Scenes from a 'pottery run' to Capula, Michoacán

We first learned about the pottery of Capula, Michoacán during a visit to Pátzcuaro for the Day of the Dead festivities in 2014. That is the time of year where they feature a 'concurso de artesanía' where artisans from across Michoacán and neighboring states bring their best work in hopes of peer recognition and, of course, sales. We walked through the exhibition area, which is roughly the size of maybe 2 or 3 football fields and includes a range of amazing work: handmade wooden furniture, handwoven textiles, various types of regional pottery, hand hammered copper pieces, etc., etc. While we wanted to bring home everything we saw, we zero'd in on the barro vidriado Capulineado. Never saw anything else like it. Even today, 10+ years later, it is not commonly known in la CDMX. You see Talavera from Puebla, barro negro from Oaxaca, maybe barro bruñido from small towns in Puebla and Oaxaca. And you will see the rustic version of the Capulineado style -- brown plates with flower-decorated rims -- on the tables of modest restaurants and taquerias throughout the country. But the highly detailed and vivid pieces that we saw that day, well, only a few families have the talent, time, and resources to dedicate themselves to producing that type of work. Over the years we have worked with a few of them, and now focus on 3 or 4 partners whom we see every few months when we come out to pick up our latest order.

Every time we visit we do stop by the mercado municipal, where you you can find the works of a couple dozen of the town's artisans (both those who do not have their own shop and those who have a shop but sell some of their work here in the co-op).

After a quick stop at the Mercado for a bit of scouting and a bathroom break (5 pesos), we head over to one of our partner's workshops. Review the order, confirm the counts, settle the tab, and then they will wrap everything up and load our car like a dishwasher. No boxes. The car is the box. Everything is laid in piece by piece.

Car loading will take an hour or so. In the interim, we swing around the corner to another partner's workshop. Here is a snippet of sights and sounds of Capula on a random Monday in January.
This one is Judy's account for her special platitos con figuras, so I mill around a bit waiting while she reviews her goods.

We were here later than usual today and the Mercado was already closed, so we spun through the center of town and stopped for a paleta. Sometimes when we are out here for a couple of nights we will make a special run to Quiroga, which is where we first saw the paleta de aguacate (haven't seen it in la CDMX, but to be fair we aren't regularly getting paletas here; asked for it once and was told they didn't have it). While we have been to Capula at least 40 times now, we never stopped at this paleta place on the main street. Turns out they have paletas de aguacate as well. Bonus.

Now it's late. It's Monday. It's January. Pretty quiet, most shops are closed. But one is open and we haven't stopped here before. The man has some of the hen figures that can be used as either hueveros (where you store your eggs on the counter, because in Mexico you don't need to refrigerate your eggs) or pure decoration. Or to store whatever. I think Judy has one filled with measuring cups, for example. The last artisan we worked with to get some of these no longer makes them. Excited, Judy places an order for April pick up while I wait outside and take pictures.

By now we figure the car should be just about packed, so we head back to see how it's going.

Yep, done. With that we are off to Pátzcuaro to spend the night before heading home next day.