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| - Barro negro pottery is part of traditional Oaxaca identity, the making of which has been developed over centuries. It had been fashioned into jars and other articles that the ancient Zapotecs used in daily life. Originally barro negro pottery was matte and grayish. In this form, the pottery is sturdier, and able to be hit without breaking. In the 1950s, a woman by the name of Doña Rosa Real discovered that she could change the color and sheen of the pieces by polishing the clay piece and firing it at a slightly lower temperature. Just before the formed clay piece is completely dry, it is polished with a quartz stone to compress the surface. After firing, the piece emerges a shiny black instead of a dull gray. This has made the pottery far more popular with Nelson Rockefeller collecting a n
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| abstract
| - Barro negro pottery is part of traditional Oaxaca identity, the making of which has been developed over centuries. It had been fashioned into jars and other articles that the ancient Zapotecs used in daily life. Originally barro negro pottery was matte and grayish. In this form, the pottery is sturdier, and able to be hit without breaking. In the 1950s, a woman by the name of Doña Rosa Real discovered that she could change the color and sheen of the pieces by polishing the clay piece and firing it at a slightly lower temperature. Just before the formed clay piece is completely dry, it is polished with a quartz stone to compress the surface. After firing, the piece emerges a shiny black instead of a dull gray. This has made the pottery far more popular with Nelson Rockefeller collecting a number of her pieces. Many pieces are produced now for decorative purposes rather than utilitarian. Doña Rosa died in 1980, but the tradition of making the pottery is being carried on by Doña Rosa’s daughter and grandchildren who stage demonstrations for tourists in their local alfareria (Spanish for potters' workshop). The Mateo family alfareria is located in San Bartolo Coyotepec about south of Oaxaca and is the biggest in the village. The workshop is still in the family home, where shelves and shelves of shiny black pieces for sale line the inner courtyard. Despite being the origin of black polished clay, pieces at the this workshop are much cheaper than in other parts of Mexico. Another important person in the development and promotion of barro negro is the work Carlomagno Pedro Martinez He was born here into a pottery-making family. He was named after Charlemagne by his grandmother, who was an admirer of the king. From a young age showed talent in fashioning figures in clay. When he was grown, he attended the Fine Arts Workshop of Rufino Tamayo in Oaxaca city. He has become the first potter/sculptor in the medium, winning his first recognition in 1985 for his work Tlaquepaque, Jalisco. His fame increased with his development of human skulls made of barro negro in the years that followed. In Mexico, he has exhibited his work in dozens of expositions and has won three national level awards. His work has also been featured in five published books. Martinez’s work has been exhibited in countries such as the United States, Columbia, Argentina, Lebanon, Germany, Spain and Japan, with one of the latest exhibits in New York in 2008. In that same year, he created a mural in barro negro at the Baseball Academy in San Bartolo Coyotepec sponsored by the Alfredo Harp Helú Foundation. Each piece Carlomagno makes is unique in some way, but certain themes such as oral histories, indigenous legends, certain Christian themes and death, called “our grandmother.”
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