Mexico City, its 1,524m elevation moderates the heat. With about 250,000 people, Oaxaca has a lively fine-dining scene, an abundance of lodging and a walkable central core filled with colonial architecture, tree-lined squares and interesting shops and cafes. This is where to sample the martini-like drink known as a mezcalini (made with the increasingly popular Mexican liquor mezcal) or to try the tasty roasted chapulines (grasshoppers) with guacamole at a rooftop bar.
When you want to see the local artisans at work, head to the Zapotec villages of Oaxaca’s central valleys. In Teotitlan del Valle, we visited weaver Mariano Sosa Martinez, who creates magnificent pieces both modern and filled with Zapotec iconography. Sosa Martinez’s dyes are all natural, made from plants he cultivates with a solar-powered water pump. Entering his showroom and workspace on a side street a few blocks from the village centre, you’re struck by the brilliant colours and ancient